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Copied in detail from - Longacre, Edward G.. The Early Morning of War: Bull Run, 1861 (Campaigns and Commanders Series Book 46) (p. 311 - 312). University of Oklahoma Press. Kindle Edition.
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Around five o’clock [on the morning of the battle and at Union Mills with Holmes] Ewell had received Beauregard’s original order to hold his command “in readiness to take the offensive on Centreville at a moment’s notice” as a diversion to relieve anticipated pressure on the Confederate center and perhaps the left as well.
The subsequent order Ewell expected—the notice to get moving—never arrived, but it reached two of his colleagues. Shortly after seven o’clock, with the battle on the Confederate left apparently fully joined, D. R. Jones heard from Beauregard that Ewell had been ordered to advance and that Jones was to expand the offensive by crossing McLean’s Ford “at once.” At once he placed his troops in marching order, informed Longstreet on his left that he was moving out, and sent an aide to confirm Ewell’s advance. No reply being forthcoming, Jones crossed the run and marched his men toward the Virginian’s assumed position on the road from Union Mills.
Jones would claim that he spent two and a half hours awaiting word that Ewell had gone forward. A little after ten o’clock he received instead “a somewhat discretionary order” from Beauregard, the contents of which he did not reveal. To add to the confusion, a few minutes later Colonel Chisolm of the army headquarters staff handed him a positive order to resume his position of early morning. Beauregard had decided that “on account of the difficulties in our front it is thought preferable to countermand the advance of the right wing.”
Ewell never received notice to change his posture from “wait to hear” to “go ahead.” “No orders, no orders,” a subordinate recalled him muttering as he paced back and forth at his field quarters. All the general got was a copy of the 7:00 A.M. dispatch to Jones, relayed by Jones himself. The message indicated that Ewell’s troops had been put in motion and that Jones’s own should follow as soon as the Second Brigade closed up on his right. Before receiving this copy, Ewell, at perhaps 9:30, directed that a rider be sent to army headquarters to clear up the misunderstanding. When the horseman reported for orders, Ewell managed to make a bad situation worse. A bystander noted that he began “slashing away with tongue and finger, delivering his directions with such rapidity and incompleteness that the young man’s thoughts were dancing through his brain in inescapable confusion.” When the would-be courier begged to inform the general that he did not understand, Ewell exploded, angrily dismissed him, and had members of his own staff run the errand.
As soon as he saw the copy of Jones’s attack directive, Ewell—confused by the contradictory orders and stressed by the possibility that the evident miscommunication was somehow his fault—began to throw his brigade across Bull Run. The operation was barely begun when he was met by a courier from Beauregard with an order to return his men to the south side. A bewildered Ewell did as told, but almost as soon as he regained his original position, he received another message from headquarters, this one relayed by Colonel Benjamin F. Terry, a volunteer aide-de-camp to Ewell, “to cross again, proceed up the run, and attack a battery of the enemy upon its flank and rear, regulating my movements upon the brigades of Generals Jones and Longstreet.” Wearily, Ewell again crossed the stream. By a little after three o’clock, his brigade had moved about a mile and a half toward the enemy; at this point the balding brigadier received yet another order to return to the south side. Once there, he should prepare to move to the far left in company with Holmes’s brigade. This latest summons, even more so than the conflicting orders preceding it, made Ewell tremble: “My feelings then were terrible as such an order could only mean that we were defeated and I was to cover the retreat.”
Ewell’s nightmare ended with his brigade, like Holmes’s, failing to reach the embattled flank in time to help defend it. No longer at Union Mills Ford, he was not in a position to support the afternoon operations north of Bull Run by Longstreet and Jones, both of whom had advanced without reference to him. Six hours of marching and countermarching had brought Ewell no commitment to battle, no opportunity to win fame and glory—only grief.
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My own opinion is that Ewell and Holmes, if you are playing the historical game, should probably be fixed at Union Mills to replicate the total confusion involved with their orders. If you are playing a "what-if" game, then you can decide their positioning however you want. But neither unit played any substantial role in the actual battle. You could "Release" them at midday (as is done in the Historical Scenario), but then the Confederate player isn't stupid enough to countermarch them back and forth needlessly and waste them.
You might also have these units arrive as "reinforcements" from the southern part of the map on the Rebel left by late afternoon to represent them arriving on the "embattled flank" too late "to help defend it."
In reality, I don't care all that much, lol. Were all just talking hypothetically anyways. The Historical Scenario has been the same since about 2005. Whether or not everyone agrees of disagrees with every detail of it is a moot point in the grand scheme of things.
FYI - A much more interesting conversation might be re-evaluating why Miles's Division is perpetually FIXED in the historical battle. But that's a can of worms best left closed I think.
_________________ Gen. Blake Strickler
Confederate General-in-Chief
El Presidente 2010 - 2012
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