The Dominion's Dilemma: The United States of British America (83 page)

      Taylor looked over and smiled. “Your opinion is always valued, Colonel…”

      “Well, General, I propose that the reason they’ve stopped is because they don’t know---or can’t agree---on how to proceed. They were hoping to catch us out in the open north of Bull Run. Since we didn’t oblige them, they may just not know what to do next. Or else, they’re sitting there arguing.”

      He looked around the table and grinned. “The belle express reported that Wool and Worth were in joint command. I believe that joint has already cracked…”

        Zach Taylor broke out laughing. “You do have a way with words, Colonel. And in this case, they’re, if you’ll pardon my French, ‘apropos.’”

        He looked at Twiggs, Davis and the others. “That means I concur. They simply can’t agree what to do next…which gives us time to ponder their options…and plan our responses.

     “If-and-when they do make up their minds…”

___________

Off the Warrenton Pike

Two miles east of Bull Run

November 3, 1833, 5 a.m.:

    I Corps had been roused at 2 a.m. and on the road 30 minutes later, trudging up the hilly terrain west of the Pike, as historian Foote would write, “stumbling over logs and roots…stabbed by branches in the woods, clanking as they ran to catch up or…stock still in the thick dust…” Behind them came horse-pulled---and man-pushed---caissons of smooth bore cannon, wheels creaking and sometimes breaking as they, too, ran up against the logs and were caught by the thick roots. Along with wagons carrying ammunition and other supplies. Five batteries worth that the veterans were already betting would never see Sudley Springs intact.

     In a second conference yesterday morning, with General Thayer present, Captain Wilder had warned that there was no realistic road off the Pike and up to Sudley. “The maps may indicate a road, but it’s a simple, single-file trail,” Tom had explained. “It’s mostly uphill through overgrown fields and woods. Same thing once you turn south again to Sudley.”

     But General Wool had smiled his superior smile and brushed off the report. “I’ve had the route scouted independently and am told it is of moderate difficulty. That’s one reason I have chosen it: if, like Captain Wilder, the Rebels think the march is impractical, they will not be expecting us to come down behind them.” He looked around as if lecturing at The Point. “The element of surprise, gentlemen. Never underestimate its value…”

     Tom’s eye caught that of Colonel Felton, the Ohioan.
Yeah
, the big man seemed to be thinking,
never underestimate the value of surprise…especially on
you
.

___________

     Dawn was now breaking, but I Corps was still making its way up hill, far from the left turn that would lead it to the fords at Sudley. Colonel Felton had had a gut feeling ever since yesterday’s conference that Wool was overly optimistic.
That young Regular’s been over the ground. The boy knows his business better than this pompous blowhard…who
apparently thinks he’s about to recreate some famous battle from antiquity
. Felton didn’t know much about antiquity, but he had been fighting Indians for over 20 years. And there had never been a battle---a firefight---that hadn’t surprised
him
…

    Between the uphill march over, around and through the natural impediments, and with the ungodly heat---even in the darkness the temperature was in the 80s--men were sweating, huffing and coughing already. They had long since shed all ‘unnecessary’ paraphernalia: blankets, jackets and cooking equipment. Their arms, ammunition belts and canteens were all that was left. Still, men dropped back or out. Felton gave orders to hurry the stragglers along. 
If we don’t get to these damn fords pretty soon, these men are gonna be too exhausted to fight.
The Colonel leaned into his saddle horn as he sat horsed to watch the line go by.
I don’t like this, not one damn bit...

___________

    “Colonel Buford, I want your artillery across that damn bridge the moment it’s secured. The Regulars, followed by the 1
^st
New York, will fan out once they’re across to screen you.  They’ll give you enough space on the east side of the Pike to temporarily park your guns. Don’t know yet where you’ll be headed, but we’ll play it by ear.”

     It was 6 a.m. and General Worth stood with his artillery chief just yards from the north end of Stone Bridge. He paced, waiting impatiently for any indication from the west that I Corps had reached and crossed the fords at Sudley Spring. Bill Worth still thought the plan to divide the army and attempt to coordinate attacks on an enemy whose exact location had yet to be positively determined was folly.

