Summer Lightning: A Guide to the Second Battle of Manassas

Chapter 2. Thursday, August 28, 1862

Chapter 2 Thursday, August 28, 1862 If you are traveling east or west on Interstate 66, take Exit 47 and drive north on Virginia Highway 234 for 0.7 mile to the park road on your right, which leads to the Visitor Center on Henry Hill. Turn right onto this road, drive to the Visitor Center parking lot, and park. Before you begin your tour and study of the Second Battle of Manassas, you may wish to go into the Visitor Center to obtain an overview of the battle. Although modern-day road designations will be used the first time you encounter a road, as you move around the battlefield , from that point on the name of the road in 1862 will be used. When you are finished with your tour of the Visitor Center, return to your car and retrace your route on the park road back to Virginia Highway 234. This is also the Sudley Road. Turn right onto the Sudley Road and drive north for 0.4 mile to the intersection with U.S. Highway 29 (Lee Highway). This is also the Warrenton Turnpike. Turn left onto the Warrenton Turnpike and drive southwest for 1.7 miles to the park road on your right. Turn on to this park road and drive the short distance to the parking lot. Park, leave your car, and walk 30 yards to the artillery guns and look in the direction they are pointed, which is north-northeast. Stop 1, Position A—The Armies Make Contact In 1862 the road you turned off of was named the Warrenton Turnpike. It was a major feature that traversed the entire battlefield generally from west to east. East of the battlefield the Thursday, August 28, 1862 22 turnpike went to Centreville, Fairfax, and Alexandria. West of the battlefield it went to Gainesville and then on to Warrenton. At Gainesville it connected with a road that went to and through Thoroughfare Gap. The Warrenton Turnpike provided a key route for both armies to concentrate from the east or the west. Late in the afternoon of August 28 the three divisions of Jackson’s command were in position along an unfinished railroad line on the higher ground north and northeast of your location. Longstreet’s command was located 11 miles west of you at Thoroughfare Gap. Pope’s forces were spread out from Gainesville, 4 miles west of you, to Manassas Junction, 7 miles southeast of you. Many of Pope’s units were marching toward Manassas Junction under the false belief that Jackson was still there. Earlier in the afternoon, Brigadier General John F. Reynolds’s division had approached this location and made contact with what was believed to be a small Confederate force covering the movement of a wagon train. Before the situation could be fully developed, Reynolds turned his division southeast and continued on toward Manassas Junction. The next division behind Reynolds was Brigadier General Rufus King’s First Division of Major General Irvin McDowell’s Third Corps. The order of march for King’s division was the brigades of Brigadier Generals John P. Hatch, John Gibbon, Abner Doubleday, and Marsena R. Patrick. The four batteries of the division’s artillery were interspersed with the infantry. Hatch’s brigade marched past this location without interruption . What occurred as the head of Gibbon’s brigade reached this location shredded Pope’s plan and showed the Union commanders exactly where Jackson was located. The terrain where you are located looks very much as it did in 1862. To your left (west) was a wood. On the other side of the northern edge of the wood was the Brawner farmhouse. Seven hundred yards to your right was the crossroads hamlet of Groveton. In front of you, on the higher ground, there was a wood that went from in front of you to the northeast. On this higher ground there was an unfinished railroad. In many places cuts had been made to level the bed for the rail tracks. These Thursday, August 28, 1862 23 cuts provided a natural defensive position for whoever occupied them. Jackson’s three divisions with artillery were located on the high ground in front of you and to your right front. Directly in front of you were the four brigades of Jackson’s Division, commanded by Brigadier General William B. Taliaferro. To Taliaferro’s left, your right front, was Major General Richard...