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[382] side of the hill than his command was opened on from that side also, the fire coming from the direction of the Warrenton road. The source of this new attack will be readily understood from the already mentioned intentions of Lee; for it has been seen that from Warrenton Ewell's column was to proceed by way of Auburn on Greenwich, and having moved very early in the morning, it was his advance that struck Warren's force.1 The moment was now a critical one for Warren, for his advance division under General Hays, which had crossed to the north side of Cedar Run, found itself opposed by a hostile force at the same time that Caldwell's division, on the south side, was fired upon, and the corps appeared to be surrounded and its retreat cut off.2 But the actual condition of things was not as bad as appeared. Little more than the mere van of Ewell's column, and that mainly cavalry, had yet come up: the crossing of Cedar Run was not interrupted; Hays, who was on the north side, having thrown out a couple of regiments, repulsed the enemy, and cleared the route over which the corps was to advance;3 and finally, when the head of Ewell's main column came up, it was held in check by skilful deployments of cavalry and infantry and the practice of the batteries, till the rest of Warren's
1 Lee: Report of Summer Operations of 1863; Warren: Report of Operations.
2 ‘Attacked thus on every side, with my command separated by a considerable stream, encumbered with a wagon-train, in the vicinity of the whole force of the enemy, and whom the sound of actual conflict had already assured of my position, to halt was to await annihilation, and to move as prescribed carried me along routes in a valley commanded by the heights on each side.’ Warren: Report of Operations.
3 These regiments were the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York, under Lieutenant-Colonel Bull, supported by the Twelfth New Jersey Volunteers; and General Hays, in his official report, gives the following account of this spirited affair: ‘I moved forward the entire regiment of the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York, supported by the Twelfth New Jersey. In a short time our force came in contact with the rebels. It was short, but very decisive. The rebel cavalry, led by Colonel Thomas Ruffin, charged furiously upon the deployed One Hundred and Twenty-sixth, and were most gallantly repulsed with the loss of their leader, who was mortally wounded.’
1866.
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