the second; and before it could be supported was compelled to give ground under the enemy’s fire, one of the brigades losing 62 officers and 560 men.  Anderson and Kemper were then brought up; the flank of the defenders was turned; a counterstroke was beaten back, ridge after ridge was mastered, the edge of every wood was stormed; and as the sun set behind the mountains Bald Hill was carried.  During this fierce action the division of D.R.  Jones, leaving the Chinn House to the left, had advanced against the Henry Hill.

6 P.M.

On the very ground which Jackson had held in his first battle the best troops of the Federal army were rapidly assembling.  Here were Sykes’ regulars and Reynolds’ Pennsylvanians; where the woods permitted batteries had been established; and Porter’s Fifth Army Corps, who at Gaines’ Mill and Malvern Hill had proved such stubborn fighters, opposed a strong front once more to their persistent foes.

Despite the rapid fire of the artillery the Southerners swept forward with unabated vigour.  But as the attack was pressed the resistance of the Federals grew more stubborn, and before long the Confederate formation lost its strength.  The lines in rear had been called up.  The assistance of the strong centre had been required to rout the defenders of Bald Hill; and although Anderson and Wilcox pressed forward on his left, Jones had not sufficient strength to storm the enemy’s last position.  Moreover, the Confederate artillery had been unable to follow the infantry over the broken ground; the cavalry, confronted by Buford’s squadrons and embarrassed by the woods, could lend no active aid, and the Federals, defeated as they were, had not yet lost all heart.  Whatever their guns could do, in so close a country, to relieve the infantry had been accomplished; and the infantry, though continually outflanked, held together with unflinching courage.  Stragglers there were, and stragglers in such large numbers that Bayard’s cavalry brigade had been ordered to the rear to drive them back; but the majority of the men, hardened by months of discipline and constant battle, remained staunch to the colours.  The conviction that the battle was lost was no longer a signal for “the thinking bayonets” to make certain of their individual safety; and the regulars, for the second time on the same field, provided a strong nucleus of resistance.

Thrown into the woods along the Sudley-Manassas road, five battalions of the United States army held the extreme left, the most critical point of the Federal line, until the second brigade relieved them.  To their right Meade and his Pennsylvanians held fast against Anderson and Wilcox; and although six guns fell into the hands of the Confederate infantry, and four of Longstreet’s batteries, which had accompanied the cavalry, were now raking their left, Pope’s soldiers, as twilight descended upon the field, redeemed as far as soldiers could the errors of their general.