by S. C. Gwynne
It was soon apparent that the scanty Southern lines could not hold. At about 11:30, Bee, Bartow, and Evans, taking staggering casualties, and surrounded by the enemy on three sides, retreated under heavy fire. As they were falling back “in great disorder and confusion as they had no field officers left to rally them,”20 said one of them, a third small Confederate force arrived on the scene. This time it was a collection of six hundred South Carolinians known as Hampton’s Legion, outfitted and commanded by Wade Hampton, yet another exotic: a handsome man with flowing mustaches and long hair and one of the wealthiest planters in the South, who had personally paid to outfit his men. Like Jackson, and Bee and Bartow before him, Hampton had been ordered to help Evans on the left, found that that particular “left” did not exist anymore, and had made a three-hour march to the sound of the fighting.21 The legion, which alone battled the Federal advance for nearly an hour, finally had to retreat, too.
By noon the Federals had chased the last of the bleeding Confederates from Matthews Hill. The battle, which had lasted two hours, had been entirely the result of the initiative of a few rebel officers. The Confederate army’s top commanders had had nothing to do with it. They had not ordered the troop movements, they had not understood that the battle was going to take place on Matthews Hill and nearby Henry Hill and not where they had thought it would take place. All responsibility had passed to the brigadiers and colonels. They had seized the battle, they had fought with astounding ferocity and courage, and they had not broken in spite of great odds but were ultimately forced to retreat. On the top of Matthews Hill now stood an enormous mass of Federal troops, guns glittering in the midday sun. If McDowell had desired a final payoff for his plan, this was it. The flank march had worked; the rebels were in headlong retreat down Matthews Hill and up again toward the farmhouses on Henry Hill. His plan to have Tyler’s forces from the Stone Bridge join the attack had worked, too. The arrival of their vanguard, under their bright, aggressive commander, William Tecumseh Sherman, had helped put Bee, Bartow, and Evans to flight. McDowell needed only to throw a portion of his eighteen-thousand-man force forward, and the battle would soon be won. There was nothing to stop him. There was nothing of any military significance, in fact, between him and Manassas Junction. If he had thought hard about that, it meant that there was nothing much between his army and Richmond, either.
CHAPTER NINE
SCREAM OF THE FURIES
What Jackson and his brigade saw, when they emerged from the woods onto the top of Henry Hill—an open, gently swelling patch of land containing two homesteads, some fruit trees, and a small cornfield—was nothing less than a full-blown military disaster. There was absolutely no doubt about that, as there often was in the confusion of a battle, no room for misinterpretation, no sign of Confederate troops rallying or Yankees withdrawing, no dressing of gray-clad ranks, no pockets of stubborn resistance, no rebel field artillery moving resolutely forward to blast the Federals from the opposite hill. General Bee had not been exaggerating when he told Jackson that the enemy was “driving” his men. The scene stretching out in front of them was one of complete, bloody chaos.
There was, moreover, no sign of any of the upper command anywhere, no evidence of Beauregard or Johnston or any of their staffs. There were just these few brave little brigades and pieces of brigades—Bee’s, Bartow’s, Evans’s, Hampton’s—that had broken off from Beauregard’s line and without orders had taken on the advancing Union army. They had fought hard and even heroically, and had held off repeated, equally courageous Union assaults. But they had been greatly outnumbered and outgunned. “The wounded commenced passing us,” recalled one of Jackson’s soldiers, “some with blood streaming down their faces, some with legs broken and hobbling along assisted by a comrade, and some seriously wounded and borne on stretchers.”1 Jackson’s former VMI student Charles Copland White wrote, “As we approach the battleground we meet men straggling off. . . . They tell us that the enemy is in overwhelming numbers and that our men are in full retreat. . . . Now the shells pass over us with their strange hissing sound . . . exploding in the thickets and cutting the limbs off trees.”2
The scene was shocking, too, in its stark simplicity. In their immediate front, Jackson’s men could see what was left of the Confederate forces, either streaming toward the rear or wandering forlornly, often officerless, around the two farmhouses atop Henry Hill. At the same time, the Virginians could look a mere mile across open fields to Matthews Hill and Dogan’s Ridge to see the heart-stopping reason why: an enormous blue mass of soldiers, “thick as wheat in the field,” their bayonets flashing like silver in the noonday sun, their splendid batteries throwing flame and firing round after thunderous round—which were weirdly visible to the naked eye—at the retreating men.3 Having driven their enemies from the hill, the Federals now appeared to be massing for another assault that would drive them clear back to Manassas Junction.4 There was nothing to stop them. That would have been the assumption of anyone who saw the field of battle at noon. That is why what happened next was so remarkable.
