moment, were twenty-five who, owing to the scarcity of horses, had
no better steeds than baggage-mules. This was simply for display and
to lead the enemy to think their cavalry numbered more than their
horsemen actually did. These Hussars on mules were ordered to remain in
the rear and not to take part in Miller’s charge. But they answered:
“No; we will conquer or die with our comrades.” And their bravery was
soon rewarded, for after the charge they were able to substitute good
Spanish horses, whose riders had fallen, for their less nimble mules.
Six weeks previously, when on a reconnoitring expedition towards Cuzco,
General Miller had been surprised at a place called Chuquibamba, and
his horse, which was the finest in the army, and which he had ridden
at Junin, with an orderly, fell into the enemy’s hands. This horse was
now seen amongst Valdez’s retreating troops. Its rider was immediately
singled out for pursuit, cut down, and the horse restored to its old
master. Another object of interest to the pursuing Patriots were the
silver helmets of the Spanish Hussars. The landscape gleamed with these
helmets wherever bodies of cavalry moved. These became so attractive to
the enemy that many threw them off to stop the pursuit, and the gleam
was quickly removed, the Patriots snatching them off and stowing them
away in their valises.
At one o’clock on the day of the battle the divisions of the
Patriot army, under Generals La Mar and Lara, reached the summit of
Condorkanki. Here General Canterac was stationed, but before sunset
he sued for terms of peace, and an hour later rode to General Sucre’s
tent, where the terms were agreed to. By these terms Canterac, as
supreme commander in Peru, agreed to surrender to the liberating
army the whole of the territory possessed by Spain as far as the
Desaguadero. So in effect ended the War of Independence, and so was
extinguished the power of Spain across the seas.
The losses on that day, on the side of the vanquished, were 1,400
killed and 700 wounded. Amongst the captured, besides the Viceroy and
generals, were 16 colonels, 68 lieutenant-colonels, 484 officers, and
3,200 rank and file. The victors won at a cost of 370 killed and 609
wounded. The battle of Ayacucho was regarded as the most brilliant ever
fought in South America. The discipline of the troops, seasoned with
years of fighting, was considered such as would have been creditable to
the best European armies, while they were led by the ablest officers on
both sides. Bravery was conspicuous on every hand, the victory being
not a matter of chance, but of determination, fire, and valour.
Besides General Miller, who played so important a part in this action,
other countrymen of ours were that day engaged fighting for the cause
of Independence. Among them were Major-General Francis B. O’Connor,
brother of Fergus O’Connor; Major-General James Whittle, Colonel
William Ferguson, Lieutenant Martin, who was killed, Major-General
Arthur Sand, Captain George Brown, wounded, Captain Henry Wyman,
wounded, and Captain Miller Hallowes. These were chiefly officers
in the Colombian battalion of Rifles, which was originally composed
entirely of British subjects. During the long course of the war these
had died or been killed, and the regiment was recruited from Colombian
Indians, the officers, however, being still British. This regiment was
the foremost in the fight amongst the troops that routed the divisions
of Monet and Villalobos at the base of the Heights of Condorkanki.
[Illustration: LIMA.]
[Illustration: _The first Battle of Bull Run._
_By Angus Evan Abbott_]
Major-General Robert Patterson, sixty-nine years old, ripe with
experience gained in at least two wars, but burdened it may be with
more of the indecision and fears of old age than is the usual lot of
man--seeing before him, in fact, bogey numbers of enemies--marched his
army one day this way and the next day that; and frittering away the
time, at length, instead of fighting, he allowed General Johnston and
9,000 Confederate soldiers to slip quietly away from him. The result
was the result to be expected. General Johnston by a rapid march
reached General Beauregard’s lines in time to turn the tide of battle
in favour of the South, and the first decisive struggle of the American
Civil War was scored to the credit of the Confederates.
Four o’clock on the morning of April 12th, 1861, the Civil War began.
