Finally, one of his staff said, “General, we are in grave danger. What are we to do?”
For once, Jackson was expansive: “Danger? On the contrary, sir. We presently control the board. In fact, we dictate Northern strategy.
“They won’t send Washington troops after us because they justifiably fear we would flank them and fall on the city. We have whipped Pope, so they cannot send him after us alone.
“McClellan must be worried to find he is between our army and that of General Lee.”
“No. We are in no danger. At least no immediate danger. Generals McClellan and Pope will try to unite and seek us, but they are a couple of days away. We have yet this day of rest and feast.
“Tonight we will have a bonfire. Tomorrow, be ready to move at first light.”
It was a slow, bitter day for John Pope as his men trudged warily toward Manassas.
Toward evening, Pope saw the first huge billows of smoke rise from the supply depot yet ten miles away. Millions of dollars worth of supplies were going up with the smoke as the world’s largest general store burned and burned and burned.
Next morning, a fuming Pope neared Manassas. His scouts had told him that Jackson, like the supply depot, was gone. It was hot, dusty and dry on the Groveton Road. Pope lifted his canteen to his mouth, rinsed, spat. He wished he could rid the bitter taste of humiliation from his mouth as easily as he could rid the dust.
Jackson had whipped him, eluded him, made him a laughingstock. To make it worse, Union soldiers Jackson had paroled reported that Jackson had but thirty thousand men with him. If only I had known that, thought Pope. If only I could catch him. Earnestly, Pope prayed for the opportunity to redeem himself.
Someone far wiser than Pope had many years ago warned that people should be careful about what they pray for, because they might get it. Rifle fire rattled out of the wooded hillside, cutting into the leading Union ranks. The Federals returned fire and began to dig in, preparing for the screaming Rebel attack. But to Pope’s surprise, Jackson was already falling back.
It set the pattern for the entire day. The Rebels would stand, fire, fall back in ordered retreat. By late evening, Confederate forces had been driven almost five miles and were entrenched along an abandoned railroad cut on the plains of Manassas.
Pope was exultant. Jackson had backed himself into a trap from which there was no way out. The Rebels had no further room for retreat and Pope’s humiliated army was in front of them, thirsty for revenge. Here was far more than a chance for redemption. Jackson would surrender or die. The Union commander should have paused to wonder why Jackson, who had never made a military blunder, should so cheaply reveal his position and then dig himself so deeply into a hole. But Pope was too intent on destroying Jackson to let doubt enter his mind.
On the morning of August 29, Pope hurled sixty-two thousand men at the Rebel line. The charge was met by a withering fire which broke the Union attack. But the Federals charged again and again. Each attack was beaten back, but each drove nearer and nearer to the thin gray line. By early afternoon, it was clear to Pope that Jackson could never hold. He sent a gleeful telegram to Washington that Jackson was bottled up and weakening.
If McClellan would join forces with him now, promised Pope, the Union would have Stonewall Jackson’s head on a platter soon. As Union forces threw the day’s final assault at the exhausted Rebel line, Pope received a telegram which he knew signaled Jackson’s end. McClellan was on the march and would join him early next morning.
Jackson’s line still held, but each repulse of a Federal charge had grown feebler. Satisfied, Pope pulled back to await the arrival of McClellan’s troops. Jackson was trapped. Escape was impossible. Pope had planned for every contingency. Except one. Intent on destroying Jackson, Pope had forgotten Robert E. Lee, who was on the march toward him. During the night, Lee arrived with his other lieutenant general, James Longstreet, and thirty thousand fresh Confederates.
Silent as stalking gray wolves, Longstreet’s men moved masked cannon within two hundred yards of the Union left flank. And ever so quietly, thirty thousand men in gray moved into position for a flank attack.
In the railroad cut, with midnight long past, Canon summoned his will to fight off exhaustion. He tried, too, to think of words of encouragement he could give to his men as he rode along the half-mile long defensive position. It had been the worst day of fighting he had known. The Black Horse fought dismounted this day, in the thick of it, and he had seen death wrought on a scale he had thought impossible. Southern casualties must be fifteen percent, he thought, and the Yankee number of dead and wounded must be three times as great. And still they kept coming. The final Union charge of the day almost broke them. The attackers finally gained the trench. Hand to hand fighting lasted almost a half-hour before the Yankees were driven back.
Worse, a Union trooper discovered a breach in the wall of the trench where a run-off stream had washed a deep ditch into the earth. Jackson had given defense of the ditch to the Stonewall Brigade and the Black Horse, and had placed Canon in charge. Now it would bear the brunt of the next attack.
Both of Canon’s back-up commanders in the Black Horse had gone down in the fight, though one would likely recover. And Canon had felt bullets tear his clothing twice, one at his right sleeve and another at his right shoulder. He was unsure how many times he heard the dark hum of bullets past his head. Five? Six?
No matter. He was alive and there was work to do.
The night following a battle was worse than the battle itself. During the heat of the fight, there was no time for the mind to grasp the wicked wet whooshing sound made by a man who takes a bullet in the guts. In war, night is the time for pity. Out in the night, dying men were calling for water and comfort. Some, delirious, called for their father or mother. But even if someone braved the risk of sniper bullets in the dark field, chances were slim that the wounded man could be found amidst all the bodies—hundreds upon hundreds—that lay in the field like crumpled scarecrows.
It was almost two A.M. Men slept on their rifles, and would awake to fresh horrors of the new morning on the field of battle. Those who could waken. But a few small campfires burned in the cut where a soldier or two could not sleep. Canon saw one of the fires in the near distance, approached it with dread.
“Any word, suh? Any word from Genrul Lee?” said one of the two men. In the feeble light, Canon could make out feeble features. Both men were ragged, dirty, with scraggly beards. Feeling at the dirt caked on his face, and checking his uniform in the firelight, Canon realized that he must look much the same as the two men. They were boiling coffee in a coffeepot that wasn’t new at Manassas a year ago.
“Still enjoying that Yankee coffee from the supply depot, eh?” said Canon.
“Yessuh,” said the bold one, while the other looked into the fire, either angry or embarrassed to have an officer at their fire. “Me and Billy here wouldn’t mind stopping by another one like that after we get through with these here Yanks, would we, Billy?”
Billy finally looked at Canon, smiled a shy smile and shook his head. Canon doubted the boy was sixteen. “Would ye jine us in a cup, Colonel?” mumbled Billy, looking back at the fire.
“Have to ride on down to the flank right now, fellows, but I’ll be back this way directly,” said Canon. “If I’m back this way in time and the offer holds, I’d be much obliged.” Canon realized he wanted a cup of hot coffee more than he could remember wanting anything, and he wanted the companionship of these two men who managed to be cordial in the midst of horror.
“And word from Genrul Lee, suh?” said the first, again.
“Help is on the way,” said Canon, convincingly as possible.
“Yessuh. Good to hear it,” said the man, totally unconvinced.
Canon touched his cap in return to their salutes, rode on. How could he