Jackson’s reaction to the alarm in Bee’s voice said everything about his approach to the crisis. If McDowell’s splendidly equipped legions were cutting everyone and everything in their path to pieces, Jackson would simply give them the bayonet. The notion was quaintly old-fashioned—Napoleonic, in fact—though the point of it was clear: a bayonet was an intimate and intensely personal way to kill someone. Jackson meant business. His first concern was not whether he should retreat along with the others, or how he could get Johnston or Beauregard to send him reinforcements, or how 2,600 men with a few cannons were going to stop the Federal juggernaut that had just driven more than 4,000 men from the field. His reaction was instinctive: Fight. Fight now. Hold the line.
Jackson, riding at the head of his column, which extended, four abreast, into the woods behind him, now met another distressed Confederate officer. This was John D. Imboden, a lawyer from Staunton, Virginia, who, from his position on the slope in front of Henry Hill, had waged a remarkably brave, one-battery duel with four small six-pounder guns against the assembled Federal artillery. But his three remaining guns were almost out of ammunition and many of his horses had been killed, so he, too, was retreating. Imboden, less scared than furious at General Bee for having left him alone for so long on Henry Hill, gave Jackson a bitter, invective-laced account of what had just happened. (Bee had actually ordered him to withdraw forty-five minutes before, but the messenger had died en route to him.5) Jackson seemed, oddly, more distressed by Imboden’s choice of vocabulary than by the Federal shells crashing around him. Imboden recalled, “I expressed myself with some profanity, which I could see was displeasing to Jackson.” Jackson then told him, “Unlimber right here. I’ll support your battery.”6 (A “limber” was a two-wheeled, horse-drawn wagon to which a cannon was attached for transport, and also carried ammunition. “Unlimbering” meant detaching the cannon for action; a Civil War battery was a large operation, usually consisting of four to six cannons, each of which was drawn by six horses, and accompanied by as many as six ammunition wagons—“caissons”—also drawn by six horses each, plus several other supply wagons. A single battery might thus include a hundred men and seventy-two or more horses.) Imboden protested that he had only three rounds left and suggested that he move to the rear to resupply. But Jackson, anticipating the swarm of bluecoats that was likely to be coming at him, and having no artillery yet in front, wanted at least the appearance of firepower. “No, not now,” he told Imboden. “Wait til the other guns get here, and then you can withdraw your battery.”7
Jackson now selected his defensive position. What he chose, quickly and under heavy artillery fire, was deeply unorthodox. Almost any other general would have made the textbook move forward to the northern edge of Henry Hill, the nominal “high ground” from which his guns and infantry would have looked down the slope to the Warrenton Pike, across which the Union soldiers would have to come. But Jackson instead chos
e the far southeastern edge of the plateau—the reverse slope—to place his infantry and artillery. As would soon become apparent, it was a brilliant tactical ploy. First, though the top of Henry Hill was largely an open field, this side of it was thick with pine trees. Jackson’s men could set up there, unseen by the Federals with their deadly rifled guns on Matthews Hill. There were also trees to give the Virginians at least some protection from artillery fire. Even better, Jackson’s own cannons would be able to roll forward over the lip of the hill, fire, then be carried back to safety by the recoil onto the downward slope, making them hard to see, too. Finally, this position offered Jackson a wide and largely unobstructed field of fire. Union troops cresting the northern side of Henry Hill would now have to cross three hundred murderous yards of open ground to get to him.
With his plan in mind, Jackson now went to work. Roving back and forth on horseback while enemy shells filled the air around him with lead and iron, he brought his artillery forward and carefully packed the woods in his center and on both flanks with his five regiments: the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd of Virginia. As he was doing this, Beauregard and Johnston—having at length concluded that the battle was not where they thought it was going to be, and that Ewell was never going to advance—finally arrived at the scene of the real fight. They took charge immediately. (Johnston would soon agree to Beauregard’s request to give him command of the battlefield, while Johnston assumed overall command from a farmhouse in the rear of Henry Hill.) They immediately saw the logic of Jackson’s unusual position, and moved to reinforce him.8 Jackson’s brigade was suddenly the center of the entire Confederate army, the very heart of the battle. Beauregard would build his new strategy around Jackson. One of the first things he did was give Jackson more guns. Now there were at least thirteen guns at the edge of the woods, all under his command. The fight for Henry Hill—and the hopes of the Confederacy—would pivot for the next few hours around Jackson’s 1st Virginia Brigade.
By about 1:00 p.m. the new line was in place, stretching for a quarter of a mile across the top of Henry Hill, fronted by those guns. Most of the men were on their bellies in the woods, lying “flat as flounders,” recalled the 4th Virginia’s John Lyle, as the Federal guns continued to boom from the far hill.9 Jackson, presenting a large and inviting target on horseback, seemed relaxed, unworried, almost unnaturally calm. “General Jackson rides several times along where we are lying and often goes over to the artillery,” wrote one of his men. “He seems to be very quiet, so we think that all is right, and that this is like battles generally.”10 Beauregard and Johnston went to work trying to patch together the scattered, disorganized, and demoralized Confederate brigades that sagged four hundred or more yards behind Jackson’s right. It was difficult work. “Every segment of line we succeeded in forming was again dissolved, while another was being formed,” wrote Beauregard, who for a change was making himself useful. “More than two thousand men were each shouting some suggestion to his neighbor.”11
• • •
Where was Union commanding general Irvin McDowell while the Confederates, outnumbered and threatened with destruction, were feverishly trying to patch up their lines? The answer was that he was making his first big mistake of the war. He didn’t see it that way. He was, at that moment, quite pleased with his situation, which looked to him very much like imminent victory. Though his flanking scheme had started badly, he had surprised and then routed the enemy. Burnside’s brigade had been bloodied, but McDowell still had the better part of eighteen thousand men on the hill. Before him he saw a rebel army in chaos, confusion, and retreat. Whatever force might be up there on Henry Hill—there was none that he could see—would be no match for the sort of firepower and infantry he had in place. But now, for some unknown reason, perhaps because he was momentarily stunned by his own success, or because he believed that, with such an astounding advantage in men and matériel, speed was no longer of the essence, McDowell paused. For two full hours, no orders came from his headquarters. It was as though, suddenly, there was no particular plan of battle, and no one running the army, which suddenly found itself standing about, awaiting orders.
