The situation was now critical for Evans. His relatively stable right, once held by Wheat, was gone. His precarious left, held by Sloan, was being systematically slaughtered by Union cannons. Worse yet, the enemy, after much delay, was bringing up reinforcements for the 2nd Rhode Island. On the other side of the road, above Wheat’s new position, Colonel Andrew Porter was bringing up his brigade. A full Union division, about 5,000 men, now faced Evans’ 1,100 Confederates.

While the Federals formed to dispose of Evans’ pesky command, about 800 yards to Evans’ rear, on the northern slope of Henry Hill, a new player entered the fray as Confederate Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee drew his ad hoc brigade into position. He formed his troops so that they had a full view of the contest on the opposite height.

From his higher position atop Henry Hill, Bee could see that Evans was holding out against incredible odds. He sent a courier down to the hard-pressed South Carolinian to urge him to fall back to Henry Hill, a position that was stronger than the one he currently occupied. But Evans instead dared Bee to come down and support him. Faced with Evans’ intransigence, Bee reluctantly led his men forward. ‘Here is the battlefield,’ he said, ‘and we are in for it!’

Under heavy enemy artillery fire, Bee marched his command forward across the pike, up and over Buck Hill, and onto the slope of Matthews Hill, where he sent his lead regiment, the 4th Alabama, up through the pine thicket and into the same swale that Wheat had held a few minutes before. The 2nd Mississippi, next in line, was sent to the left of the 4th Alabama, linking up Sloan’s depleted 4th South Carolina. Bee’s last two regiments, the 7th and 8th Georgia, under Colonel Francis Bartow, moved to extend the Confederate right toward the Matthews house. Bee had arrived none too soon, for the advance elements of Heintzelman’s Federal division had began to arrive to support Burnside’s stymied line.

Wheat, out on his own and under steady fire from Union infantry and artillery, believed that he was ‘in the face of a very large force; some ten or twelve thousand in number.’ Despite the preponderance of enemy fire, he ordered his men to advance from the shelter of the woods and into the field of cut hay to connect with the rest of Bee’s command. Only a handful of Tigers obliged, however, and even they moved reluctantly out into the field, where they concealed themselves behind some haystacks as best they could. In the process of ousting the rest of his men from the woods, Wheat was hit by a Minié bullet that whizzed down from the top of Matthews Hill. The bullet clipped his left arm, drilled into his left side and perforated one lung before passing out the other side.

Wheat fell to the ground, and a group of his men, including Captain Buhoup, quickly surrounded him and rolled him onto a blanket. Then they began to lug their burly commander back to the wood line. The enemy fire was so galling that Wheat shouted, ‘Lay me down, boys, you must save yourselves!’ His pleas were ignored.

As Wheat was dragged into the relative safety of the woods, the battalion’s color-bearer threw his bullet-ridden flag over him to help stop the bleeding. A few minutes later, a mounted officer rode up to Wheat to rush him to the nearest field hospital.

Wheat’s wounding proved momentous. Once he was evacuated, the battalion, with no field officer to rally it, broke up and melted away, the men heading for the rear, some following Wheat himself. Their withdrawal eventually unhinged the rest of Bee’s line, which was already pressed beyond the breaking point.

By noon, Hunter’s and Heintzelman’s divisions had wrested control of Matthews Hill from the Confederates. Once they reached the pike, they were joined by the men of General Tyler’s division, who had finally pushed through Sloan’s four remaining companies at the Stone Bridge. General McDowell also arrived at the field and, happy with how the battle had evolved thus far, decided to press the attack.

As McDowell concentrated to deliver the coup de grâce, the bulk of Bee’s shattered command retreated south and east, across the pike, up the northern slope of Henry Hill, and into a patch of woods. There they were joined by Colonel Wade Hampton’s battalion of South Carolinians, just arrived from the Confederate right. Hampton agreed to continue his march down to the pike in order to cover Bee’s retreat. After a brief fight, Hampton’s men, fighting alone, were also overwhelmed by McDowell’s advancing forces and forced to fall back to Henry Hill.

