for attack.  But, except the pickets, not a single man of either the Stonewall or Lawton’s division was permitted to expose himself.  A few companies held the railroad, the remainder were carefully concealed.  The storm was not long in breaking.  Jackson had just ridden along his lines, examining with his own eyes the stir in the Groveton wood, when, in rear of the skirmishers, advancing over the highroad, appeared the serried ranks of the line of battle. 20,000 bayonets, on a front which extended from Groveton to near Bull Run, swept forward against his front; 40,000, formed in dense masses on the slopes in rear, stood in readiness to support them; and numerous batteries, coming into action on every rising ground, covered the advance with a heavy fire.

Pope, standing on a knoll near the Stone House, saw victory within his grasp.  The Confederate guns had been pointed out to his troops as the objective of the attack.  Unsupported, as he believed, save by the scattered groups of skirmishers who were already retreating to the railroad, and assailed in front and flank, these batteries, he expected, would soon be flying to the rear, and the Federal army, in possession of the high ground, would then sweep down in heavy columns towards Thoroughfare Gap.  Suddenly his hopes fell.  Porter’s masses, stretching far to right and left, had already passed the Dogan House; Hatch was entering the Groveton wood; Ricketts was moving forward along Bull Run, and the way seemed clear before them; when loud and clear above the roar of the artillery rang out the Confederate bugles, and along the whole length of the ridge beyond the railroad long lines of infantry, streaming forward from the woods, ran down to the embankment.  “The effect,” said an officer who witnessed this unexpected apparition, “was not unlike flushing a covey of quails.”

Instead of the small rear-guard which Pope had thought to crush by sheer force of overwhelming numbers, the whole of the Stonewall division, with Lawton on the left, stood across Porter’s path.

Reynolds, south of the turnpike, and confronting Longstreet, was immediately ordered to fall back and support the attack, and two small brigades, Warren’s and Alexander’s, were left alone on the Federal left.  Pope had committed his last and his worst blunder.  Sigel with two divisions was in rear of Porter, and for Sigel’s assistance Porter had already asked.  But Pope, still under the delusion that Longstreet was not yet up, preferred rather to weaken his left than grant the request of a subordinate.

Under such a leader the courage of the troops, however vehement, was of no avail, and in Porter’s attack the soldiers displayed a courage to which the Confederates paid a willing tribute.  Morell’s division, with the two brigades abreast, arrayed in three lines, advanced across the meadows.  Hatch’s division, in still deeper formation, pushed through the wood on Morell’s right.  Nearer Bull Run were two brigades of Ricketts; and to Morell’s left rear the division of regulars moved forward under Sykes.