The advance was made in the following order: 

Wilcox’ division, north of the turnpike, connected with Jackson’s right.  Then came Evans, facing the two brigades which formed the Federal left, and extending across the turnpike.  Behind Evans came Anderson on the left and Kemper on the right.  Then, in prolongation of Kemper’s line, but at some interval, marched the division of D.R.  Jones, flanked by Stuart’s cavalry, and on the further wing, extending towards Bull Run, were Starke, Lawton, and A.P.  Hill. 50,000 men, including the cavalry, were thus deployed over a front of four miles; each division was formed in at least two lines; and in the centre, where Anderson and Kemper supported Evans, were no less than eight brigades one in rear of the other.

The Federal advanced line, behind which the troops which had been engaged in the last attack were slowly rallying, extended from the Groveton wood to a low hill, south of the turnpike and east of the village.  This hill was quickly carried by Hood’s brigade of Evans’s division.  The two regiments which defended it, rapidly outflanked, and assailed by overwhelming numbers, were routed with the loss of nearly half their muster.  Jackson’s attack through the Groveton wood was equally successful, but on the ridge in rear were posted the regulars under Sykes; and, further east, on Buck Hill, had assembled the remnants of four divisions.

Outflanked by the capture of the hill upon their left, and fiercely assailed in front, Sykes’s well-disciplined regiments, formed in lines of columns and covered by a rear-guard of skirmishers, retired steadily under the tremendous fire, preserving their formation, and falling back slowly across Young’s Branch.  Then Jackson, reforming his troops along the Sudley road, and swinging round to the left, moved swiftly against Buck Hill.  Here, in addition to the infantry, were posted three Union batteries, and the artillery made a desperate endeavour to stay the counterstroke.

But nothing could withstand the vehement charge of the Valley soldiers.  “They came on,” says the correspondent of a Northern journal, “like demons emerging from the earth.”  The crests of the ridges blazed with musketry, and Hill’s infantry, advancing in the very teeth of the canister, captured six guns at the bayonet’s point.  Once more Jackson reformed his lines; and, as twilight came down upon the battle-field, from position after position, in the direction of the Stone Bridge, the division of Stevens, Ricketts, Kearney, and Hooker, were gradually pushed back.

On the Henry Hill, the key of the Federal position, a fierce conflict was meanwhile raging.  From the high ground to the south Longstreet had driven back several brigades which, in support of the artillery, Sigel and McDowell had massed upon Bald Hill.  But this position had not been occupied without a protracted struggle.  Longstreet’s first line, advancing with over-impetuosity, had outstripped