, before he
turned east from Gainesville, was delayed by Sigel's trains, which
crossed his line of march, and it was not till noon that Hooker's
advanced guard halted amid the still smouldering ruins on the
Manassas plateau. The march had been undisturbed. The redoubts were
untenanted. The woods to the north were silent. A few grey-coated
vedettes watched the operations from far-distant ridges; a few
stragglers, overcome perhaps by their Gargantuan meal of the previous
evening, were picked up in the copses, but Jackson's divisions had
vanished from the earth.

Then came order and counter-order. Pope was completely bewildered. By
four o'clock, however, the news arrived that the railway at Burke's
Station, within twelve miles of Alexandria, had been cut, and that
the enemy was in force between that point and Centreville. On
Centreville, therefore, the whole army was now directed; Hooker,
Kearney, and Reno, forming the right wing, marched by Blackburn's
Ford, and were to be followed by Porter and Banks; Sigel and
Reynolds, forming the centre, took the road by New Market and the
Stone Bridge; McDowell (King's and Ricketts' divisions), forming the
left, was to pass through Gainesville and Groveton. But when the
right wing reached Centreville, Pope was still at fault. There were
traces of a marching column, but some small patrols of cavalry, who
retreated leisurely before the Federal advance, were the sole
evidence of the enemy's existence. Night was at hand, and as the
divisions he accompanied were directed to their bivouacs, Pope sought
in vain for the enemy he had believed so easy a prey.

Before his troops halted the knowledge came to him. Far away to the
south-west, where the great Groveton valley, backed by the wooded
mountains, lay green and beautiful, rose the dull booming of cannon,
swelling to a continuous roar; and as the weary soldiers, climbing
the slopes near Centreville, looked eagerly in the direction of the
sound, the rolling smoke of a fierce battle was distinctly visible
above the woods which bordered the Warrenton-Alexandria highway.
Across Bull Run, in the neighbourhood of Groveton, and still further
westward, where the cleft in the blue hills marked Thoroughfare Gap,
was seen the flash of distant guns. McDowell, marching northwards
through Gainesville, had evidently come into collision with the
enemy. Jackson was run to earth at last; and it was now clear that
while Pope had been moving northwards on