McDowell’s strange entr’acte had been a miraculous gift to the beleaguered Confederates, and they had used it well. But it would not last. At 2:30, the Union army finally started moving. Like the old Napoleonic armies, it came with its field artillery out in front. Their attack began when two batteries with eleven guns crested the northwestern side of Henry Hill, a mere three hundred yards from Jackson’s line, unlimbered, and opened fire. In artillery terms, three hundred yards is virtually point-blank range. Jackson’s guns now roared to life, too, and thus began a furious hour-long duel between Jackson, who at VMI had been one of the first to test and recommend for adoption the rifled Parrott guns now aimed at him, and the Union batteries commanded by Captains James B. Ricketts and Charles Griffin. For Jackson’s men, who had already had shells lobbed at them for more than an hour by the more distant guns, it was a harrowing experience. A storm of ordnance now flew at them, not just solid shot but also antipersonnel projectiles such as “shell,” which exploded into shrapnel, and “spherical case,” which was hollow and loaded with smaller balls that sprayed in all directions. Tedford Barclay of the 4th Virginia Regiment described what happened to his regimental mates: “William Patterson shot . . . with a cannonball through his breast killing him instantly. Ben Brady, struck on the right hip with a piece of bomb shell, he lived for five or six minutes. Charlie Bell was killed with a piece of the same bomb, lived about two hours, his whole right shoulder was torn off.”12
Jackson continued to ride up and down his line on Little Sorrel, who was as unperturbed by gunfire as he was, repeating, “Steady, men, steady. All is well.” He moved, according to one admiring soldier, “in a shower of death as calmly as a farmer about his farm when the seasons are good.” He seemed to be a different man in the heat of battle; his eyes blazed, his whole being seemed to glow with the ardor of the fight. One soldier in the 33rd Virginia recalled that former VMI cadets, observing the cool confidence of their commander, now “saw the warrior and forgot the eccentric man.”13 At one point, as shells exploded in fragments that embedded themselves in trees, men, and horses, Jackson, speaking with Imboden, had thrust his left hand into the air—a characteristic gesture that seemed to accompany prayer. According to Imboden, “as he spoke, he jerked down his hand, and I saw that blood was streaming from it. I exclaimed, ‘General, you are wounded.’ ‘Only a scratch, a mere scratch,’ Jackson replied, and binding it hastily with a handkerchief, he galloped away along his line.”14
Though Jackson was clearly getting the better of the Union in his artillery duel—at short range the Federals’ technologically superior rifled cannons lost their advantage over the old-fashioned Confederate smoothbores—he was worried about his flanks. At 12:30 he had repulsed a brief attack on his right by a Union brigade that had come upon the field by way of the Stone Bridge. Now he split Jeb Stuart’s 300 cavalry and deployed them to his right and left, looking for advancing Union columns. They did not have to wait long. A courier from Stuart told Jackson of Union infantry moving on his left, to which Jackson, his eyes lighting up, replied, “Good! Good!” As he had intended, the enemy had not seen his men in the woods. The Federals heard the crack of rebel muskets, and soon a sharp fight was raging on his left between his 33rd Virginia Regiment and two Union regiments. (The Federals had initially mistaken Confederates for their own, which made this somewhat worse for them.) The Virginians loosed successive volleys and drove the Federals back. As they were reeling down the hill toward the Sudley Road, Jeb Stuart and 150 horsemen, who had been itching for a fight all day, now slammed into them, driving them from the field with heavy casualties. One of Stuart’s horsemen described the killing of a Union soldier, a brutal act unimaginable the day before but already commonplace on this battlefield. “I leaned down in the saddle,” he wrote, “rammed the muzzle of [my] carbine into the stomach of my man and
pulled the trigger. I could not help feeling a little sorry for the fellow as he lifted his handsome face to mine while he tried to get his bayonet up to meet me; but he was too slow, for the carbine blew a hole as big as my arm clear through him.”15
But the Federals weren’t finished. They advanced again on the 33rd Virginia, this time with two howitzers they placed less than two hundred yards from the Confederate line. Alarmed by the Federal guns that were almost on top of his soldiers, regimental commander Colonel A. C. Cummings ordered a volley that cut down men and horses. Then his Virginians charged across the open ground. Before anyone knew quite what had happened, the whooping rebels had seized the Union battery. It was the first Confederate victory of the day. Cheers went up as the members of the 33rd, many of them merely boys just a month or two from the plow handle and mechanic’s shop, exulted. They would not be able to hold this position long. But what they had done would become, in fact, the turning point of the battle, the instant when that great and apparently irresistible blue-clad wave finally hit an immovable wall. Jackson had thus repulsed attacks on his right and left, and his artillery had been devastating against the larger, rifled Union guns. And most of his men had yet to fight; they were still in the woods, invisible, flat on their bellies, impatient and a bit shell-shocked, waiting to attack.