Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[597] From that time, the calm leader that stopped the flight was known as “Stonewall Jackson.”

It was noon when Bee and Evans fled from the first field of close conflict, with their comrade, Colonel Wheat, desperately wounded, and joined Jackson on the plateau, while the Nationals were pressing closely in pursuit. Johnston and Beauregard, alarmed by the heavy firing, and by intelligence that reached them of the strength and movements of the Nationals, sent orders for Generals Holmes, Early, and Ewell to move with their troops with all possible speed in the direction of the sound of the battle, and for Bonham to send forward two regiments and a battery. They then hurried at a rapid gallop from their position, four miles distant, to the plateau, where they found the whole Confederate force to be only about seven thousand men, including Jackson's brigade. They were in a strong position, well sheltered by the thicket of pines already mentioned, and had thirteen cannon, most of them masked in shrubbery, in position to sweep the whole table-land with grape and canister. Pendleton, Johnston's Chief of Artillery, had been ordered to follow him with a battery. But the Nationals, who were then pressing hard upon them, greatly outnumbered them. It was a moment of intense anxiety for the Confederate commanders. They had little hope for victory unless their expected re-enforcements should speedily arrive.

There was not a moment to lose. Johnston comprehended the danger and sought to avert it. Placing himself by the colors of the Fourth Alabama Regiment, he proceeded to reorganize the broken columns of Bee, Bartow, and Evans; and Beauregard formed them in battle-line near the edge of the plateau, where the first shock of an impending attack might be felt. That leader, in a few hurried words, told his troops that the fate of the day depended on their holding their position on that commanding eminence.

When order was restored, Johnston left Beauregard in command on the battle-field, while he withdrew and made his Headquarters at the house of Mr. Lewis, known as “The portico,” on an eminence south of, and even higher than the plateau, from which he had a comprehensive view of the region beyond Bull's Run toward Centreville, the approaches to the Stone Bridge, the field of battle, and

Alabama Light Infantry.

the valley far away toward Manassas, whence his re-enforcements came. There he exercised a general supervision of the army, and forwarded reserves and re-enforcements. Near his new quarters, Colonel Wade Hampton, who had come up from Richmond by railway that morning, with six infantry companies of his legion, had taken position as a reserve; and other re-enforcements were now beginning to arrive. When, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, the struggle for the plateau commenced, the Confederates had on the field about ten thousand men, horse, foot, and artillery, and twenty-two heavy guns.