CH. I]

BATTLE OF BULL RUN

39

McDowell had heard rumors that Johnston had joined Beauregard but he did not credit them; so he went forward with his original plan which was to turn the Confederate left. On Sunday morning, July 21, he attacked. Owing to the inexperience of both officers and men, the delays in marching and manoeuvring made the attack three hours late, yet at ten o'clock the Union troops engaged the enemy and, being in superior force, drove him before them. The Confederates were in full retreat, but as they ran up the slope of the plateau. about the Henry House, Thomas J. Jackson's brigade stood there calmly awaiting the onset. General Bee cried out in encouragement to his retreating troops, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall." As "Stonewall" Jackson he was known till the day of his death and ever afterwards.

Patterson had greatly overestimated Johnston's force and feared to make an attack; indeed in his alarm he marched north, directly away from the Confederates instead of following them. Unaware of his actual movement the Confederate generals thought that he would make haste to join McDowell. Beauregard therefore deemed it advisable to attack the Union forces with his right wing and centre before the expected reënforcement came; Johnston, the ranking officer, approved the plan. A miscarriage of orders prevented the movement; at the same time McDowell's attack came as a surprise and it was the sound of cannon that first told them he was trying to turn their left. It was four miles to the scene of action but Johnston and Beauregard rode thither as fast as their horses would carry them. "We came not a moment too soon," said Johnston. The Confederates were demoralized; a disorderly retreat had begun; and it needed all the firmness and courage of the commanding generals to stem the tide. Beauregard remained in the

40

BATTLE OF BULL RUN

[1861

thick of the fight, in command of the troops there engaged, while Johnston rode regretfully to the rear to hurry forward reënforcements.

It was high noon when the two Confederate generals appeared on the field. The battle lasted until three. The hottest fighting was for the possession of the Henry plateau which the Union troops had seized. At two o'clock Beauregard gave the order to advance to recover the plateau. The charge was made with spirit. Jackson's brigade pierced the Union centre at the bayonet's point; the other troops moved forward with equal vigor, broke the Union lines and swept them back from the open ground of the plateau. The Union troops rallied, recovered their ground and drove the Confederates from the plateau into the woods beyond. McDowell, who had this part of the field immediately under his own eye, thought this last repulse final and that the day was his.

Jefferson Davis, too anxious to remain in Richmond, went by rail to the scene of action. As he approached Manassas railroad junction he saw a cloud of dust raised by wagons that had been sent to the rear and heard distinctly the sound of firing. At the junction were a large number of men who had left the field in panic and who now gave Davis graphic accounts of the defeat of the army. He asked a gray-bearded man whose calm face and composed demeanor inspired confidence, how the battle had gone? "Our line was broken," came the reply; "all was confusion, the army routed and the battle lost." The conductor of the train refused to go farther but, on Davis's stern insistence, detached the locomotive and ran it to the headquarters, where Davis found horses for himself and his aide; two officers guided him thence toward the battle-field. On the way, he met a large number of stragglers and received frequent