At that hour a shell fired from a battery on shore struck Fort Sumter,
a tiny fort built on a mudbank in the very centre of Charleston
harbour; and this shot opened hostilities that were destined to last
for years. The next day, Saturday, the news reached Washington that
Fort Sumter, in possession of a United States garrison, had been
bombarded by Southern militia acting under instructions from the
Governor of South Carolina. President Abraham Lincoln realised at
once that the time for pacific negotiations had passed and the time
for the employment of force had come. On Sunday he drew up his first
proclamation relating to the war. It called for 75,000 militia to
assemble under arms to “repossess the forts, places, and properties
which have been seized from the Union.” In the two days which followed
the issue of this call more than double the number of men asked for had
volunteered for service. Every Free State in the Union responded with
citizens eager to uphold the integrity of the Union. On the other hand,
every Slave State insultingly refused her quota of the men required.
But ready and numberless as were the volunteers from the North, the
resources of the States in the way of arms and ammunition, officers,
and organisation, were utterly inadequate for the crisis. Although by
many it had long been feared that the differences between the North and
South were being accentuated to a dangerous degree, yet when the worst
fears were realised and the actual outbreak of rebellion came, it took
the country, as a country, completely by surprise. More than this, it
caught those in authority unprepared. So it was that between the firing
on Fort Sumter and the first great battle--Bull Run--three months
elapsed. Those three months were spent in arming the volunteers--for
the United States, then as now, had no standing army to speak of--in
organising commissariat and other departments, transporting troops to
various centres, and arranging the thousand and one details which,
unless carefully attended to, would render the bravest army helpless.
But during the months of April, May, and June the absence of any
organised body of opponents in the field allowed much telling work to
be done by small parties of Southern soldiers. Unfortunately for the
North, Washington, the capital of the Union, was to all intents and
purposes within the sphere of Southern influence--on the one side the
State of Virginia, among the first States to refuse troops to Abraham
Lincoln, and on the other, Maryland, riotous and to all appearances
likely to cast in her lot with the rebel States. Federal soldiers on
their way to guard the capital were shot and trampled to death in the
streets of Baltimore, Maryland, but a few miles north from Washington.
On the same day the railway bridges of lines running northward were
destroyed, thus completely cutting Washington off from the North. To
complete the dangerous position of the capital, a force of Confederate
soldiers seized Harper’s Ferry--the Harper’s Ferry of John Brown
notoriety--then a famous national arsenal, and there established a
Southern camp. Next the important navy yard at Gosport, after the
officers in charge had attempted to destroy it by fire, was captured
by Southerners; and a number of other important points bearing on the
capital city falling into the hands of the Confederates, Washington was
surrounded. The battle of Bull Run was brought on by the North with
the intention of relieving the capital of the Union by dispersing the
enemies that surrounded it.
[Illustration: “THEY WOULD NOT KEEP IN RANK, ORDER AS
MUCH AS YOU PLEASED” (_p._ 95).]
Bull Run, the stream that gave its name to the battle, is a sluggish,
uneven waterway running in a south-easterly direction, and at the
point where the engagement took place some five-and-thirty miles from
Washington. Its banks are steep and at some places rocky, with heights,
densely wooded, on its western shore, and the stream itself deep and
sullen, yet at points fordable. A short distance south of Bull Run is
Manassas Junction--a railway junction--and here General Beauregard had
his headquarters.
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, born in 1818, was a native of
Louisiana, and passed through the United States Military Academy at
West Point. Strangely enough, one of his class-mates at the Academy was
the Federal general McDowell, who at this battle of Bull Run commanded
the Northern forces. Beauregard had served through the Mexican campaign
with distinction, taking part in the siege operations at Vera Cruz, and
at Mexico he was twice wounded. To him fell the distinction of being
chosen to open the war for the South, and it was he who bombarded and
finally, captured Fort Sumter.
General Beauregard had assembled a strong force of Confederates at
this point with the evident intention of marching upon Washington, but
before he was ready to move on the capital, a large army of Northerners
managed to reach the city, and Beauregard found his plans defeated.
