previous next

[190] with each, and running back to the forest. Between the two hills is a brook, a tributary of Young's Branch. Upon the latter hill General McDowell directed Reynolds' division and a portion of Rickett's command, so as to check the flank mamoeuvre that menaced to seize the Warrenton turnpike, which was the line of retreat of the whole army.

The occupation of this position was judicious on the part of General McDowell; but the detachment of Reynolds from Porter's left for that purpose had an unfortunate result;1 for it exposed the key-point of Porter's line. Colonel G. K. Warren, who then commanded one of Porter's brigades, seeing the imminence of the danger, at once, and without waiting for orders, moved forward with his small but brave brigade of about a thousand men,2 and occupied the important position abandoned by Reynolds; Porter then, as well to sustain Warren, as to fulfil his orders of pursuit, his column of attack being formed, made a vigorous assault on the Confederate position; but beyond driving back the advanced line so as to develop the Confederate array as formed behind the railroad embankment, he was able to accomplish nothing. Line after line was swept ,way by the enemy's artillery and infantry fire, and so destructive was its effect that Porter's troops finally were compelled to withdraw. Porter's attack had been directed against Jackson; but Longstreet, on Jackson's right, found a commanding point of ground, whence he could rake the assaulting columns with an enfilading fire of artillery. ‘From an eminence near by,’ says that officer, ‘one portion of the enemy's masses, attacking General Jackson, were immediately within my view, and in easy range of batteries in that position. It gave me an advantage I had not expected to have, and I made haste to use it. Two batteries were ordered for the purpose, and one placed in position immediately and opened. Just as this fire began, I received a message from ’

1

* Sigel's corps should have been taken in place of Reynolds' division, or anybody else rather than Reynolds.

2 Warren's command consisted of the Fifth and Tenth New York Volunteers.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Youngs Branch (West Virginia, United States) (1)
Jackson (Mississippi, United States) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Reynolds (5)
Fitz-John Porter (5)
G. K. Warren (2)
Irvin McDowell (2)
Thomas Jackson (2)
Gouverneur K. Warren (1)
Sigel (1)
Rickett (1)
Longstreet (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: