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[242] either not reached their destination or been misconstrued; he had directed that wing to cross the river and attack Centreville, and Beauregard was still waiting for the moment when that attack should arrest the progress of McDowell, whom he still believed to be on the left bank of Bull Run; the failure to carry out these instructions proved the salvation of his army. When, towards eleven o'clock, he learned that his right was about to move at last, he issued a counter-order, for he had just learned the danger which threatened him and had become convinced that instead of taking the offensive he ought to detach from his right all available troops, in order to keep the victorious Federals in check. The latter, in fact, were rapidly gaining ground in spite of the obstinate resistance they encountered. Porter had deployed his brigade to the left of Burnside; Heintzelman, who, not having been able to find the ford indicated in his instructions, had been obliged to cross Sudeley Ford in the rear of Burnside, had in his turn got into line, while Tyler was pushing forward Sherman's brigade. The latter had crossed Bull Run at the ford he had discovered without striking a blow; leaving his artillery behind, he was advancing with that precision and method which already denoted the true man of war: as the curtain of trees did not permit him to follow the battle with his eyes, he directed his march by its sound; Keyes, who had been recalled by Tyler to take Sherman's place, was in readiness to follow.

The Confederates had taken position on an open height forming the first tier of the Manassas plateau, which commanded the course of Bull Run, by an elevation of from forty to fifty metres, and was surrounded from north-east to west by an elbow of Young's Branch. The chord of the semicircle described by this stream was the straight line of the Warrenton turnpike, which intersects it in two places, and the culminating point of which was indicated by the house of the negro Robinson. To the left, those heights terminated above the junction of the turnpike and the Sudeley-Springs road, and then extended to the southeastward in a line parallel with this road towards Manassas. These slopes, commanded by the house of the widow Henry, mingled a little farther on with those of the main plateau, which rose like a second tier, separated from the first counterforts by a slight

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