10.15 p.m. Banks still was absent at Bristoe Station, in charge of the trains and stores which had been removed from Warrenton; but, shortly after ten o’clock, 65,000 men, with eight-and-twenty batteries, were at Pope’s disposal. He had determined to give battle, although Franklin and Sumner, who had already reached Alexandria, had not yet joined him; and he anticipated an easy triumph. He was labouring, however, under an extraordinary delusion. The retreat of Hood’s brigades the preceding night, after their reconnaissance, had induced him to believe that Jackson had been defeated, and he had reported to Halleck at daybreak; “We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field, which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less than 8,000 men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost at least two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating towards the mountains.”
If, in these days of long-range weapons, Napoleon’s dictum still stands good, that the general who is ignorant of his enemy’s strength and dispositions is ignorant of his trade, then of all generals Pope was surely the most incompetent. At ten o’clock on the morning of August 30, and for many months afterwards, despite his statement that he had fought “the combined forces of the enemy” on the previous day, he was still under the impression, so skilfully were the Confederate troops concealed, that Longstreet had not yet joined Jackson, and that the latter was gradually falling back on Thoroughfare Gap. His patrols had reported that the enemy’s cavalry had been withdrawn from the left bank of Bull Run. A small reconnaissance in force, sent to test Jackson’s strength, had ascertained that the extreme left was not so far forward as it had been yesterday; while two of the Federal generals, reconnoitring beyond the turnpike, observed only a few skirmishers. On these negative reports Pope based his decision to seize the ridge which was held by Jackson. Yet the woods along the unfinished railroad had not been examined, and the information from other sources was of a different colour and more positive. Buford’s cavalry had reported on the evening of the 29th that a large force had passed through Thoroughfare Gap. Porter declared that the enemy was in great strength on the Manassas road. Reynolds, who had been in close contact with Longstreet since the previous afternoon, reported that Stuart’s Hill was strongly occupied. Ricketts, moreover, who had fought Longstreet for many hours at Thoroughfare Gap, was actually present on the field. But Pope, who had made up his mind that the enemy ought to retreat, and that therefore he must retreat, refused credence to any report whatever which ran counter to these preconceived ideas.
12 noon Without making the slightest attempt to verify, by personal observation, the conclusions at which his subordinates had arrived, at midday, to the dismay of his best officers, his army being now in position, he issued orders for his troops to be “immediately thrown forward in pursuit of the enemy, and to press him vigorously.”
Porter and Reynolds formed the left of the Federal army. These generals, alive to the necessity of examining the woods, deployed a strong skirmish line before them as they formed for action. Further evidence of Pope’s hallucination was at once forthcoming. The moment Reynolds moved forward against Stuart’s Hill he found his front overlapped by long lines of infantry, and, riding back, he informed Pope that in so doing he had had to run the gauntlet of skirmishers who threatened his rear. Porter, too, pushing his reconnaissance across the meadows west of Groveton, drew the fire of several batteries. But at this juncture, unfortunately for the Federals, a Union prisoner, recaptured from Jackson, declared that he had “heard the rebel officers say that their army was retiring to unite with Longstreet.” So positively did the indications before him contradict this statement, that Porter, on sending the man to Pope, wrote: “In duty bound I send him, but I regard him as either a fool or designedly released to give a wrong impression. No faith should be put in what he says.” If Jackson employed this man to delude his enemy, the ruse was eminently successful. Porter received the reply: “General Pope believes that soldier, and directs you to attack;” Reynolds was dismissed with a message that cavalry would be sent to verify his report; and McDowell was ordered to put in the divisions of Hatch and Ricketts on Porter’s right.
During the whole morning the attention of the Confederates had been directed to the Groveton wood. Beyond the timber rose the hill north-east, and on this hill three or four Federal batteries had come into action at an early hour, firing at intervals across the meadows. The Confederate guns, save when the enemy’s skirmishers approached too close, hardly deigned to reply, reserving their ammunition for warmer work. That such work was to come was hardly doubtful. Troops had been constantly in motion near the hostile batteries, and the thickets below were evidently full of men.
12.15 p.m. Shortly after noon the enemy’s skirmishers became aggressive, swarming over the meadows, and into the wood which had seen such heavy slaughter in the fight of yesterday. As Jackson’s pickets, extended over a wide front, gave slowly back, his guns opened in earnest, and shell and shrapnel flew fast over the open space. The strong force of skirmishers betrayed the presence of a line of battle not far in rear, and ignoring the fire of the artillery, the Confederate batteries concentrated on the covert behind which they knew the enemy’s masses were forming for attack. But, except the pickets, not a single man of either the Stonewall or Lawton’s division was permitted to expose himself. A few companies held the railroad, the remainder were carefully concealed. The storm was not long in breaking. Jackson had just ridden along his lines, examining with his own eyes the stir in the Groveton wood, when, in rear of the skirmishers, advancing over the highroad, appeared the serried ranks of the line of battle. 20,000 bayonets, on a front which extended from Groveton to near Bull Run, swept forward against his front; 40,000, formed in dense masses on the slopes in rear, stood in readiness to support them; and numerous batteries, coming into action on every rising ground, covered the advance with a heavy fire.
Pope, standing on a knoll near the Stone House, saw victory within his grasp. The Confederate guns had been pointed out to his troops as the objective of the attack. Unsupported, as he believed, save by the scattered groups of skirmishers who were already retreating to the railroad, and assailed in front and flank, these batteries, he expected, would soon be flying to the rear, and the Federal army, in possession of the high ground, would then sweep down in heavy columns towards Thoroughfare Gap. Suddenly his hopes fell. Porter’s masses, stretching far to right and left, had already passed the Dogan House; Hatch was entering the Groveton wood; Ricketts was moving forward along Bull Run, and the way seemed clear before them; when loud and clear above the roar of the artillery rang out the Confederate bugles, and along the whole length of the ridge beyond the railroad long lines of infantry, streaming forward from the woods, ran down to the embankment. “The effect,” said an officer who witnessed this unexpected apparition, “was not unlike flushing a covey of quails.”
Instead of the small rear-guard which Pope had thought to crush by sheer force of overwhelming numbers, the whole of the Stonewall division, with Lawton on the left, stood across Porter’s path.
Reynolds, south of the turnpike, and confronting Longstreet, was immediately ordered to fall back and support the attack, and two small brigades, Warren’s and Alexander’s, were left alone on the Federal left. Pope had committed his last and his worst blunder. Sigel with two divisions was in rear of Porter, and for Sigel’s assistance Porter had already asked. But Pope, still under the delusion that Longstreet was not yet up, preferred rather to weaken his left than grant the request of a subordinate.
Under such a leader the courage of the troops, however vehement, was of no avail, and in Porter’s attack the soldiers displayed a courage to which the Confederates paid a willing tribute. Morell’s division, with the two brigades abreast, arrayed in three lines, advanced across the meadows. Hatch’s division, in still deeper formation, pushed through the wood on Morell’s right. Nearer Bull Run were two brigades of Ricketts; and to Morell’s left rear the division of regulars moved forward under Sykes.