prepared to carry out his instructions, and hold Jackson until the remainder of Pope’s army should arrive upon the field.  At the end of July, Sigel’s army corps had numbered 13,000 men.  Allowing for stragglers and for casualties on the Rappahannock, where it had been several times engaged, it must still have mustered 11,000.  It was accompanied by ten batteries, and Reynolds’ division was composed of 8000 infantry and four batteries.  The attack was thus no stronger than the defence, and as the Federal artillery positions were restricted by the woods, there could be little doubt of the result.  In other respects, moreover, the combatants were not evenly matched.  Reynolds’ Pennsylvanians were fine troops, already seasoned in the battles on the Peninsula, and commanded by such officers as Meade and Seymour.  But Sigel, who had been an officer in the Baden army, had succeeded Fremont, and his corps was composed of those same Germans whom Ewell had used so hardly at Cross Keys.  Many of them were old soldiers, who had borne arms in Europe; but the stern discipline and trained officers of conscript armies were lacking in America, and the Confederate volunteers had little respect for these foreign levies.  Nor were Sigel’s dispositions a brilliant example of offensive tactics.  His three divisions, Schurz’, Schenck’s, and Steinwehr’s, supported by Milroy’s independent brigade, advanced to the attack along a wide front.  Schurz, with two brigades, moving into the Groveton wood, assailed the Confederate left, while Milroy and Schenck advanced over the open meadows which lay in front of the right.  Steinwehr was in reserve, and Reynolds, somewhat to the rear, moved forward on the extreme left.  The line was more than two miles long; the artillery, hampered by the ground, could render but small assistance; and at no single point were the troops disposed in sufficient depth to break through the front of the defence.  The attack, too, was piecemeal.  Advancing through the wood, Schurz’ division was at once met by a sharp counterstroke, delivered by the left brigade (Gregg’s South Carolina) of A.P.  Hill’s division, which drove the two Federal brigades apart.  Reinforcements were sent in by Milroy, who had been checked on the open ground by the heavy fire of Jackson’s guns, and the Germans rallied; but, after some hard fighting, a fresh counterstroke, in which Thomas’ brigade took part, drove them in disorder from the wood; and the South Carolinians, following to the edge, poured heavy volleys into their retreating masses.  Schenck, meanwhile, deterred by the batteries on Jackson’s right, had remained inactive; the Federal artillery, such as had been brought into action, had produced no effect; Reynolds, who had a difficult march, had not yet come into action; and in order to support the broken troops Schenck was now ordered to close in upon the right.  But the opportunity had already passed.

10.15 A.M.