The dull red of the July sun was just coloring the sky with its flame when the second and third divisions crossed Bull Run at Sudley"s Ford and began their swift descent upon the rear of the unsuspecting Southern army.
As the sun burst above the hills, a circle of white smoke suddenly curled away from a cannon"s mouth above the Stone Bridge and slowly rose in the still, clear morning air. Its sullen roar echoed over the valley.
The gray figures on the hill beyond leaped to their feet and looked.
Only the artillery was engaged and their shots were falling short.
The Confederates appeared indifferent. The action was too obviously a feint. Colonel Evans was holding his regiment for a clearer plan of battle to develop. From the hilltop on which his men lay he scanned with increasing uneasiness the horizon toward the west. In the far distance against the bright Southern sky loomed the dark outline of the Blue Ridge. The heavy background brought out in vivid contrast the woods and fields, hollows and hills of the great Mana.s.sas plain in the foreground.
Suddenly he saw it--a thin cloud of dust rising in the distance. As the rushing wall of sixteen thousand men emerged from the "Big Forest,"
through which they had worked their way along the crooked track of a rarely used road, the dust cloud flared in the sky with ominous menace.
Colonel Evans knew its meaning. Beauregard"s army had been flanked and the long thin lines of his left wing were caught in a trap. When the first rush of the circling host had swept his little band back from the Stone Bridge Tyler"s army would then cross and the three divisions swoop down on the doomed men.
Evans suddenly swung his regiment and two field pieces into a new line of battle facing the onrushing host and sent his courier flying to General Bee to ask that his brigade be moved instantly to his support.
When the shock came there were five regiments and six little field pieces in the Southern ranks to meet McDowell"s sixteen thousand troops.
With deafening roar their artillery opened. The long dense lines of closely packed infantry began their steady firing in volleys. It sounded as if some giant hand had grasped the hot Southern skies and was tearing their blue canvas into strips and shreds.
For an hour Bee"s brigade withstood the onslaught of the two Federal divisions--and then began to slowly fall back before the resistless wall of fire. The Union army charged and drove the broken lines a half mile before they rallied.
Tyler"s division now swept across the Stone Bridge and the shattered Confederate left wing was practically surrounded by overwhelming odds.
Again the storm burst on the unsupported lines of Bee and drove them three quarters of a mile before they paused.
The charging Federal army had struck something they were destined to feel again on many a field of blood.
General T. J. Jackson had suddenly swung his brigade of five regiments into the breach and stopped the wave of fire.
Bee rushed to Jackson"s side.
"General," he cried pathetically, "they are beating us back!"
The somber blue eyes of the Virginian gleamed beneath the heavy lashes:
"Then sir, we will give them the bayonet!"
Bee turned to his hard-pressed men and shouted:
"See Jackson and his Virginians standing like a stone wall! Let us conquer or die!"
The words had scarcely pa.s.sed his lips when Bee fell, mortally wounded.
Four miles away on the top of a lonely hill sat Beauregard and Johnston befogged in a series of pitiable blunders.
The flanking of the Southern army was a complete and overwhelming surprise. Johnston, unacquainted with the ground, had yielded the execution of the battle to his subordinate.
While the two puzzled generals were waiting on their hill top for their orders of battle to be developed on the right they looked to the left and the whole valley was a boiling h.e.l.l of smoke and dust and flame.
Their left flank had been turned and the triumphant enemy was rolling their long line up in a shroud of flame and death.
The two Generals put spurs to their horses and dashed to the scene of action, sending their couriers flying to countermand their first orders.
They reached the scene at the moment Bee"s and Evans" shattered lines were taking refuge in a wooded ravine and Jackson had moved his men into a position to breast the shock of the enemy"s avalanche.
In his excitement Johnston seized the colors of the fourth Alabama regiment and offered to lead them in a charge.
Beauregard leaped from his horse, faced the troops and shouted:
"I have come to die with you!"
The first of the reserves were rushing to the front in a desperate effort to save the day. But in spite of the presence of the two Commanding Generals, in spite of the living stone wall Jackson had thrown in the path of the Union hosts, a large part of the crushed left wing could not be stopped and in mad panic broke for the rear toward Mana.s.sas Junction.
The fate of the Southern army hung on the problem of holding the hill behind Jackson"s brigade. On its b.l.o.o.d.y slopes his men crouched with rifles leveled and from them poured a steady flame into the ranks of the charging Union columns.
Beauregard led the right wing of his newly formed battle line and Jackson the center in a desperate charge. The Union ranks were pierced and driven, only to re-form instantly and hurl their a.s.sailants back to their former position. Charge and counter-charge followed in rapid and terrible succession.
The Confederates were being slowly overwhelmed. The combined Union divisions now consisted of an enveloping battle line of twenty thousand infantry, seven companies of cavalry and twenty-four pieces of artillery, while behind them yet hung ten thousand reserves eager to rush into action.
Beauregard"s combined forces defending the hill were scarcely seven thousand men. At two o"clock the desperate Southern commander succeeded in bringing up additional regiments from his right wing. Two brigades at last were thrown into the storm center and a shout rose from the hard-pressed Confederates. Again they charged, drove the Union hosts back and captured a battery of artillery.
The hill was saved and the enemy driven across the turnpike into the woods.
McDowell now hurried in a division of his reserves and re-formed his battle line for the final grand a.s.sault. Once more he demonstrated his skill by throwing his right wing into a wide circling movement to envelop the Confederate position on its left flank.
The scene was magnificent. As far as the eye could reach the glittering bayonets of the Union infantry could be seen sweeping steadily through field and wood flanked by its cavalry. Beauregard watched the cordon of steel draw around his hard-pressed men and planted his regiments with desperate determination to hurl them back.
Far off in the distance rose a new cloud of dust in the direction of the Mana.s.sas railroad. At their head was lifted a flag whose folds drooped in the hot, blistering July air. They were moving directly on the rear of McDowell"s circling right wing.
If they were Union reserves the day was lost.
The Southerner lifted his field gla.s.ses and watched the drooping flag now shrouded in dust--now emerging in the blazing sun. His gla.s.ses were not strong enough. He could not make out its colors.
Beauregard turned to Colonel Evans, whose little regiment had fought with sullen desperation since sunrise.
"I can"t make out that flag. If it"s Patterson"s army from the valley--G.o.d help us--"
"It may be Elzey and Kirby Smith"s regiments," Evans replied. "They"re lost somewhere along the road from Winchester."
Again Beauregard strained his eyes on the steadily advancing flag. It was a moment of crushing agony.
"I"m afraid it"s Patterson"s men. We must fall back on our last reserve--"
He quickly lowered his gla.s.ses.
"I haven"t a courier left, Colonel. You must help me--"
"Certainly, General."
"Find Johnston, and ask him to at once ma.s.s the reserves to support and protect our retreat--"
Evans started immediately to execute the order.