     But when Thayer’s eyes had lit up at the complexity of Wool’s plan, he knew he was outvoted. 

    
Damn engineers. Designing a battle plan isn’t like designing a bridge. Simplicity. Simplicity plus power. Coordination requires communication. Better communications than we can hope for in this wilderness. Should just blast through. Blast through, reform, find ‘em and hit ‘em with all we got. One big Sunday punch. Not some plan based on a battle 2000 years ago. Maybe I should have reminded them: Hannibal won that battle, but the Romans won the damn war… Now where the hell is Wool? It’s nearly 6:30...

___________

New Market

6:30 a.m.:

      Colonel Johnston glanced at the message from the CSA scouts on Matthews Hill. The dominant ground on that part of the field, it centered a rounded-corners rectangle formed by the meandering Run on its north and west sides and the junction of the Pike and the Manassas-Sudley Road on its south and east. Extended out to the stony Sudley Mountain, it highlighted the northwest portion of the “spraddled X” and offered an unobstructed view of the terrain to the west. Terrain that the Dominion’s I Corps was laboring to clear…

      He hurried over to General Taylor, who, in an open-necked shirt and planter’s hat, was standing at a makeshift map table with Twiggs and some junior commanders. Including, he noticed, Lt. Col. R.E. Lee. “General, we’ve got confirmation now. Our scouts have picked up Yankees north of the bend of the Run, just northwest of Sudley Springs. They’re spread out all the way around the bend. Must have jumped off the Pike a couple miles north of the Stone Bridge. Could be as much as a whole corps, plus some artillery.”

    Taylor glanced at the map and pointed to the Bridge. “And what of the main body, Sir? The force poised just north of here? What is its disposition?”

      Major Davis spoke up. “General, our men along the south bank report the Yankees appear ready to cross, both at the Bridge and at the two immediate lower fords, Lewis and Ball’s. They came up before dawn and we thought they’d move at first light, but they’re still on the north bank.”

      Twiggs: “General, the Yankees’ lower force---the one at the Bridge and the fords---is obviously waiting a signal to coordinate the attacks. If we reinforce at the Bridge and those two fords, pulling out every unit we’ve got guarding the lower fords and sending them into the fight, we can hold them long enough for my troops further west to deal with whatever’s coming down from Sudley. If we can prevent a hook-up, we can beat them in detail!”

      Taylor turned to Sidney Johnston. “Colonel, you are quite sure there is no enemy in strength, east of Ball’s Ford? Or back on the Manassas-Centreville Road?” He ran his finger up a long, winding road that crossed the Run at Mitchell’s Ford.  “Quite sure?

     “All right then, gentlemen. The battle will be here.” He ran his finger in a circle around the Pike from Matthews Hill south to Ball’s Ford. “Bring everyone up from the eastern fords. Colonel Lee, that means your Virginians. See to it. Colonel Johnston, I want the artillery here.” He pointed to a rise listed as Henry Hill. “Have them placed north and west in a semi-circle. That way they can face both fronts. General Twiggs, I thank you urging yesterday that your command be placed on the Manassas-Sudley Road. You may have an opportunity for a flank attack when that force from the northwest crosses Sudley Springs and heads down Matthews Hill. See to it, but keep me in constant touch.”

       Twiggs nodded, put on his hat and turned to leave. Then: “Will Headquarters remain here, General?”

       “No, I believe I will join the artillery on Henry Hill.” Taylor looked at Sidney Johnston. “Colonel, join your command on the northern front. Keep those Yankees bottled up until General Twiggs has dealt with the ones coming down from the west. Good luck.”

     Johnston came to attention and saluted. “Advantageous terrain and short interior lines, General. We couldn’t have asked for anything more…” He strode to the orderly
holding the reins of his horse and pulled himself into the saddle. “…Didn’t those Yankees
learn anything at The Point?”

