Here the skillful Union General determined to
strike.
At two-thirty before daylight his dense lines of enthusiastic men swung
into the dusty moonlit road for their movement to flank the Confederate
left.
Swiftly and silently the flower of McDowell's army, eighteen thousand
picked men, moved under the cover of the night to their chosen crossing
at Sudley's Ford, two miles beyond the farthest gray picket of
Beauregard's left.
Tyler's division was halted at the Stone Bridge on which the lone
regiment of Col. Evans lay beyond the stream. He was ordered to feign an
attack on that point while the second and third divisions should creep
cautiously along a circuitous road two miles above, cross unopposed and
slip into the rear of Beauregard's long-drawn left wing, roll it up in a
mighty scroll of flame, join Tyler's division as it should sweep across
the Stone Bridge and together the three divisions in one solid mass
could crush the ten-mile battle line into hopeless confusion.
The plan was skillfully and daringly conceived.
Tyler's division halted at the Stone Bridge and silently formed as the
first glow of dawn tinged the eastern hills.
The dull red of the July sun was just coloring the sky with its flame
when the second and third divisions crossed Bull Run at Sudley's Ford
and began their swift descent upon the rear of the unsuspecting Southern
army.
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