Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
stands west of Groveton, and far to the rear the road was still crowded
with men and guns. Jackson’s time had come.
Two Confederate batteries, trotting forward from the wood, deployed
upon the ridge. The range was soon found, and the effect was
instantaneous. But the confusion in the Northern ranks was soon
checked; the troops found cover inside the bank which lined the road,
and two batteries, one with the advanced guard and one from the centre
of the column, wheeling into the fields to the
left, came quickly into action. About the same moment Bradley Johnson
became engaged with the skirmishers near Groveton.
The Confederate infantry, still hidden by the rolling ground, was
forming for attack, when a Federal brigade, led by General Gibbon,
rapidly deploying on the slopes, moved forward against the guns. It was
Stuart’s horse-artillery, so the Northerners believed, which had fired
on the column, and a bold attack would soon drive back the cavalry. But
as Gibbon’s regiments came forward the Southern skirmishers, lying in
front of the batteries, sprang to their feet and opened with rapid
volleys; and then the grey line of battle, rising suddenly into view,
bore down upon the astonished foe. Taliaferro, on the right, seized a
small farmhouse near Gainesville, and occupied the orchard; the
Stonewall Brigade advanced upon his left, and Lawton and Trimble
prolonged the front towards the Douglass House. But the Western farmers
of Gibbon’s brigade were made of stubborn stuff. The Wisconsin
regiments held their ground with unflinching courage. Both flanks were
protected by artillery, and strong reinforcements were coming up. The
advanced guard was gradually falling back from Groveton; the rear
brigades were hurrying forward up the road. The two Confederate
batteries, overpowered by superior metal, had been compelled to shift
position; only a section of Stuart’s horse-artillery under Captain
Pelham had come to their assistance, and the battle was confined to a
frontal attack at the closest range. In many places the lines
approached within a hundred yards, the men standing in the open and
blazing fiercely in each other’s faces. Here and there, as fresh
regiments came up on either side, the grey or the blue gave way for a
few short paces; but the gaps were quickly filled, and the wave once
more surged forward over the piles of dead. Men fell like leaves in
autumn. Ewell was struck down and Taliaferro, and many of their field
officers, and still the Federals held their ground. Night was settling
on the field, and although the gallant Pelham, the boy soldier, brought
a gun into action within seventy paces of Gibbon’s line, yet
the front of fire, flashing redly through the gloom, neither receded
nor advanced. A flank attack on either side would have turned the
scale, but the fight was destined to end as it had begun. The Federal
commander, ignorant of the enemy’s strength, and reaching the field
when the fight was hottest, was reluctant to engage his last reserves.
Jackson had ordered Early and Forno, moving through the wood west of
the Douglass House, to turn the enemy’s right; but within the thickets
ran the deep cuttings and high embankments of the unfinished railroad;
and the regiments, bewildered in the darkness, were unable to advance.
Meanwhile the fight to the front had gradually died away. The Federals,
outflanked upon the left, and far outnumbered, had slowly retreated to
the road. The Confederates had been too roughly handled to pursue.
The reports of the engagement at Groveton are singularly meagre.
Preceded and followed by events of still greater moment, it never
attracted the attention it deserved. On the side of the Union 2,800 men
were engaged, on the side of the Southerners 4,500, and for more than
an hour and a half the lines of infantry were engaged at the very
closest quarters. The rifled guns of the Federals undoubtedly gave them
a marked advantage. But the men who faced each other that August
evening fought with a gallantry that has seldom been surpassed. The
Federals, surprised and unsupported, bore away the honours. The Western
brigade, commanded by General Gibbon, displayed a coolness and a
steadfastness worthy of the soldiers of Albuera. Out of 2,000 men the
four Wisconsin and Indiana regiments lost 750, and were still
unconquered. The three regiments which supported them, although it was
their first battle, lost nearly half their number, and the casualties
must have reached a total of 1,100. The Confederate losses were even
greater. Ewell, who was shot down in the first line, and lay long on
the field, lost 725 out of 3,000. The Stonewall Brigade, which had by
this time dwindled to 600 muskets, lost over 200, including five field
officers; the 21st Georgia, of Trimble’s brigade, 178 men out of 242;
and it is probable that the Valley army on
this day was diminished by more than 1,200 stout soldiers. The fall of
Ewell was a terrible disaster. Zealous and indefatigable, a stern
fighter and beloved by his men, he was the most able and the most loyal
of Jackson’s generals. Taliaferro, peculiarly acceptable to his
Virginia regiments as a Virginian himself, had risen from the rank of
colonel to the command of a division, and his spurs had been well won.
The battle of Groveton left gaps in Jackson’s ranks which it was hard
to fill, and although the men might well feel proud of their stubborn
fight, they could hardly boast of a brilliant victory.
