While Porter was slowly forming his column, his skirmishers pushed forward over the open ground nearly to Groveton. Reynolds, too, advanced his skirmishers on the left through the skirt of woods near Groveton, south of the pike, and discovered the enemy’s skirmishers extending far to his left and rear, “evidently masking a column of the enemy formed for attack on my left flank, when our line should be sufficiently advanced.” So important was this discovery deemed by Reynolds that he galloped instantly to Pope and reported it. How the information was received is graphically told by General Ruggles, Pope’s chief of staff, in a letter to General Porter, which the author is permitted to use:—
“At two P.M. or thereabouts, Reynolds came dashing up, his horse covered with foam, threw himself out of the saddle, and said, ‘General Pope, the enemy is turning our left.’ General Pope replied, ‘Oh, I guess not!’ Reynolds rejoined, ‘I have considered this information of sufficient importance to run the gauntlet of three rebel battalions to bring it to you in person. I had thought you would believe me.’ Thereupon General Pope turned to General John Buford and said, ‘General Buford, take your brigade of cavalry and go out and see if the enemy is turning our left flank.’ Reynolds then said, ‘I go back to my command.’”
How clearly this incident reveals the infatuated, dogged state of mind that possessed Pope!
It is after four P.M. when Porter gives the order to advance. The first and third brigades of Morell’s division in columns, under Butterfield, are in front, Sykes’s regulars are in support. King’s division, under Hatch, advances on the right of Butterfield in a column seven lines deep, with intervals of fifty yards between the lines. Sweeping through the woods, they come in sight of the railroad embankment and the wooded hill beyond it. Instantly the whole side of the hill and edges of the woods swarm with men before unseen. Says General Warren in his report: “The effect was not unlike flushing a covey of quails.” A terrific musketry is poured upon the advancing column, while a storm of shell and shrapnel smite its flank with most deadly fire from the batteries on the ridge to the left front. With hearty cheers, the advancing troops desperately charge the embankment and railroad cut on the right of it, and when repulsed, charge again, and then cling to their ground and open steady musketry. All in vain. Longstreet throws two more batteries forward on the ridge, and fatally enfilades the struggling troops. “Butterfield’s troops are torn to pieces,” says Sykes. In half an hour all is over, the repulse is complete, and the shattered troops move sullenly back, bearing out many wounded. In that short time they have lost 700 men.
General Stevens, having formed his divisions in three lines, each a brigade, moves forward through the woods on the right of Porter’s column, and, without waiting for orders, attacks simultaneously with him, at once becomes furiously engaged, and suffers heavy loss, including Colonel Farnsworth, who is severely wounded. General Stevens maintains this contest until Porter’s column is repulsed, when he withdraws his command to the first ridge in rear of the woods, posting his lines just behind the crest, with skirmishers holding the edge of the woods.
Porter’s attack, made nearly at the same point as Grover’s, did not penetrate the enemy’s position so deeply. With only 2500 men, the latter broke two lines and swept eighty yards beyond the embankment, while Porter with 12,000 men did not carry the embankment. But how different the conditions under which he attacked,—the enemy in stronger force, better prepared, and Longstreet’s terrible artillery tearing to pieces the flank of the columns! And is not something due the morale of his troops, which was almost systematically broken by the blunders and disasters of this unhappy campaign? With what confidence could King’s division be expected to charge, which, after marching all day Thursday, sustained the fierce and stubborn fight near Groveton with Jackson’s two divisions, then moved away at midnight, abandoning their wounded and the field they had so bravely won; then marching all the next day, with occasional halts, until at dusk they were brought upon the field, and, deceived with false hopes of success, were dashed against overpowering masses of the enemy almost on the scene of their recent battle, and only twelve hours after it, and were broken and driven back with disaster; and the third day—Saturday—were exposed to shell fire for several hours, while slowly taking place in the attacking column, knowing full well that they were about to be hurled against the very centre and strongest part of the enemy’s position, from which every attack of the previous day had been met with bloody repulse,—“Where even privates realized,” says Colonel Charles W. Roberts, commanding Morell’s first brigade, “that they were going into the jaws of death itself”? Clearly, this was not such an attack as these troops would have made if in their normal condition, and with any hopes of success. And their able commander did not drive it home with the full weight and vigor of one who, confident of success, puts in the last man and the last effort. Sykes’s division was not brought up to renew the charge upon the railroad, for Porter, seeing that success was hopeless, wisely used it to cover the falling back of Butterfield and Hatch.
The enemy’s reports bear abundant witness to the gallantry and severity of Porter’s charge, which shook Jackson so that even he called aloud for assistance. In his report he says:—
“The Federal infantry, about four o’clock in the evening, moved from under cover in the woods and advanced in several lines, first engaging the right, but soon extending its attack to the centre and left. In a few minutes our entire line was engaged in a fierce and sanguinary struggle. As one line was repulsed, another took its place and pressed forward, as if determined, by force of numbers and fury of assault, to drive us from our positions. So impetuous and well sustained were these onsets as to induce me to send to the commanding general for reinforcements.”
Says Colonel Bradley T. Johnson, who commanded the second brigade of Ewell’s division:—
“Before the railroad cut, the fight was most obstinate. I saw a Federal flag hold its position for half an hour within ten yards of the flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead were lying within twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw stones. Lieutenant Lewis Randolph killed one with a stone, and I saw him after the fight with his skull fractured.”