Then came order and counter-order. Pope was completely bewildered. By four o’clock, however, the news arrived that the railway at Burke’s Station, within twelve miles of Alexandria, had been cut, and that the enemy was in force between that point and Centreville. On Centreville, therefore, the whole army was now directed; Hooker, Kearney, and Reno, forming the right wing, marched by Blackburn’s Ford, and were to be followed by Porter and Banks; Sigel and Reynolds, forming the centre, took the road by New Market and the Stone Bridge; McDowell (King’s and Ricketts’ divisions), forming the left, was to pass through Gainesville and Groveton. But when the right wing reached Centreville, Pope was still at fault. There were traces of a marching column, but some small patrols of cavalry, who retreated leisurely before the Federal advance, were the sole evidence of the enemy’s existence. Night was at hand, and as the divisions he accompanied were directed to their bivouacs, Pope sought in vain for the enemy he had believed so easy a prey.
Before his troops halted the knowledge came to him. Far away to the south-west, where the great Groveton valley, backed by the wooded mountains, lay green and beautiful, rose the dull booming of cannon, swelling to a continuous roar; and as the weary soldiers, climbing the slopes near Centreville, looked eagerly in the direction of the sound, the rolling smoke of a fierce battle was distinctly visible above the woods which bordered the Warrenton-Alexandria highway. Across Bull Run, in the neighbourhood of Groveton, and still further westward, where the cleft in the blue hills marked Thoroughfare Gap, was seen the flash of distant guns. McDowell, marching northwards through Gainesville, had evidently come into collision with the enemy. Jackson was run to earth at last; and it was now clear that while Pope had been moving northwards on Centreville, the Confederates had been moving westward, and that they were once more within reach of Lee. But by what means, Pope might well have asked, had a whole army corps, with its batteries and waggons, passed through the cordon which he had planned to throw around it, and passed through as if gifted with the secret of invisibility?
The explanation was simple. While his enemies were watching the midnight glare above Manassas, Jackson was moving north by three roads; and before morning broke A. P. Hill was near Centreville, Ewell had crossed Bull Run by Blackburn’s Ford, and Taliaferro was north of Bald Hill, with a brigade at Groveton, while Stuart’s squadrons formed a screen to front and flank. Then, as the Federals slowly converged on Manassas, Hill and Ewell, marching unobserved along the north bank of Bull Run, crossed the Stone Bridge; Taliaferro joined them, and before Pope had found that his enemy had left the Junction, the Confederates were in bivouac north of Groveton, hidden in the woods, and recovering from the fatigue of their long night march.[[19]]
Jackson’s arrangements for deceiving his enemy, for concealing his line of retreat, and for drawing Pope northward on Centreville, had been carefully thought out. The march from Manassas was no hasty movement to the rear. Taliaferro, as soon as darkness fell, had moved by New Market on Bald Hill. At 1 a.m. Ewell followed Hill to Blackburn’s Ford; but instead of continuing the march on Centrevile, had crossed Bull Run, and moving up stream, had joined Taliaferro by way of the Stone Bridge. Hill, leaving Centreville at 10 a.m., marched to the same rendezvous. Thus, while the attention of the enemy was attracted to Centreville, Jackson’s divisions were concentrated in the woods beyond Bull Bun, some five or six miles west. The position in which his troops were resting had been skilfully selected. South of Sudley Springs, and north of the Warrenton turnpike, it was within twelve miles of Thoroughfare Gap, and a line of retreat, in case of emergency, as well as a line by which Lee could join him, should Thoroughfare Gap be blocked, ran to Aldie Gap, the northern pass of the Bull Run Mountains. Established on his enemy’s flank, he could avoid the full shock of his force should Lee be delayed, or he could strike effectively himself; and it was to retain the power of striking that he had not moved further northward, and secured his front by camping beyond Catharpen Run. It was essential that he should be prepared for offensive action. The object with which he had marched upon Manassas had only been half accomplished. Pope had been compelled to abandon the strong line of the Rappahannock, but he had not yet been defeated; and if he were not defeated, he would combine with McClellan, and advance in a few days in overwhelming force. Lee looked for a battle with Pope before he could be reinforced, and to achieve this end it was necessary that the Federal commander should be prevented from retreating further; that Jackson should hold him by the throat until Lee should come up to administer the coup de grâce.
It was with this purpose in his mind that Jackson had taken post near Groveton, and he was now awaiting the information that should tell him the time had come to strike. But, as already related, the march of the Federals on Manassas was slow and toilsome. It was not till the morning was well on that the brigade of Taliaferro’s division near Groveton, commanded by Colonel Bradley Johnson, was warned by the cavalry that the enemy was moving through Gainesville in great strength. A skirmish took place a mile or two north of that village, and Johnson, finding himself menaced by far superior numbers, fell back to the wood near the Douglass House. He was not followed. The Union generals, Sigel and Reynolds, who had been ordered to Manassas to “bag” Jackson, had received no word of his departure from the Junction; and believing that Johnson’s small force was composed only of cavalry, they resumed the march which had been temporarily interrupted.
The situation, however, was no clearer to the Confederates. The enemy had disappeared in the great woods south-west of Groveton, and heavy columns were still reported coming up from Gainesville. During the afternoon, however, the cavalry captured a Federal courier, carrying McDowell’s orders for the movement of the left and centre, which had been placed under his command, to Manassas Junction,[[20]] and this important document was immediately forwarded to Jackson.
“Johnson’s messenger,” says General Taliaferro, “found the Confederate headquarters established on the shady side of an old-fashioned worm-fence, in the corner of which General Jackson and his division commanders were profoundly sleeping after the fatigues of the preceding night, notwithstanding the intense heat of the August day. There was not so much as an ambulance at headquarters. The headquarters’ train was back beyond the Rappahannock, at Jefferson, with remounts, camp equipage, and all the arrangements for cooking and serving food. All the property of the general, the staff, and the headquarters’ bureau was strapped to the pommels and cantels of the saddles, and these formed the pillows of their weary owners. The captured dispatch roused Jackson like an electric shock. He was essentially a man of action. He rarely, if ever, hesitated. He never asked advice. He called no council to discuss the situation disclosed by this communication, although his ranking officers were almost at his side. He asked no conference of opinion. He made no suggestion, but simply, without a word, except to repeat the language of the message, turned to me and said: ‘Move your division and attack the enemy;’ and to Ewell, ‘Support the attack.’ The slumbering soldiers sprang from the earth at the first murmur. They were sleeping almost in ranks; and by the time the horses of their officers were saddled, the long lines of infantry were moving to the anticipated battle-field.
“The two divisions, after marching some distance to the north of the turnpike, were halted and rested, and the prospect of an engagement on that afternoon seemed to disappear with the lengthening shadows. The enemy did not come. The Warrenton turnpike, along which it was supposed he would march, was in view, but it was as free from Federal soldiery as it had been two days before, when Jackson’s men had streamed along its highway.”[[21]]