Consequently, he entrenched himself securely and waited for the time
to arrive when, sufficient troops furnished him, he could carry out
his plan to capture the capital. The position for encampment had been
carefully chosen. Along the western bank of Bull Run, from Manassas
Junction to a stone bridge some eight miles up stream, the Southern
forces were posted, each ford strongly guarded, the rocky banks and the
deep water forming a natural breastwork, and the dense woods a natural
stockade. Across Bull Run, a few miles towards Washington, is the
village of Centreville, and here the advance guards, or more properly,
a scouting party, was stationed to give news of any movement that might
be made by the North; and, central and convenient, the headquarters at
Manassas commanded the whole.
[Illustration: FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
POSITION OF THE FORCES AT NOON.]
Woods, stream, and rolling country made General Beauregard’s position
a peculiarly strong one. In fact, as General McDowell, the commander
of the forces of the North, soon found, the position was well-nigh
invulnerable. To attack the Confederates in front, fording Bull
Run, scaling the high bank and charging into a wood, was out of the
question. Moreover, to strengthen Beauregard’s hands, General J.
E. Johnston, a soldier of energy and experience, was stationed at
Winchester, to which town he had retreated from Harper’s Ferry when
he found himself confronted by General Patterson. General Patterson’s
orders from Washington were to retake Harper’s Ferry from General
Johnston. But the Southern general, fully convinced that Harper’s Ferry
was of no strategical importance, and more of a trap than anything
else, fell back at Patterson’s approach, and entrenched himself at
Winchester. To the Federals the great danger lay in the risk of
Johnston by a forced march joining Beauregard, and opposing a united
force to McDowell. To prevent this, General Patterson’s second orders
were to hold Johnston in Winchester. Patterson had plenty of men for
the purpose, but failed to do what was expected of him. When the
crucial moment arrived, Johnston arrived with it and ruined McDowell’s
chance of victory.
McDowell marched from Washington. It had originally been General
Scott’s intention to give the command of the Federal forces to Robert
E. Lee; but that officer, destined to become the most famous general of
the South, resigned his position, and journeying south, took charge of
the raising of Confederate soldiers. McDowell, however, was an officer
in every way competent to worthily represent the North.
A civil war makes strange opponents. Men hitherto the closest friends,
found themselves divided, friends still, but facing one another on the
field of battle, and fighting to the death for what each considered
the right. This curious division affected officers and men alike.
In fact, a large majority of the officers who, at the outbreak
of hostilities found themselves in charge of the newly-enlisted
regiments, had been educated together at West Point, and together
received their baptism of fire and learned what real war meant under
the sweltering sun of Mexico. General Irvin McDowell, as has been
told, stood side by side with General Beauregard at West Point, and
side by side with him on the battle-fields of Mexico. For some years
he acted as assistant-instructor in infantry tactics in the Military
Academy, and when war broke out he was relieved of his duties in the
Adjutant-General’s Department at Washington, and placed in command of
the Army of the Potomac, now on its way to Bull Run.
When he set out from Washington he carried with him full instructions
and the confidence of all concerned. Never was a battle more carefully
planned. Every move likely to take place had been canvassed and
discussed, President Lincoln and General Scott giving their personal
consideration and assistance to McDowell. When the latter marched away
at the head of his 30,000 men, it was thought that he had nothing to
do but to act quickly and victory must rest with him. General Sherman
afterwards said that Bull Run was one of the best planned and one of
the worst fought battles of the Civil War.
On July 16th McDowell issued his orders to march. J. G. Nicolay, who
was private secretary to Lincoln, gives this as the organisation of
McDowell’s army:--
“First Division, commanded by Tyler: an aggregate of 9,936 men, divided
into four brigades, respectively under Keyes, Schenck, Sherman, and
Richardson.
“Second Division, commanded by Hunter: an aggregate of 2,648 men,
divided into two brigades, under Porter and Burnside.
“Third division, commanded by Heintzelman: an aggregate of 9,777 men,
divided into three brigades, under Franklin, Wilcox, and Howard.
“Fourth Division, commanded by Runyon: an aggregate of 5,752 men; no
brigade commanders.
