Kearny was holding the right with Robinson’s brigade, while Poe’s brigade was guarding his right flank, with his skirmishers extending to and across Bull Run, and Birney’s brigade was supporting both. Now, after the crash of musketry of Reno’s attack had all died away, and his troops were all out of the woods, Kearny makes his attack. Reinforcing Robinson with one of Poe’s and four of Birney’s regiments, and throwing forward his right, wheeling to the left until his lines are nearly athwart the railroad, he charges along it to the left, driving the enemy in great disorder. But his attacking force lacks weight; the charge comes to a stand. They are assailed by two brigades from Ewell, those of Lawton and Early, outflanked, overpowered, and are forced back to the position from which they started; many of them, however, in broken and disordered crowds, run out of the woods farther to the left, near the same place where appeared Hooker’s and Reno’s fugitives so recently. Eight regiments only out of Kearny’s fifteen make this attack. His loss was about six hundred. Nothing but the timely counter-charge of Lawton and Early saved Hill.
The rattle of musketry is still echoing in the forest, and Kearny’s fugitives are pouring out upon the open, when an officer in hot haste conveys Pope’s order to General Stevens to advance into the woods and attack. The only troops left him are the regiment and a half withdrawn from Groveton, only seven hundred strong. Without an instant’s delay, the troops take their muskets from the stacks, double-quick across the open ground, and form line at the edge of the woods. Kearny himself rides over to the little force just forming, and, at his request, Captain Stevens stops a moment to write an order or message for him, for he has but one arm. The scanty line enters and sweeps through the woods, encounters the enemy now holding the railroad, delivers and receives for fifteen minutes, which seem hours, a heavy musketry fire, and then, with the enemy swarming past both flanks, is forced back through the woods to the open ground, where the men at once halt and reform. Both the regimental commanders and Colonel Leasure, commanding the brigade, were severely wounded, and the loss was about two hundred. General Stevens’s horse was shot under him, and also that of his orderly. It was remarked that when his troops emerged out of the woods, almost the last one was a short man in a general’s uniform, followed by a tall orderly bearing a saddle on his shoulder.
With this attack the fighting on the right came to an end for the day. The possession of the woods along the railroad was relinquished to the enemy. A strong skirmish line held the edge of, and to the right a good part of, the timber. The troops were posted in rear in good positions for the night, the scattered commands being collected. General Stevens’s brigades were gotten together after some search, and the division was posted in the woods a quarter of a mile to the right and a little to the rear of the place where Leasure’s brigade formed for the attack. The following incident, which illustrates the evil effects of scattering commands, is related in the history of the 79th Highlanders by Captain William T. Lusk, one of the general’s aides:—
“I was directed to find Farnsworth; was sent by Sigel to Schurz, and by Schurz to Schimmelfennig. The gallant German, when at last found, exclaimed, ‘Mein Gott! de troops, dey all runned avay, and I guess your men runned avay, too!’ General Stevens was indignant, and used some pretty strong language, when I carried back this report, and ordered me to find the missing regiments, and not to return until I brought them with me. I started, therefore, for the old railroad embankment. Luckily, I found Farnsworth just on the edge of the woods. He said he was waiting for orders, but had none since I left him in the morning.”
But the day was not to close without one more useless slaughter of brave troops. McDowell brought King’s division along the Sudley road nearly to the pike, by half past four, passing without notice, at Newmarket, the old Warrenton turnpike, which here forked from the Sudley road and led to the unoccupied gap between Porter and Reynolds, to the very position where he told Porter he would put King. Pope first directed the division over to the right, where his attacks by detachments were being so disastrously repulsed, and finally, just as it reached the pike, ordered McDowell to push it up the road in pursuit of the enemy, declaring that he was in full retreat. McDowell gave the order and the encouragement. Gibbon’s brigade, which had suffered so severely in the fight the previous night, was placed in support of batteries on the Rosefield ridge. The other three brigades, under Hatch (King being sick), fired by the lying promises of success, which were strengthened by the tremendous outbursts of musketry and roar of guns on the right wing, where they were told Jackson was being driven, hastened up the road with high hopes. Near Groveton, about dusk, they deployed,—Hatch’s brigade on the right of the road, Doubleday on the left, Patrick in reserve,—and pushed on with great confidence. But Longstreet, who all the afternoon had held his hand, notwithstanding Lee’s wish to attack, was at that very moment advancing Hood’s division, supported by Evans’s brigade and Wilcox’s division, with Hunton’s brigade of Kemper’s division on Hood’s right. The opposing forces encountered a short distance in front of Groveton, but the disparity in numbers was too great for the Union troops. The fight was furious but brief. Their left was outflanked and broken, and both brigades were driven back with heavy loss, including one gun. Patrick in some degree checked the enemy, who pursued considerably to the rear of Groveton. Night put a stop to the unequal struggle.
