ABSTRACT
For ewell the third of July completed a tragic cycle: hesitation and the loss of the heights on the first day, an assault too feeble and too late on the second, and now as the dawn began to break over the crests of the hills rising out of the bed of Rock Creek another attack too early in its timing to support Lee's revised plan for the day. Again a "perversity of Fate" seemed to be working against the Confederates; thirty minutes after Ewell's assault started a courier from Lee's headquarters brought Old Bald Head a message asking him to wait——Longstreet's attack would be delayed until later in the morning and Lee wished the two actions co-ordinated. But Old Bald Head's troops already were engaged and the assault could not be stopped; Freeman comments sadly, "The message came too late to assure any co-ordination of attack, but the fault was neither Lee's nor Ewell's."