“Fifth Division, commanded by Miles: an aggregate of 6,207 men, divided
into two brigades, under Blenker and Davies.”
From these figures, it will be seen that McDowell marched with
more than 34,000 men. But as Runyon’s division was left to guard
communications, and as some days before the fight a number of the
volunteers were mustered out, their three months’ time having expired,
defections left the Federal general in command of something like 28,000
men to meet an equal or larger number of Confederates, entrenched, as
we have seen, in a strong position, and fully prepared for a stubborn
fight.
When the news flashed across the length and breadth of the great
continent that at last a Northern army was to attack the South, the
question on everybody’s lips was “How will the American fight?”
McDowell, in his army of 30,000, had but 800 regulars--the rest were
volunteers who had never been trained to war. Raw, inexperienced,
undisciplined, gathered from the four corners of the continent: rugged
bushmen from the backwoods of Michigan, rough and restless men,
hunters born and bred every one, marching side by side with workers
from the Pennsylvania mines and New York factory hands; carters from
Philadelphia and Chicago, farmers from Ohio and Illinois, clerks from
Buffalo and Boston, all untried and untrained, having volunteered for
what the most of them looked upon as a jaunt and picnic in the South,
with, maybe, a little shooting by the way--all trudged merrily along
under the sweltering July sun, joking and playing pranks as they turned
their faces to the South, and paying but small heed to their officers’
attempts to keep them in order. McDowell, writing of this march to Bull
Run, tells many strange things. He says that the advance was rendered
tediously slow by the “fooling” of the men on the march. “They stopped
every moment to pick blackberries or to get water; they would not keep
in rank, order as much as you pleased; when they came where water was
fresh, they would pour the old water out of their canteens, and fill
them with fresh water. They were not used to denying themselves much;
they were not used to journeys on foot.” Before the long war was ended
the troops became very used indeed to denying themselves much, and to
weary journeys on foot.
On Thursday, July 18th, Tyler, commanding the first division, moved
warily on Centreville, only to find that the Confederates stationed
there showed no disposition to fight, but that they fell rapidly back
towards Bull Run. This being so, on towards Bull Run Tyler continued
his march, his orders being to carefully observe roads, positions, and
lay of the land, but under no circumstances to engage in battle. He was
to scout, to gather information for future use. But Tyler’s enthusiasm
got the better of his discretion, and, it is feared, caused him to
forget his orders. He had seen the Confederates retreat before him from
Centreville, as though fearing to fight, and then a temptation was
thrown in his way in the shape of a favourable position for a battery
from which a few shells could be dropped on the enemy. He planted a
battery, and fired on a Confederate battery still on the Centreville
side of Bull Run. The Southerners retired to Blackburn’s Ford, and
Tyler threw forward skirmishers against the Confederate skirmishers,
and these getting into a hot exchange, Tyler was soon forced to bring
forward a brigade, and then a second; and almost before he knew what
was happening he found his battery and his men in a trap. Before he
managed to bring away his battery and withdraw his men, he lost close
upon a hundred killed, and his soldiers retired in confusion, the
officers chagrined over the first serious check of the war.
But disastrous as was this the first skirmish of Bull Run to the
Northern cause, it on the other hand exposed to General McDowell the
position of the Confederates, and showed to him the hopelessness of
an attack in front. McDowell’s first plan of battle, perfected at
Washington, was to make a vigorous attack on Beauregard’s front,
and when this action raged, to cross Bull Run lower down, and while
the Confederates were concerned about the safety of their van to
fall unexpectedly upon Beauregard’s right and turn it. A personal
reconnaissance, made at the moment of Tyler’s unfortunate experiment,
proved to McDowell that this plan could not be carried out. The
ground on Beauregard’s right was totally unsuited to the job. High
hills, densely wooded and strongly held, rendered the scheme clearly
unfeasible. Some other plan must be devised. He rode to Centreville
with all speed, and there Tyler and his officers reported rifle-its
and strong barricades, natural and artificial, in front of every ford,
the one bridge spanning the stream strongly guarded and prepared for
blowing up if need be, and not the slightest chance of his untrained
soldiers carrying the position. These reports convinced McDowell that
only a demonstration must be made in front, and his whole energies
applied to reaching the southern side of Bull Run, and fighting the
battle across fields instead of across deep water. Richardson’s brigade
was ordered forward to continue the menace at Blackburn’s Ford, and
the engineers were sent up stream to survey Bull Run for a ford. But a
ford they were unable to find until Saturday, and the battle of Bull
Run could not be fought before Sunday, July 21st. A fatal delay this
proved to be. News of Tyler’s engagement at Blackburn’s Ford on the
Thursday reached Johnston at Winchester, and that energetic officer,
seeing that a general action must soon take place, slipped away from
the aged General Patterson, and by a forced march through Ashby’s Gap
of the Blue Ridge, he took train at Piedmont and marched most of his
men into Beauregard’s camp on Saturday evening. One of his companies,
indeed, did not arrive until Sunday afternoon, when by falling upon the
Federals’ right, it gave the first intimation to McDowell that Johnston
had given Patterson the slip.
[Illustration: GENERAL SHERMAN.]
A close, hot night preceded the eventful day. A mist, such as is
so often seen on sultry nights in America, hung over the valley of
Bull Run, blurring everything into a grey, indistinguishable mass,
notwithstanding that the moon shone brightly. Shortly after midnight
the Northern army bestirred itself to begin the work that lay before
it. Tyler’s orders were to get away early from Centreville and to
commence a hot attack on the stone bridge, as if it were McDowell’s
intent to force his way across the stream at that point. As soon
as Tyler and his men cleared the camp at Centreville, Hunter and
Heintzelman were to march rapidly to the ford which the engineers
had located, cross, and at the topmost speed consistent with a good
formation advance upon Beauregard’s left, fall upon the rear of the
defenders of the stone bridge and clear them away, and so allow Tyler
to cross and join forces. McDowell hoped in this way not only to
disorganise the Confederate arrangements, but also to prevent any
chance of Johnston from Winchester joining Beauregard. He had no idea
that Johnston had already effected the juncture. The Northern men,
new to war, turned but drowsily from their sleep. It was night, and,
unused to the necessity of quick and silent action, the men delayed and
refused to be hurried. Consequently, before Tyler had got his men out
of the way of Hunter, the hour for moving had long since passed. Tyler
intended to attack the stone bridge at four in the morning. It was not
until six that he fired his first gun. Hunter and Heintzelman were
proportionately delayed.
[Illustration: “TIME AFTER TIME THE ATTEMPT TO SCALE THE
HEIGHT WAS MADE” (_p._ 99).]
Strange to tell, it was Johnston’s intention to attack McDowell that
very morning. This General Joseph Eggleston Johnston--Beauregard’s
superior in rank, and an officer of energy, foresight, and initiative,
fifty-four years old--besides having served through the war with
Mexico, had seen much fighting with the Red Indians in many parts of
America; and, as never were trickier fighters alive than the Red men,
Johnston’s wits had been sharpened to a wonderful degree by his border
experiences. He suffered desperate wounds at Cerro Gordo, and again at
Chapultepec, was particularly active at Vera Cruz and in half-a-dozen
battles in Mexico, and at the very outbreak of the Civil War captured
Harper’s Ferry. In withdrawing his forces from Winchester to Bull
Run--successfully outwitting General Patterson--he gave early proof of
his skill in handling large bodies of men and readiness in rising to
the occasion. He and Beauregard had planned on Saturday night to bring
about a battle before it would be possible for General Patterson from
Harper’s Ferry to join with McDowell, which, Johnston felt convinced,
Patterson would hasten to do when he found that the Confederates had
marched away from him. Johnston had already given the orders for an
attack on McDowell, when the guns thundered out from the stone bridge.
Instantly General Johnston countermanded the order to advance. As
McDowell had begun the attack, it were better to fight the battle with
all the advantages Bull Run gave to the South. He awaited developments.