unable to keep up.) Taliaferro, on the right, had two brigades (A.  G. Taliaferro’s and the Stonewall) in first line; Starke was in second line, and Bradley Johnson near Groveton village.  Ewell, on the left, had placed Lawton and Trimble in front, while Early and Forno formed a general reserve.  This force numbered in all about 8000 men, and even the skirmishers, thrown out well to the front, were concealed by the undulations of the ground.

The Federal division commanded by General King, although unprovided with cavalry and quite unsupported, was no unworthy enemy.  It was composed of four brigades of infantry, led by excellent officers, and accompanied by four batteries.  The total strength was 10,000 men.  The absence of horsemen, however, placed the Northerners at a disadvantage from the outset.

The leading brigade was within a mile of Groveton, a hamlet of a few houses at the foot of a long descent, and the advanced guard, deployed as skirmishers, was searching the woods in front.  On the road in rear, with the batteries between the columns, came the three remaining brigades—­Gibbon’s, Doubleday’s, and Patrick’s—­in the order named.

The wood in which the Confederates were drawn up was near a mile from the highway, on a commanding ridge, overlooking a broad expanse of open ground, which fell gently in successive undulations to the road.  The Federals were marching in absolute unconsciousness that the enemy, whom the last reports had placed at Manassas, far away to the right, was close at hand.  No flank-guards had been thrown out.  General King was at Gainesville, sick, and a regimental band had just struck up a merry quickstep.  On the open fields to the left, bathed in sunshine, there was not a sign of life.  The whitewashed cottages, surrounded by green orchards, which stood upon the slopes, were lonely and untenanted, and on the edge of the distant wood, still and drooping in the heat, was neither stir nor motion.  The troops trudged steadily forward through the dust; regiment after regiment disappeared in the deep copse which 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.