Then came order and counter-order.  Pope was completely bewildered.  By four o’clock, however, the news arrived that the railway at Burke’s Station, within twelve miles of Alexandria, had been cut, and that the enemy was in force between that point and Centreville.  On Centreville, therefore, the whole army was now directed; Hooker, Kearney, and Reno, forming the right wing, marched by Blackburn’s Ford, and were to be followed by Porter and Banks; Sigel and Reynolds, forming the centre, took the road by New Market and the Stone Bridge; McDowell (King’s and Ricketts’ divisions), forming the left, was to pass through Gainesville and Groveton.  But when the right wing reached Centreville, Pope was still at fault.  There were traces of a marching column, but some small patrols of cavalry, who retreated leisurely before the Federal advance, were the sole evidence of the enemy’s existence.  Night was at hand, and as the divisions he accompanied were directed to their bivouacs, Pope sought in vain for the enemy he had believed so easy a prey.

Before his troops halted the knowledge came to him.  Far away to the south-west, where the great Groveton valley, backed by the wooded mountains, lay green and beautiful, rose the dull booming of cannon, swelling to a continuous roar; and as the weary soldiers, climbing the slopes near Centreville, looked eagerly in the direction of the sound, the rolling smoke of a fierce battle was distinctly visible above the woods which bordered the Warrenton-Alexandria highway.  Across Bull Run, in the neighbourhood of Groveton, and still further westward, where the cleft in the blue hills marked Thoroughfare Gap, was seen the flash of distant guns.  McDowell, marching northwards through Gainesville, had evidently come into collision with the enemy.  Jackson was run to earth at last; and it was now clear that while Pope had been moving northwards on Centreville, the Confederates had been moving westward, and that they were once more within reach of Lee.  But by what means, Pope might well have asked, had a whole army corps, with its batteries and waggons, passed through the cordon which he had planned to throw around it, and passed through as if gifted with the secret of invisibility?

The explanation was simple.  While his enemies were watching the midnight glare above Manassas, Jackson was moving north by three roads; and before morning broke A.P.  Hill was near Centreville, Ewell had crossed Bull Run by Blackburn’s Ford, and Taliaferro was north of Bald Hill, with a brigade at Groveton, while Stuart’s squadrons formed a screen to front and flank.  Then, as the Federals slowly converged on Manassas, Hill and Ewell, marching unobserved along the north bank of Bull Run, crossed the Stone Bridge; Taliaferro joined them, and before Pope had found that his enemy had left the Junction, the Confederates were in bivouac north of Groveton, hidden in the woods, and recovering from the fatigue of their long night march.* (* A.P.  Hill had marched fourteen miles, Ewell fifteen, and Taliaferro, with whom were the trains, from eight to ten.)