The next Confederate units to arrive at Henry Hill included Brig. Gen. Thomas Jackson’s brigade of five Virginia regiments and Colonel Eppa Hunton’s 8th Virginia Infantry. These units were able to form a sturdy line in front of the woods on the eastern slope of Henry Hill. Thus shielded by Jackson’s ‘wall,’ Evans, Bee and Bartow were able to consolidate their scattered commands with the help of General Beauregard himself, just arrived at Henry Hill.

Like Wheat’s battalion, Sloan’s 4th South Carolina was broken up into companies. Four of its companies, one-time defenders of Matthews Hill, attached themselves to Hampton’s Legion. Another company attached itself to the 49th Virginia Infantry. The other five companies of Sloan’s regiment fell back to the Lewis House, where they attached themselves to the remaining Zouaves of Wheat’s battalion.

While Beauregard was busily constructing an entirely new line atop Henry Hill, McDowell sent his army forward. As the Federal advance moved into the woods, however, it was hit unexpectedly by fire from Colonel Arthur Cummings’ blue-coated 33rd Virginia Infantry. In the fight that followed, the confused Federal infantry broke and retreated back up the Manassas-Sudley Road. As they did so, from the south, 150 troopers from Colonel J.E.B. Stuart’s 1st Virginia Cavalry charged right into their disorganized mass, routed the infantrymen and drove them farther up the road.

Seizing the opportunity, Jackson immediately ordered his whole line forward. During the ensuing back-and-forth fighting at Henry Hill, Colonel Robert Withers and his 18th Virginia Infantry Regiment were ordered to remove themselves from Bull Run and reinforce Beauregard’s line on Henry Hill.

Withers recalled that he was ordered to move forward past the McLean House through a mass of retreating men. ‘As many of these were unhurt,’ said Withers, ‘I urged them to go back with us into the fight, all refused except two ‘Tigers,’ who, from their brogue were evidently Irish.’ One of the Louisianans, continued Withers, ‘ran up the slope to an orchard occupied by the skirmishers, got behind an apple tree, and fired two or three times, when he was shot through both legs. He squatted down, and turning his head over his shoulder, called to his comrade: ‘I say, Dennis, come up here and give them hell, for they’ve got me!”

With more forces at his disposal, Beauregard ordered his whole line to advance and drive the Federals from Henry Hill. During the attack, the Zouaves from Wheat’s battalion, like the rest of the line, were hit by a Federal fusillade. Lieutenant Thomas Adrian of Company B fell with a leg wound. Seeing the Tigers’ subsequent hesitation, Adrian, while lying on the ground and bleeding profusely, shouted: ‘Tigers, go in once more, go in my sons, I’ll be great gloriously God damned if the sons of bitches can ever whip the Tigers!’

Apparently inspired by Adrian’s plea, the Tigers, with the rest of Bee’s line, rallied, turned and drove the Federals back. Tiger Zouave Robert Richie subsequently reported to the New Orleans Daily Delta: ‘Our blood was on fire. Life was valueless. The boys fired one volley, then rushed upon the foe with clubbed rifles beating down their guard; then they closed upon them with their knives, ‘Greek had met Greek,’ the tug of war had come….[It] did not seem as though men were fighting,…[but as if there] were devils mingling in the conflict, cursing, yelling, cutting, and shrieking.’

By dusk, McDowell’s army was driven totally from the field and retreated all the way back to Washington. The first great battle of the war had ended in Southern victory.

Wheat’s little band of Louisiana Tigers had been instrumental in bringing about the Southern success. Its actions on Matthews Hill gave Beauregard time to shuffle enough forces to make a stand on Henry Hill. And on Henry Hill, the place where the Federals were ultimately driven back, the Tigers again distinguished themselves, charging and then holding a section of guns. Beauregard noted that the Tigers and the balance of Evans’ brigade ‘maintained their stand with almost matchless tenacity…dauntless courage and imperturbable coolness,’ and cited Wheat for his ‘brilliant courage.’ Beauregard went on to say, ‘[I]n the desperate, unequal contest, to which these brave gentlemen were for a time necessarily exposed the behavior of officers and men was worthy of the highest admiration, and assuredly hereafter to all those present may proudly say: ‘We were of that band who fought the first hour of the battle of Manassas.”

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This article was written by Gary Schreckengost and originally appeared in the May 1999 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

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