Battle of Chantilly  "Jackson's Flank Attack"  September 1, 1862

In the two-day 2nd Battle of Bull Run, Union Gen. John Pope's 60,000 soldiers made one desperate attack after another against Gen. Stonewall Jackson's 20,000 entrenched Confederate soldiers. With each attack they were thoroughly defeated when the other wing of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commanded by Gen. James Longstreet, delivered a flank attack that sent the Union army reeling back toward Washington. In spite of his 16,000 casualties and the exhaustion of his men, Pope managed an orderly retreat back to his entrenchments near Centerville. On August 31, 1862, with a display of false confidence, he wired Secretary of War Henry W. Halleck, "Ewell is killed. Jackson is badly wounded.... The plan of the enemy will undoubtedly be to turn my flank. If he does so he will have his hands full."

Confederate Gen. Richard S. Ewell was only wounded, not dead, and Stonewall Jackson, full of fight, was already marching three divisions over roundabout roads and coming up on Pope's flank. Eager to strike the mortal blow to the Northern army, Lee had sent Jackson's "foot cavalry" on yet another of their marches. While Longstreet's men buried the dead and held the Yankee's attention at Bull Run, Jackson was to fall on Pope's army and destroy it or prevent it from reaching shelter in the defenses of Washington.

An overnight rain turned the roads into troughs of mud that kept the supply wagons far to the rear as Jackson's tired and hungry men made slow progress around the Union army. On September 1, with dark thunderclouds overhead, Stonewall's column ran into a large force of well-posted Union soldiers blocking the way at Chantilly, a fine old country mansion on the Little River Turnpike. Jackson deployed his troops for an attack, and just as the Rebels began charging across the fields, the storm broke, driving sheets of rain into their faces.

Fascinating Fact:  Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill, one of Jackson's best division commanders, could never please Stonewall. Jackson had previously complained of Hill's marching too slowly. On the march to Chantilly, Jackson made the opposite complaint: Hill was moving too rapidly and causing too much straggling.


Back to index page