lay beyond the stream. He was ordered to feign an
attack on that point while the second and third divisions should creep
cautiously along a circuitous road two miles above, cross unopposed and
slip into the rear of Beauregard's long-drawn left wing, roll it up in a
mighty scroll of flame, join Tyler's division as it should sweep across
the Stone Bridge and together the three divisions in one solid mass
could crush the ten-mile battle line into hopeless confusion.

The plan was skillfully and daringly conceived.

Tyler's division halted at the Stone Bridge and silently formed as the
first glow of dawn tinged the eastern hills.

The dull red of the July sun was just coloring the sky with its flame
when the second and third divisions crossed Bull Run at Sudley's Ford
and began their swift descent upon the rear of the unsuspecting Southern
army.

As the sun burst above the hills, a circle of white smoke suddenly
curled away from a cannon's mouth above the Stone Bridge and slowly rose
in the still, clear morning air. Its sullen roar echoed over the valley.
The gray figures on the hill beyond leaped to their feet and looked.
Only the artillery was engaged and their shots were falling short.

The Confederates appeared indifferent. The action was too obviously a
feint. Colonel Evans was holding his regiment for a clearer plan of
battle to develop. From the hilltop on which his men lay he scanned with
increasing uneasiness the horizon toward the west. In the far distance
against the bright Southern sky loomed the dark outline of the Blue
Ridge. The heavy background brought out in vivid contrast the woods and
fields, hollows and hills of the great Manassas plain in the foreground.

Suddenly he saw it--a thin cloud of dust rising in the distance. As the
rushing wall of sixteen thousand men emerged from the "Big Forest,"
through which they had worked their way along the crooked track of a
rarely used road, the dust cloud flared in the sky with ominous menace.

Colonel Evans knew its meaning. Beauregard's army had been flanked and
the long thin lines of his left wing were caught in a trap. When the
first rush of the circling host had swept his little band back from the
Stone Bridge Tyler's army would then cross and the three divisions swoop
down on the doomed men.

Evans suddenly swung his regiment and two field pieces into a new line
of battle facing the onrushing host and sent his courier flying to
General Bee to ask that