___________

                      THE ARMIES OF BULL RUN

     Historians of the Rebellion would note the similarities as well as the differences in the two armies that met at Bull Run, though Sergeant DeGraw is readily conceded as most accurate in describing them as ‘armed mobs.’ The Dominion Army continued its tradition of utilizing a numbering system to differentiate its units: The I Corps, the 3
^rd
Illinois, etc. While the Confederacy officially adopted this system, in practice their units were more commonly known by the names of the commanders. Thus, the 1
^st
Virginia Cavalry was usually referred to as “Beaufort’s Cavalry”; the 1
^st
Corps as “Twiggs’ Corps.”

    As another noted student of the Rebellion, Noah Andre Trudeau, has written, the two most important unit formations were the column and the line:

    “A column was a marching formation; with three or four men abreast, it packed a regiment into as compact a space as practical for rapid movement along a road or across open ground.” This was the formation the Dominion’s I Corps had departed the Warrenton Pike in to begin its long, hot trek up to Sudley Springs. Due to both field conditions---the “single file trail and open fields” reported by Captain Wilder but scoffed at by General Wool at the previous day’s conference--and the lack of training and conditioning of the troops, the line had lengthened dramatically and unsatisfactorily long before Sudley was sighted.

   “Once engaged in (or for) combat,” continued Trudeau, “columns transformed into lines of battle---usually at least two and sometimes three, with the third standing by as a reserve. These lines, each containing perhaps three hundred men or more, were jointed by companies, allowing one section of the line to face one way while another portion faced in a different direction. The ends of the line were its flanks; the process of bending back a segment of the line so that the men stood at an angle to their original orientation was referred to as ‘refusing the flank.’” When General Twiggs left New Market to rejoin his Corps, which had marched by column up the Manassas-Sudley Road the previous day and now rested in the woods adjacent to the descending southern slope of Matthews Hill, it was to form them into lines of battle. This, too, is what General Wool intended to do when his column finally concentrated at the Springs.

    The lines of battle relied on, as taught by Bonaparte, a massing of muskets and cannon and the resultant firepower for its effectiveness. “Often positioned in advance…and more dispersed were irregular detachments known as skirmish lines. Their purpose was to harry the enemy, break up advancing formations and provide the main body with ample warning when trouble was coming. Skirmish lines could take many forms, from small cells of three and four men to widely strong lines consisting of individual soldiers posted several yards apart.”  As Trudeau indicates, these skirmish lines were effective
when in advance
of an enemy. They were not, however, particularly effective if the main body was attacked on the flanks…

    The Dominion Army slightly outnumbered its Grey enemy, with over 29,000 men to the CSA force of about 27,000. As the two armies were designed by the two top commanders of the “Old Army,” their organizational charts were relatively identical. Both armies were composed of two corps of two divisions each, with two brigades of five regiments in each division. The average regiment in each army consisted of approximately 600 troops and 25 officers. This allowed for brigades of 3000; divisions of 6000 and corps of 12,000 enlisted, led by approximately 1200 officers. (In the event, however, A.S. Johnston’s (2
^nd
) Corps entered the battle with approximately 9600 enlisted men as three Virginia regiments had been detached to operate as a small autonomous brigade guarding the eastern fords.)  Each corps in each army was assigned five batteries of artillery. The major difference between the armies was their application of cavalry. While USBAA Regular Cavalry (Dragoons) had screened the Dominion advance from Carlisle, acting independently, General Thayer had divided the regiment and assigned three troops to each Corps. These were supplemented by the 1
^st
Pennsylvania Cavalry and 1
^st
New York (I Corps) and the 1
^st
Indiana and 1
^st
Illinois (II Corps). Thayer supported the traditional view of the mounted arm as the eyes and ears of the infantry and thus best suited to perform scouting assignments for the Corps commanders. Zach Taylor, however, concentrated his five cavalry regiments as an independent fighting force under his direct control. Thus, in any mounted clash, the Rebels would have a distinct manpower advantage of as much as 2-to-1, being capable of fielding up to 2500 mounted men to no more than 1250 for the Dominion.