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

[598]

Whilst these movements were in progress on the west side of Bull's Run, General Schenck, with his brigade and Carlisle's battery, and a part of Ayres's, had been vainly endeavoring to turn or silence a Confederate battery opposite Tyler's extreme right. In this attempt the Second New York suffered severely. In the mean time, Keyes's brigade had followed Sherman's across the run, eight hundred yards above the Stone Bridge, taken a position on his left, and joined in the pursuit of the broken column of the Confederates. Their batteries near the bridge were soon withdrawn, and between two and three o'clock, Captain Alexander, of the Engineers, with a company of ax-men, proceeded to cut a passage through the abatis that obstructed the road. By three o'clock, there

“The portico.”

were no impediments in the way of the advance of re-enforcements from Centreville; for at one o'clock the National forces had possession of the Warrenton Turnpike from near the bridge westward, which was one of the grand objectives of the movement against the Confederate left.

But there was a formidable obstacle in the way of the complete execution of the design. The Confederates were on the commanding plateau, too near the turnpike and the bridge to make an attempt to strike the Manassas Gap Railway a safe operation. To drive them from it was the task now immediately in hand. To accomplish it, five brigades, namely, Porter's, Howard's, Franklin's, Wilcox's, and Sherman's, with the batteries of Ricketts, Griffin, and Arnold, and the cavalry under Major Palmer, were sent along and near the Sudley's Spring Road, to turn the Confederate left, while Keyes was sent to annoy them on the right. The brigade of Burnside, whose ammunition had been nearly exhausted in the morning battle, had withdrawn into a wood for the purpose of being supplied, and was not again in action. Eighteen thousand Nationals were on the west side of Bull's Run, and thirteen thousand of them were soon fighting the ten thousand Confederates on the plateau.

Up the slope south of the Warrenton Turnpike, the five brigades, the batteries, and the cavalry moved, accompanied by McDowell, with Heintzelman (whose division commenced the action here) as his chief lieutenant on the field. They were severely galled by the batteries of Imboden, Stanard,

Wade Hampton.

Pendleton, Alburtis of the Shenandoah Army, and portions of Walton's and Rogers's batteries of the Army of the Potomac. Yet they pressed forward, with the batteries of Ricketts and Griffin in front, and, outflanking the Confederates, were soon in possession of the western portion of the plateau. There was a swell of ground westward of the Henry