For an hour Bee's brigade withstood the onslaught of the two Federal divisions--and then began to slowly fall back before the resistless wall of fire. The Union army charged and drove the broken lines a half mile before they rallied.
Tyler's division now swept across the Stone Bridge and the shattered Confederate left wing was practically surrounded by overwhelming odds. Again the storm burst on the unsupported lines of Bee and drove them three quarters of a mile before they paused.
The charging Federal army had struck something they were destined to feel again on many a field of blood.
General T. J. Jackson had suddenly swung his brigade of five regiments into the breach and stopped the wave of fire.
"General," he cried pathetically, "they are beating us back!"
The somber blue eyes of the Virginian gleamed beneath the heavy lashes:
"Then sir, we will give them the bayonet!"
Bee turned to his hard-pressed men and shouted:
"See Jackson and his Virginians standing like a stone wall! Let us conquer or die!"
The words had scarcely passed his lips when Bee fell, mortally wounded.
Four miles away on the top of a lonely hill sat Beauregard and Johnston befogged in a series of pitiable blunders.
The flanking of the Southern army was a complete and overwhelming surprise. Johnston, unacquainted with the ground, had yielded the execution of the battle to his subordinate.
While the two puzzled generals were waiting on their hill top for their orders of battle to be developed on the right they looked to the left and the whole valley was a boiling hell of smoke and dust and flame. Their left flank had been turned and the triumphant enemy was rolling their long line up in a shroud of flame and death.
The two Generals put spurs to their horses and dashed to the scene of action, sending their couriers flying to countermand their first orders. They reached the scene at the moment Bee's and Evans' shattered lines were taking refuge in a wooded ravine and Jackson had moved his men into a position to breast the shock of the enemy's avalanche.
In his excitement Johnston seized the colors of the fourth Alabama regiment and offered to lead them in a charge.
Beauregard leaped from his horse, faced the troops and shouted: