“The enemy had planted a battery on Warrenton turnpike, to command the passage of Bull Run, and seized the stone bridge which crossed it, erecting a heavy abatis to prevent our advance in that direction. The object of the battle was to force this position, with a view to subsequent operations beyond. The army engaged was commanded by Brigadier-General McDowell. The fourth division was left in the rear. The first, second, third, and fifth were commanded respectively by Brigadier-General Tyler, and Colonels Hunter, Heintzelman, and Miles. In the plan of battle, Miles was to be in reserve on the Centreville Ridge; Tyler was to advance directly in front of Stone Bridge, on the Warrenton road, and cannonade the enemy’s batteries; Hunter and Heintzelman were to move to the right and cross the run above, and get to the enemy’s rear. Colonel Sherman commanded the third brigade in Tyler’s (first) division, consisting of troops since renowned for gallantry—Captain Ayres’ Regular Battery, the Thirteenth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventy-ninth New York, and Second Wisconsin infantry. “The advance was commenced on the morning of the 21st, and a part of Hunter’s and Heintzelman’s divisions, according to McDowell’s official report, ‘forced the enemy back far enough to allow Sherman’s and Keyes’s brigades of Tyler’s division to cross from their position on the Warrenton road. These drove the right of the enemy, understood to have been commanded by Beauregard, from the front of the field, and out of the detached woods, and down the road, and across it, up the slopes, on the other side.’ Pressing on, these two brigades, with the two divisions on the right, came upon an elevated ridge or table of land. Here was the severest fighting of the famous battle. Sherman led his brigade directly up the Warrenton road, and held his ground till the general order came to retreat. It will be the verdict of history that the fighting at Bull Run was no more disgraceful to us than the unsuccessful fighting of the French at Waterloo. It was the disorganized _rout_ after the day was done that showed that our army was as yet but an undisciplined rabble. The day was lost partly by the delay in attack, but chiefly by the arrival of reënforcements under Johnston, when victory was already in our hands. General Patterson was the Grouchy of our Waterloo.