This ended the fighting of the 29th. The Union arms were outnumbered and repulsed in every encounter, and lost ground on both wings. Sigel’s dilatory and timid advance consumed the morning hours until, with Longstreet’s arrival, the chance of attacking Jackson’s right was lost. Sigel, too, may be censured for his importunate and unsoldierly demands for aid which so frittered away the weight of the right wing. But Pope on his arrival could have rectified this. Pope, and Pope alone, ordered the hasty and disconnected attacks of the afternoon, wasting the blood and impairing the morale of his best troops. The four divisions of Stevens, Reno, Kearny, and Hooker numbered forty-three regiments, 17,000 effective, as fine troops as ever marched under the stars and stripes, and as well commanded. Had Pope, disregarding the clamors of Sigel and Schurz, arrayed these splendid troops in battle order on his right, and hurled them in one combined attack upon the enemy, pushing into the fight also Schurz and Milroy and twenty of the guns that were idling in the centre upon the ridge, Jackson would surely have been driven back upon Longstreet. The battle would then have raged on the heights beyond Groveton, the scene of Gibbon’s fight; and here Longstreet, with the advantages of position and greatly superior numbers, might have retrieved the day, or at least stayed farther Union advance, even though Schenck and Reynolds attacked his right with their utmost vigor. In such a battle Porter might possibly have turned the scale; but his troops, only partly deployed and stretching back along the road for three miles, were not in hand for prompt aggressive movement.
All that afternoon Lee was master of the situation. His army was united. Pope’s was divided; over twenty thousand of his troops out of reach and beyond his control. If Lee had struck with his right wing, Schenck and Reynolds, who alone confronted it, could not long have resisted the overpowering numbers, and Pope would have been driven across Bull Run. Porter could never have prevented the disaster. He could not have thrown his troops into the fight in time, unready as they were, and especially if the ground on his right was broken, difficult, and impenetrable, as he claimed, but mistakenly. It was Longstreet’s slow-paced caution that saved Pope that afternoon.
On McDowell’s arrival on the field Pope learned of Porter’s inaction, and immediately sent him a positive order to attack, which reached him at too late an hour to be executed. Pope thereupon sent him an order to march to the battlefield.
Early in the morning of the next day, the 30th, General Stevens went over to Pope’s headquarters, which were a short distance in the rear, and there found assembled Pope, McDowell, Heintzelman, Reno, and other general officers. Pope was confident that the enemy had retreated during the night, and, greatly to General Stevens’s astonishment, some of the others coincided in that opinion. He, however, strongly expressed the contrary view, whereupon Pope directed him to push a strong skirmish line into the woods in his front and try the enemy. Accordingly Captain John More, of the 79th Highlanders, one of the best and bravest officers in the division, with one hundred men of his regiment, skirmished into the woods and attacked the enemy with great spirit; but after half an hour’s sharp firing Captain More was brought out shot through the body, and a third of his men were killed or wounded. No impression was made on the enemy. General Early, who commanded a brigade in Ewell’s division, says in his report: “During the course of the morning the skirmishers from my brigade repulsed a column of the enemy which commenced to advance.” The Highlanders were withdrawn, and the result of their effort immediately reported to General Pope, but it had no effect upon his opinionated mind. By his positive assertions of driving the enemy and of his having retreated, he had imbued McDowell and Heintzelman largely with his own views. Thus filled with Pope’s ideas, and having little personal observation of the previous day’s battle, they hastily rode along the right wing, and came back and corroborated the mistaken views of the infatuated commander. One circumstance there was which lent color to them, and that was that during the night both Jackson and Longstreet drew back to their main line those troops that, in the eagerness of combat, had pushed beyond it. Yet there was scarcely a man in all the Union army, except the army and two corps commanders, who did not bitterly realize that they had been worsted the day before, and who did not feel sure that the enemy was still in front, stronger and readier than ever to renew the battle.
Ricketts’s division reached the field the previous evening. In the morning two brigades were placed on the extreme right, relieving some of Kearny’s troops, and the other two brigades were left in reserve near the centre. Apparently no opportunity of dividing and scattering commands was to be lost. About nine A.M. Porter arrived with his troops, except Griffin’s brigade of Morell’s division and Martin’s battery, which by some error had retired to Centreville. The forenoon wore away without demonstration beyond considerable artillery firing. No reconnoissance in force was attempted.