Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/333

Rh At about 10 o'clock, Pope, from Culpeper, six miles in the rear, ordered Banks to the front to make an immediate attack on Jackson. Picketts' division was held some four miles in front of Culpeper, where the Madison road enters the Orange road, as Pope was in doubt as to whether Jackson was advancing in force over the Orange road; Sigel was ordered forward from Sperryville, 20 miles away at the foot of the Blue ridge, but became no factor in the impending conflict, because, after receiving his orders, he sent back to know which road he should take, although a graded one led directly from his camp to Pope's headquarters at Culpeper, and so arrived too late to join in the combat. It was about noon when Banks' advance reached the vicinity of Cedar run, the line of which was being held by Bayard with his cavalry and artillery. Crawford's brigade was formed on the right of the road, extending up through the woods to near the crest of the low ridge before mentioned. In his front was a wheat field, also extending up the slope of the ridge and prolonged by another field, the two cutting out a narrow parallelogram from the forest. Across this field, in the edge of the forest, with its right resting in a strip of woods south of the road and its left extending a short distance into the edge of the forest to the north of it, Jackson placed Taliaferro's brigade. Banks placed Augur's division, of three brigades, on the left of the road, thus extending his line to the south along the slope toward Cedar creek from the eastward. In Augur's front, next to the Culpeper road, was a large field of standing Indian corn; to the south of that, pasture fields reached to the foot of Slaughter mountain. The topography of the ground occupied by Banks was well suited for defense. That commander, smarting under the criticisms that Jackson's Valley campaign had brought upon him, and having in hand Pope's peremptory order to attack, was in a fighting mood, and doubtless thought that he now had an opportunity for settling with Jackson and regaining his lost reputation.

About 5 p. m. of the long August day, when the sun in that locality does not set before half past seven, and being in battle array, Banks ordered an advance, by one brigade on the north and two on the south of the road, which moved promptly and bravely forward. Gordon's brigade, one of the best in the division, remained in