The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1908-07-08
EYEWITNESS TO
BULL RUN BATTLE
Gives Graphic Description
of Same.
DEAD AND DYING EVERYWHERE
The Fighting Was so Fierce
That 1t Was a COntin-
ual Din.

Mrs. Lucinda Dogan, 80 years old,
called in the northern part of Vir-
ginia queen of Jhe Ba1ylefields," is
still living at GroTeton, a little ham
let one mile west of and overlooking
the field of the first battle of BullRun
July 81, 1861 Her home was the CEN
trial point in The second battle of Bull
Run, August 20 and 80, 1862.
This old woman saw both battles
Of Bull Run and looked upon the field
in all their horror when the fighting
had ceased. With her children she
walked among the dead and wounded
carrying buckets of water and gourd
dippers, giving drink to the moaning
soldiers on bo1h sides.
Groveton is hamlet of tragic mem
ories. 1t is on the Warrington pike
five miles west of Centreville, three
miles east of Gainesville, five miles
north of the town of Manassas and
two miles southwest of Sudley-all
bloody names in Civil War annals.
Groveton is a group OF three houses
In one OF these the Dogans live; an
other is occupied by tenant farmers of
the Dogans, and in the third lives
Jim" Redmond, an old negro who
was living there at the dime OF the
fighting, saw the same scenes Mrs.
Dogan looked upon, and worked with
tn burial parties in digging the long
trenches in which the Confederate
dead were laid.
Groveton is on high ground, and a
hundreds yards east of the group of
houses is a hill that commands a fine
view to the east. 1t was from this
hill that Mrs. Dogan saw the fighting
on July q, 1861.
Telling of the events of that day
Mrs. Dogan says:
'The Yankees were all around Cen
treville and our boys were lying along
BullRun. Some of our troops kept
coming through Gainesville from the
Valley of Virginia. Early Sunday
morning we heard shooting down the
pike toward the s.one bridge, and my
husband called out that the Yanks
were coming. We went up on 1.-THE nil
yonder, and lot of the neighbors
came up, too. We could see smoke
rising above the trees about the stone
bridge. Off toward Sudley We could
see clouds of dust After che shoot
ing had been going on for half an
hour we could see crowds of men
running back from the stone bridge
to the Sudley road and then going
on toward Sudley. Southern troops
were coming up from toward Manassas
marching across THE Henry fields,
then over Buck Hill and on Sudley.
Not long after this the shooting be
gan between the pike and Sudley. We
could hear the sharp cracking of The
and the loud reports of the
cannon and could hear the men shout !
ing.
Not long after the men that had
gone north toward Sudley came run
ming back through the woods and
across the fields, stopping now and
then to shoot. Not far behind them
came crowds of other men running
and shooting. More Confederates were
coming from the direction of Mana
sas, and We're forming on Buck Hill
and the Matthews farm. After fight
ing there for some time our boys ran |
back over to the Henry place and the
Yanks after them. More men kept on
coming up from Manassas. Then the
Yanks went up Henry Hill. The shoot
ing had got so fast now that we
couldn't hear any single musket, and
the firing of cannon was so fast that
you sometimes couldn't pick out a sin
gle shot. The country down there
was now so covered with dust and
smoke that we couldn't see I.he men
and you couldn't distinguish the shoot
Ing from the shouting. After 4 o'clock
n the afternoon the noise was at its
oudest and we could see small bodies
Of men gofItg back across Che
place and on toward Sudley.
Then more and more went back that
way, and finally the field over there
got so full of men thhat we couldn't
iee them for the dust they made. The
quieted. down so that We
,ould hear single. shots, and the dust
n the Henry ..fisld got thinner and
higher. We knew that the Yanks wer
back to whore they came
rom. . 1..Is ~,
about O'Clock that evening my
lusban and I drove over to- the Hem |
y place. The Henry house was Moth T,
Lg but smoking ashes. My old friend
irs. judith Henry. who was sick in
ed when the fighting began. had I
'een killed that morning by she'll
/.