[
102]
and
Law's brigade of North Carolinians, Alabamians and Mississippians.
The Southerners had made a toilsome journey to help their comrades, and
Longstreet says they welcomed the opportunity.
‘Each,’ reports
Hood, the
senior commander,
seemed to vie with the other in efforts to plunge the deeper into the ranks of the enemy.
Advance and Retreat, p. 34.
Longstreet comments:
A fierce struggle of thirty minutes gave them advantage, which they followed through the dark to the base of the high ground held by bayonets and batteries innumerable, as compared with their limited ranks.
Their task accomplished, they were halted to wait the morrow.
Manassas to Appomattox, p. 184.
Law's men drove off three guns and captured one. Law states in his report that this gun was fought until its discharges blackened the faces of his advancing men. ‘What higher praise,’ exclaims Ropes,
could be given, either to the gunners or their antagonists?
The Army under Pope, p. 108.
That night,
General Lee, knowing that the forces would again join battle in the morning, readjusted his entire line.
All of
Jackson's men were moved into their original and strong position along the unfinished railroad, and
Longstreet's corps was aligned on
Jackson's right.
Pope mistook these movements for a retreat, and telegraphed, ‘The enemy is retiring toward the mountains.’
Little did he then anticipate how he was to be swept across
Bull Run by that ‘retreating army’ next day.
On the morning of the 30th,
General Pope, seemingly yet unaware that
Longstreet was in position to strike his left, massed the commands of
Porter,
King,
Hooker,
Kearny,
Ricketts, and
Reynolds in a final effort to crush
Jackson.
Not all the men ordered against
Jackson joined in the heavy assaults on his weakened lines.
Still, that afternoon enough pressed the attack home to make it doubtful whether his three divisions could stand the
