Another road scarcely less important crosses the field at right angles to the pike, nearly on the line of this first ridge, passing between the Henry and Chinn Hills, and Buck Hill and Rosefield. This is the Manassas and Sudley road. From Manassas Junction, six miles to the south on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, it runs in a northerly direction to and over the plateau on the south part of the field, descends by the lateral hollow to Young’s Branch, where it crosses the pike, and, climbing up the end of the ridge on the north, continues in the same general direction over two miles to Sudley Ford across Bull Run.
Another road from the south crosses the pike at a point two and a half miles beyond the stone bridge, known as Groveton, and marked by two houses and some outbuildings. This road, running north, descends down a hollow from the plateau on the south, crosses the pike at Groveton, passes across low or flat ground for half a mile, enters a tract of woods, and extends through them to Sudley Ford.
One of the most important features of the second battle was a section of railroad grade about two miles in length, which extended from the Run near Sudley Church nearly parallel to the Groveton road for a mile and a half, traversing thickly wooded but level ground with shallow cuts and low embankments; then, curving westward away from the road and emerging from the woods into the open, it crossed a hollow on an embankment, which at one place was ten feet high, and bore away on its course to Gainesville.
Standing at Rosefield, the eye of the observer sweeps westward or frontward over a broad expanse of open country, descending to the lower ground crossed by the Groveton road, and beyond it, over the rising slopes and summit of a bare, high ridge two miles and a half distant, a ridge much higher than the one on which he stands, and the dominating feature of the landscape. To the right, or northward, open fields extend nearly a mile, but to the right front is seen the extensive tract of woods in which is concealed the railroad grade, and which covers the broad flat between the two ridges. To the left or southward, across the narrow valley of Young’s Branch, appear the steep Henry and Bald hills, really the verge of the plateau. They are bare of trees. But farther to the west, the left front, a tract of woods, from two to three hundred yards back from the pike, clothes the plateau. On the south side the ground slopes up sharply from the Branch and extends southward in a broad, high plateau, while on the north side of the pike the ground is much lower, extending, as already described, to the Groveton road.
Bull Run bounds the field on the east and northeast, and can be readily crossed by several fords as well as by the stone bridge. Among them are Sudley Ford, over three miles above the bridge; Lock’s or Red House Ford, half way between these points; Blackburn’s Ford, four miles below; one a short distance above, and another alongside the bridge.
It was Thursday, August 28, 1862, that the first rays of the rising sun, falling athwart the cloudless skies and warm but balmy air of a Southern summer morning, revealed an animated scene,—throngs of gray-coated, slouch-hatted men, yet with many a blue-coated one intermingled, clustering thickly along the Sudley road near the pike, some of them resting outspread upon the grass, others boiling tin cups of coffee and roasting ears of field-corn over tiny fires of fence rails; long lines of stacked muskets with bayonets glittering in the sun; guns and wagons blocking the roads, while their teams of horses and mules were drinking from the little rivulet, or munching their feed from the wagon-boxes. Travel-stained, gaunt, and unkempt were these men, but their alert bearing, and ready joke and laugh, told of unbroken strength and confidence. They were Jackson’s old division, now commanded by General William B. Taliaferro. Among them was the brigade that a twelvemonth before won on yonder hill the proud sobriquet of “Stonewall.” In high glee and spirits, they recounted and gloated over the incidents of the previous day, how, marching swiftly clear around the flank of the Union army, they struck the railroad in rear and almost in midst of its extended columns, capturing guns, men, and immense stores of military supplies at Manassas Junction; how, after loading themselves with all they could carry and burning the rest, they left the Junction at midnight, and after a short march were now regaling themselves with captured Yankee rations upon the scene of the first Yankee defeat.
Soon the command, “Fall in,” is passed along, and, resuming the arms and packs, the dusty column continues its march. One brigade, under Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, moves up the pike to Groveton, where it takes post with pickets well out towards Gainesville and the road leading southward; while the remainder of the division streams along the Sudley road nearly to Sudley Church, where, turning to the left and crossing the railroad grade, it again comes to a halt in the woods beyond it. Scarcely had these troops cleared the road when another motley column came crossing Bull Run by the pike and swinging up it at a rapid gait, and they, too, followed the others down the Sudley road and into the woods across the railroad. These were General Richard S. Ewell’s division of Jackson’s corps, which left the Junction at daylight, crossed Bull Run by Blackburn’s Ford, marched up the left or east bank across the fields, and recrossed by the stone bridge. And still another column, General A.P. Hill’s light division of the same corps, came marching up from Centreville an hour later, following Ewell up the pike and along the Sudley road, and also disappeared in the woods beyond the railroad. Thus, soon after noon, Jackson had his whole corps of 20,000 effective men united, and hidden in the woods behind the railroad with his train parked at Sudley, one brigade advanced to Groveton watching the roads west and south, and General J. E.B. Stuart with his cavalry guarding Bull Run bridge and fords and the Sudley road half way to Manassas.
Now, leaving Jackson’s “foot-cavalry,” as his men delighted to call themselves, resting under the oaks, the narration of the movements of the Union army is continued, in order clearly to understand the bloody and fruitless battles then impending.
Pope’s right wing, as it may be termed, moved on the 28th as ordered; reached Manassas about noon, only to find the smoking ruins of Jackson’s destructive visit; continued towards Centreville, and bivouacked for the night,—Kearny at that point, Stevens, Reno, and Hooker near Blackburn’s Ford. Porter came up to Bristoe. Truly a sluggish advance, but Pope was placing his chief reliance upon his left wing, under McDowell, which he expected to sweep up from Gainesville and head off Jackson on the west and north, while he assailed him on the south with his right.
The complete and ignominious fiasco which McDowell and Sigel contrived to make of this movement is one of the strangest and most discreditable episodes of this unhappy campaign. The previous day (27th) Sigel had not moved his whole corps to Gainesville as ordered, but only the head of his column, the main body of which was stretched back along the pike towards Warrenton. The divisions of Reynolds, King, and Ricketts, of McDowell’s corps, in the order named, extended the column in rear of Sigel still farther. Moreover, the road was incumbered by Sigel’s train of two hundred wagons, which he kept with the troops, although ordered to send them to Catlett’s Station, on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, where all the trains were to assemble under guard of Banks. Although ordered to move at daylight on Manassas, resting his right on the Manassas Gap Railroad, and to be supported by McDowell’s corps in echelon on his left, Sigel made a late start, and at 7.30 was halting at Gainesville, his troops building fires to cook breakfast and blocking up the road, and finally, claiming that his orders were to rest his right flank on the Alexandria and Orange Court House Railroad, sheered off to the right after passing Gainesville, keeping on the right of the Manassas Gap Railroad, upon the left of which his orders explicitly directed him to advance, and in the afternoon reached the vicinity of the Junction. From this point, after a start for Centreville and countermarch, he moved down the Sudley road to the pike, which the head of his column reached at dark. But he still held on to his train.