General Jackson
General Pope
Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, marching from Mitchell’s Ford to support Bee, Bartow, and Evans, reached Henry House Hill before noon. Deploying his valley regiments behind the eastern crest of the hill, Jackson awaited attack from the victorious Federal forces. Behind the Robinson House, 400 yards north, Bee was striving to rally his disorganized troops. Pointing to Jackson’s line, he shouted: “Look! There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!” Bee’s men echoed the shout and formed on their colors. “Stonewall” Jackson had won his immortal name.
McDowell threw portions of four brigades against Jackson’s position in a daring offensive. At the height of the attack Ricketts’ and Griffin’s Federal batteries were advanced to Henry House Hill directly facing Jackson’s line. The guns were captured and recaptured in confused fighting, but the arrival of additional Confederate troops from Winchester turned the tide of battle. The desperate Confederate defense was changed to an attack, which routed the Union Army and forced it back upon Washington. The Federal strength of the battle was 35,732, losses 2,708; Confederate strength 31,810, losses 1,982.
The Confederates failed to follow up their victory. Instead, Johnston’s army settled itself at Centreville and Manassas. There they constructed fortified camps which were occupied until the spring of 1862, when the position was abandoned in an effort to counter the Union advance on Richmond from the Peninsula.
The Ruins of the Stone Bridge. From a wartime photograph.
Second Battle of Manassas
August 28-30, 1862
After McClellan’s failure to take Richmond in the Peninsula Campaign, the Union forces covering Washington were consolidated under Pope and ordered to advance along the Orange and Alexandria Railway toward Gordonsville. At Cedar Mountain, on August 9, Pope’s advance met Jackson in the first battle of the campaign. Weeks of skirmish and maneuver followed, as Lee moved to defeat Pope before McClellan’s troops from the Peninsula could join him. Pope withdrew from the Rapidan to the Rappahannock, to which he held tenaciously. In one of the most daring exploits of the war Lee divided his forces and sent Jackson by a flank march to Manassas in the rear of the Federals. Here the Confederates seized the Union supply base on August 26. After a day of plenty for the poorly fed troops, the stores were destroyed, and Jackson withdrew northward across the Warrenton Turnpike to a concealed position in the woods near Groveton. Securely intrenched behind the embankment of an unfinished railroad, he looked southeast over the old battlefield of Bull Run. Lee, following Jackson from the Rappahannock with Longstreet’s wing of five divisions, reached Thoroughfare Gap at nightfall, August 28. A small Federal force had taken possession of the gap, but it was thrust out, and the way was clear for a reunion of the Confederate Armies.