At this time Porter’s brigade occupied a line considerably in advance of that first occupied by the left wing of the rebels. The battery was pouring its withering fire into the batteries and columns of the enemy wherever they exposed themselves. The cavalry were engaged in feeling the left flank of the enemy’s position, in doing which some important captures were made, one by Sergeant Socks, of the Second Dragoons, of a General George Stewart, of Baltimore. The cavalry also did brave service. General Tyler’s division was engaged with the enemy’s right. The Twenty-Seventh was resting on the edge of the woods in the centre, covered by a hill upon which lay the Eleventh and Fifth Massachusetts, occasionally delivering a scattering fire. The Fourteenth was moving to the right flank, the Eighth had lost its organization, the marines were moving up in fine style in the rear of the Fourteenth, and Captain Arnold was occupying a height in the middle ground with his battery. At this juncture there was a temporary lull in the firing from the rebels, who appeared only now and then on the heights in irregular masses, but to serve as marks for Griffin’s guns. The prestige of success had thus far attended the efforts of the inexperienced but gallant Union troops. The lines of the enemy had been forcibly shifted nearly a mile to their left and rear. The flags of eight regiments, though borne somewhat wearily, now pointed toward the hill from which disordered masses of the rebels had been seen hastily retiring. Rickett’s battery, together with Griffith’s battery, on the side of the hill, had been objects of the special attention of the enemy, who had succeeded in disabling Rickett’s battery, and then attempted to take it. Three times was he repulsed by different corps in succession, and driven back, and the guns taken by hand, the horses being killed, and pulled away. The third time the repulse seemed to be final, for he was driven entirely from the hill, and so far beyond it as not to be in sight. He had before this been driven nearly a mile and a half, and was beyond the Warrenton road, which was entirely in Federal possession, from the Stone Bridge westward. The engineers were just completing the removal of the abatis across the road, to allow reinforcements (Schenck’s brigade and Ayers’ battery) to join in. The enemy was evidently disheartened and broken.