The officers shared this enthusiasm with their men. Tyler moved on, burning to atone for his noble rashness at Blackburn’s Ford—Burnside, Corcoran, Keyes, Spidel, Meagher, and many another noble fellow, thought exultingly of the laurels to be gathered on the morrow. General McDowell’s carriage halted at the two roads, a spot that he deemed most convenient for receiving despatches from the various points of the battle-field.
Here the column of General Hunter diverged from the main body and went away through the moonlit country on its assigned duty, which led him around the enemy’s flank by a long and harassing route. With him went Heintzelman, Porter, Burnside and Sprague with their valiant Rhode Islanders, and Wilcox, that bravest of young men and most brilliant author, who met a fate almost worse than death in the hottest of the coming battle. There, too, was Slocum, Haggerty, and many another valiant fellow, marching forward to a glorious death. Each and all of these, with their regiments or brigades, swept to the right, to meet their comrades again in the hottest of the battle.
A mile from the Cross Roads, and the dawn of a bright July day broke pleasantly on the moving troops—a morning cool with dew, fresh with verdure, and tranquil and peaceful, save for the armed men that made the earth tremble under their solid tread as they moved over it. The mists of a dewy night were slowly uplifted, and beautiful reaches of the country were revealed. On the left was the station assigned to Richardson and Davies; beyond it, the valley which one unfortunate conflict had so lately stained with blood.
When Tyler’s division came to the edge of a wooded hill overlooking these scenes, the sun arose, flooding them with rosy splendor. The soldiers knew, but could not realize that this scene, so beautiful and tranquil, had been a field of carnage, and would, before that sun went down, be red with the blood of many a brave heart beating among them then. They knew well that in a brief time the pure atmosphere, which it was now a joy to breathe, would be heavy with stifling smoke; that the noble forests whose leaves trembled so pleasantly in the newborn sunshine, were but a concealment for masked batteries—fearful engines of destruction, and men more ravenous for their lives than the wild animals that civilization had driven away from them.
From the point of view just described, where the road falls gently down to a ravine, the enemy first appeared. A line of infantry was drawn up in a distant meadow, close upon a back-ground of woods.
The second and third regiments of Tyler’s brigade, under Schenck, was at once formed into line in the woods on either side, the First Ohio, Second Wisconsin, Seventy-ninth, Thirteenth, and Sixty-ninth New York regiments succeeding each other on the right, and the Second Ohio and Second New York being similarly placed on the left, while the artillery came down the road between.
A great 32-pound rifled Parrott gun—the only one of its calibre in the field service—was brought forward, and made to bear on the point where the bayonets of the enemy had suddenly disappeared in the woods, and a shell was fired at fifteen minutes past six A. M., which burst in the air; but the report of the piece awoke the country for leagues around to a sense of what that awful day would prove. The reverberation was tremendous, and the roar of the revolving shell indescribable. Throughout the battle that gun, whenever it was fired, seemed to hush and overpower everything else. No answering salute came back, so the 32-pounder sent a second shell at a hill-top, two miles off, where it was suspected that a battery had been planted by the rebels.
The bomb burst close at the intended point, but no answer came. General Tyler ordered Carlisle to cease firing, and bring the rest of his battery to the front of the woods and get the column ready for instant action.
Tyler’s position was before the valley of Bull Run, but the descent was gradual, and surrounded by thick woods down almost to the ravine through which the stream flows. The enemy, on the contrary, had cleared away all the obstructing foliage, and bared the earth in every direction over which they could bring their artillery upon the Union forces. Clumps of trees and bushes remained wherever their earthworks and other concealed defences could be advantageously planted among them. The ground on their side was vastly superior to that of the assailants. It rose in gradual slopes to great heights, but was broken into hills and terraces in many places, upon which strong earthworks were planted, some openly, but the greater portion concealed. Nature had supplied positions of defence which needed but little labor to render them desperately formidable. How thoroughly these advantages had been improved was established by the almost superhuman efforts which were required to dislodge their troops, and by the obstinate opposition which they displayed before retiring from one strong point to another. It was now about seven o’clock—for an hour everything was silent. At eight, the deep sullen boom of Richardson’s and Davies’ batteries at Blackburn’s Ford broke the stillness, and from that quarter constant cannonading was kept up for some time.
By this time scouts reported the enemy in some force on the left. Two or three Ohio skirmishers had been killed. Carlisle’s battery was sent to the front of the woods on the right, where it could be brought to play when needed. A few shells were thrown into the opposite thicket, and then the Second Ohio and Second New York marched down to rout the enemy from their hiding places. As they rushed toward a thickly-covered abatis on the banks of the Run, the rebels came swarming out like bees, and fled to the next fortification beyond.