CHARGE OF UNION CAVALRY UPON THE CONFEDERATE ADVANCE NEAR BRANDY
STATION, AUGUST 20, 1862.
BREVET MAJOR-GEN. CUVIER GROVER, U. S. V.
From a photograph.
On Friday afternoon Grover’s brigade, of Hooker’s division, charged Jackson’s center before Kearny’s successful and bloody charge on Jackson’s left. Grover led 5 regiments, altogether about 1500 men, and in 20 minutes lost 486, or nearly one-tliird, of his command.
movement of the enemy toward Washington, until I was certain that the Army of the Potomac had reached Alexandria.
The movement of Jackson presented the only opportunity which had offered to gain any success over the superior forces of the enemy. I determined, therefore, on the morning of the 27th of August to abandon the line of the Rappahannock and throw my whole force in the direction of Gainesville and Manassas Junction, to crush any force of the enemy that had passed through Thoroughfare Gap, and to interpose between Lee’s army and Bull Run. Having the interior line of operations, and the enemy at Manassas being inferior in force, it appeared to me, and still so appears, that with even ordinary promptness and energy we might feel sure of success.
Stonewall Jackson’s movement on Manassas Junction was plainly seen and promptly reported, and I notified General Halleck of it. He informed me on the 23d of August that heavy reinforcements would begin to arrive at Warrenton Junction on the next day (24th), and as my orders still held me to the Rappahannock I naturally supposed that these troops would be hurried forward to me with all speed. Franklin’s corps especially, I asked, should be sent rapidly to Gainesville. I also telegraphed Colonel Herman Haupt, chief of railway transportation, to direct one of the strongest divisions coming forward, and to be at Warrenton Junction on the 24th, to be put in the works at Manassas Junction. A cavalry force had been sent forward to observe the Thoroughfare Gap early on the morning of the 26th, but nothing was heard from it.
On the night of August 26th Jackson’s advance, having passed Thoroughfare Gap, struck the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Manassas Junction, and made it plain to me that all of the reinforcements and movements of the troops promised me had altogether failed. Had Franklin been even at Centreville, or had Cox’s and Sturgis’s divisions been as far west as Bull Run on that day, the movement of Jackson on Manassas Junction would not have been practicable.
As Jackson’s movement on Manassas Junction marks, the beginning of the second battle of Brill Run, it is essential to a clear understanding of subsequent operations to give the positions of the army under my command on the night of August 26th, as also the movements and operations of the enemy as far as we knew them. . . .
The troops were disposed as follows: McDowell’s corps and Sigel’s corps were at Warrenton under general command of General McDowell, with Banks’s corps at Fayetteville as a reserve. Reno’s corps was directed upon the Warrenton turnpike to take post three miles east of Warrenton. Porter’s corps was near Bealeton Station moving slowly toward Warrenton Junction; Heint-zelman at Warrenton Junction, with very small means to move in any direction.
Tip to this time I had been placed by the positive orders of General Halleck much in the position of a man tied by one leg and fighting with a person much his physical superior and free to move in any direction. . . .
The movements of the enemy toward my right forced me either to abandon the line of the Rappahannock and the communications with Fredericksburg, or to risk the loss of my army and the almost certain loss of Washington. Of course between these two alternatives I could not hesitate in a choice. I considered it my duty, at whatever sacrifice to my army and myself, to retard, as far as I could, the 132
concentration of the corps of the Army of Virginia was completed, Sigel’s corps being at Sper-ryville, Banks’s at Little Washington, and Ricketts’s division of McDowell’s corps at Waterloo Bridge. I assumed the command in person July 29th, 1862. . . .
It is only necessary to say that the course of these operations made it plain enough that the Rappahannock was too far to the front, and that the movements of Lee were too rapid and those of McClellan too slow to make it possible, with the small force I had, to hold that line, or to keep open communication with Fredericksburg without being turned on my right flank by Lee’s whole army and cut off altogether from Washington.
On the 21st of August, being then at Rappahannock Station, my little army confronted by nearly the whole force under General Lee, which had compelled the retreat of McClellan to Harrison’s Landing, I was positively assured that two days more would see me largely enough reinforced by the Army of the Potomac to be not only secure, but to assume the offensive against Lee, and I was instructed to hold on “and fight like the devil.”
I accordingly held on till the 26th of August, when, finding myself to be outflanked on my right by the main body of Lee’s army, while Jackson’s corps having passed Salem and Reetortown the day before were in rapid march in the direction of Gainesville and Manassas Junction, and seeing that none of the reinforcements promised me were likely to arrive, I determined to abandon the line of the Rappahannock and communications with Fredericksburg, and concentrate my whole force in the direction of Warrenton and Gainesville, to cover the Warrenton pike, and still to confront the enemy rapidly marching to my right.
THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL BUN.
BY JOHN POPE, MAJOK-GENEKAL, U, 8. A.
Union Commander at tlie Second Battle of Bull Run.
. . . Under the changed condition of things brought about by General McClellan’s retreat to James River, and the purpose to withdraw his army [from the Peninsula] and unite it with that under my command, the campaign of the Army of Virginia was limited to the following objects :
1.	To cover the approaches to Washington from any enemy advancing from the direction of Richmond, and to oppose and delay its advance to the last extremity, so as to give all the time possible for the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac from the James River.
2.	If no heavy forces of the enemy moved north, to operate on their lines of communication with Gordonsville and Charlottesville, so as to force Lee to make heavy detachments from his force at Richmond and facilitate to that extent the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac.
Halleck was of the opinion that the junction of the two armies could be made on the line of the Rappahannock, and my orders to hold fast to my communications with Fredericksburg, through which place McClellan’s army was to make its junction with the Army of Virginia, were repeated positively.
The decision of the enemy to move north with the bulk of his army was promptly made and vigorously carried out, so that it became apparent, even before General McClellan began to embark his army, that the line of the Rappahannock was too far to the front. That fact, however, was not realized by Halleck until too late for any change which could be effectively executed. . . .
Under the orders heretofore referred to, the