Strategically, however, the engagement was decisive. Jackson had
brought on the fight with the view of drawing the whole Federal army on
himself, and he was completely successful. The centre, marching on the
Stone Bridge from Manassas Junction, heard the thunder of the cannon
and turned westward; and before nightfall A. P. Hill’s artillery became
engaged with Sigel’s advanced guard. Pope himself, who received the
intelligence of the engagement at 9.20 p.m., immediately issued orders
for an attack on Jackson the next morning, in which the troops who had
already reached Centreville were to take part. “McDowell,” ran the
order, “has intercepted the retreat of the enemy, Sigel is immediately
in his front, and I see no possibility of his escape.”
But Pope, full of the idea that Jackson had been stopped in attempting
to retreat through Thoroughfare Gap, altogether misunderstood the
situation. He was badly informed. He did not know even the position of
his own troops. His divisions, scattered over a wide extent of country,
harassed by Stuart’s cavalry, and ignorant of the topography, had lost
all touch with the Commander-in-Chief. Important dispatches had been
captured. Messages and orders were slow in arriving, if they arrived at
all. Even the generals were at a loss to find either the
Commander-in-Chief or the right road. McDowell had ridden from
Gainesville to Manassas in order to consult with Pope, but Pope had
gone to Centreville. McDowell thereupon set out to rejoin his troops,
but lost his way in the forest and went
back to Manassas. From Ricketts Pope received no information
whatever.[24] He was not aware that after a long skirmish at
Thoroughfare Gap, Longstreet had opened the pass by sending his
brigades over the mountains on either hand, threatening both flanks of
the Federals, and compelling them to retire. He was not aware that
King’s division, so far from intercepting Jackson’s retreat, had
abandoned the field of Groveton at 1 a.m., and, finding its position
untenable in face of superior numbers, had fallen back on Manassas; or
that Ricketts, who had by this time reached Gainesville, had in
consequence continued his retreat in the same direction.
Seldom have the baneful effects of dispersion been more strikingly
illustrated, and the difficulty, under such circumstances, of keeping
the troops in the hand of the Commander-in-Chief. On the morning of the
28th Pope had ordered his army to march in three columns on Manassas,
one column starting from Warrenton Junction, one from Greenwich, and
one from Buckland Mills, the roads which they were to follow being at
their furthest point no more than seven miles apart. And yet at dawn on
the 29th he was absolutely ignorant of the whereabouts of McDowell’s
army corps; he was but vaguely informed of what had happened during the
day; and while part of his army was at Bald Hill, another part was at
Centreville, seven miles north-east, and a third at Manassas and at
Bristoe, from seven to twelve miles south-east. Nor could the staff be
held to blame for the absence of communication between the columns. In
peace it is an easy matter to assume that a message sent to a
destination seven miles distant by a highroad or even country lanes
arrives in good time. Seven miles in peace are very short. In war, in
the neighbourhood of the enemy, they are very long. In peace, roads are
easy to find. In war, it is the exception that they are found, even
when messengers are provided with good maps
and the country is thickly populated; and it is from war that the
soldier’s trade is to be learned.
Jackson’s army corps bivouacked in the position they had held when the
fierce musketry of Groveton died away. It was not till long after
daybreak on the 29th that his cavalry patrols discovered that King’s
troops had disappeared, and that Longstreet’s advanced guard was
already through Thoroughfare Gap. Nor was it till the sun was high that
Lee learned the events of the previous evening, and these threw only a
faint light on the general situation. But had either the
Commander-in-Chief or his lieutenant, on the night of the 28th, known
the true state of affairs, they would have had reason to congratulate
themselves on the success of the plan which had been hatched on the
Rappahannock. They had anticipated that should Jackson’s movement on
Manassas prove successful, Pope would not only fall back, but that he
would fall back in all the confusion which arises from a hastily
conceived plan and hastily executed manœuvres. They had expected that
in his hurried retreat his army corps would lose touch and cohesion;
that divisions would become isolated; that the care of his impedimenta,
suddenly turned in a new direction, would embarrass every movement; and
that the general himself would become demoralised.
The orders and counter-orders, the marches and counter-marches of
August 28, and the consequent dispersion of the Federal army, are
sufficient in themselves to prove the deep insight into war possessed
by the Confederate leaders.
Nevertheless, the risk bred of separation which, in order to achieve
great results, they had deliberately accepted had not yet passed away.
Longstreet had indeed cleared the pass, and the Federals who guarded it
had retreated; but the main body of the Confederate army had still
twelve miles to march before it could reach Jackson, and Jackson was
confronted by superior numbers. On the plateau of Bull Run, little more
than two miles from the field of Groveton, were encamped over 20,000
Federals, with the main number at Manassas. At Centreville, a seven
miles’ march, were 18,000; and at Bristoe Station, about the same
distance, 11,000.
It was thus possible for Pope to hurl a superior force against Jackson
before Lee could intervene; and although it would have been sounder
strategy, on the part of the Federal commander, to have concentrated
towards Centreville, and have there awaited reinforcements, now fast
coming up, he had some reason for believing that he might still,
unaided, deal with the enemy in detail. The high virtue of patience was
not his. Ambition, anxiety to retrieve his reputation, already
blemished by his enforced retreat, the thought that he might be
superseded by McClellan, whose operations in the Peninsula he had
contemptuously criticised, all urged him forward. An unsuccessful