The following article is transcribed from Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, dated September 20, 2862:
The Second Battle of Bull Run
The following description from a Tribune correspondent, who was also present. The time was about noon, when Sigel was throwing out regiments to his left to prevent the rebels outflanking him:
In the order of battle for the day Heintzelman commanded the right, Porter and Sigel the centre, and McDowell the left. At 10 Heintzelman advanced skirmishers into the wood on the right of the battlefield of the day before and found it only held by a few troublesome bushwhackers. Driving them back, large numbers of wounded were got off and passed to the rear.
I rode in with these skirmishers as far as I deemed prudent. At any rate I got upon ground where the corpses attested the fighting of the day before. First I came upon bodies in blue. These were our fallen. Then there were those in blue mingled with others in gray and nondescript. That ground had been fought over. A little further they were all blue and nondescript. And there the bodies were thickest. Upon ground that I judged to be not over half an acre I counted seventy-nine bodies, dead and wounded. Advancing further still, I saw a Union soldier seized, not two rods from me, and carried off by bushwhackers. I retired (in good order), satisfied that the enemy's loss exceeded out own. At 2 o'clock, by the movements of troops from right to left, I inferred that the positions of the enemy had been found in that direction. By this time our line was different from that of the day before. Out right was further advanced, our left withdrawn, so that we fronted almost to the south. At Bull Run, a year ago, we faced exactly south.
At 3 o'clock General Stevens attacked at the right, ans soon after General Butterfield at the left. The enemy's shells seemed equally distributed along the whole line, and at each point of attack he met us with musketry.
I was at General Sigel's headquarters. That general was certain the enemy intended to turn one or the other of our flanks, and said we mus ascertain which ,or the result was at the best doubtful; for his scouts had just reported that Lee, with the entire remainder of the rebel army, had come up and assumed command. The scouts were correct. On Saturday we fought the whole rebel army.
Posting myself in the centre, within view of both portions of the field where infantry were engaged, I could not determine which had the best of it. Evidently but few troops were engaged, and I surmised that we were fighting merely to learn where lay the enemy's main force. At length our force at the right was driven back, an I thought General Pope had be out generaled when he moved men at an earlier part of the day from right to left.
A quarter of an hour later I wished he had moved still greater proportion to the left. I have heard the musketry of the best contested battles fought in Virginia, and I say unhesitatingly that the fire which broke out at the left and up to the centre was by far the heaviest of any. Talk of volleys, and rolls, and crashes! It was all these continually accumulating, piling yupon each other in mighty swelling volume -- the wrestle of rushing tornadoes such as chaos may have known. From my position it seemed that artillery played from each of the cardinal points upon the devoted centre where I knew men were struggling. I could see them struggling. The smoke of gunpowder prevented that, but I knew they were there, and I trembled for the result. A few minutes later Schurz, who was in reserve, was ordered to the left. Before he could get fairly into position McDowell and Porter were irretrievably broken. Their soldiers fought like brave men: if moments be reckoned by their intensity, they fought long, as they surely did fight well. I doubt not they piled the ground with rebel slain, as Halleck sings of Moslem slain by Bozzari's band. I believe there can not be a man who heard or participated in that awful tragedy but counts the hour between 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 o'clock the severest fighting he ever knew. It was all at one point. Along the right half of the line the combatants seemed to desist in amazement at the struggle there. By half after five it was apparent that we were beaten -- outflanked by a concentration upon the left. Wagoners and stragglers about the hospitals scented the retreat, and soon trains of the former and streams of the latter could be seen making for the Bull Run bridges and fords. McDowell's and Porter's corps retired in comparative order. I use this term not as a mild but false paraphrase for driven back, but because it covers the actual fact in the case.
I do not think there was a brigade that could not, as it came from the field, show its distinct regiments, or rather a nucleus of each regiment to whose standard ere it had marched a mile its scattered men gathered. Still there were several thousand hurrying pell-mell in advance of them toward Centreville, crowding the stone bridge and wading the stream. A dozen long wagon trains centred there, but there was little confusion among them, no desertion of wagons, but simply a jam, where each desired and pushed to be first. They were thus cool, notwithstanding a few shell burst among them. All this time the right was firm, and only at the calm discretion of its generals. Unaccountable to me at the time, so soon as we fell back from the left the musketry almost entirely ceased. We were pursued by shells only. It is probable that the enemy dared not advance lest Heintzelman and Sigel had not had his fight out, not had Heintzelman, and the enemy was hardly in condition for another battle immediately. It is possible, also that Banks's corps was nearing the field -- he was known to be at Manassas early in the day -- and they may have seen his advance and been afraid. It was all done in two hours.