him, behind the timber _abattis_, a regiment and a half and four
guns; and when Tyler opened fire it seemed to him that a determined
attempt would be made to force his position, and he prepared to hold
it at all hazards. But after the fighting had lasted a short time, it
occurred to Evans that the attack was conducted with nothing like the
vigour he would have expected under the circumstances, and he cast
about him for an explanation. An explanation was not long in coming.
Scouts hurrying from the wood to his left told him that a large force
of men had forded Bull Run some miles above the stone bridge and were
marching to fall upon his rear. Without a moment’s hesitation, and
waiting for no orders, Evans, leaving four companies with two guns to
hold the bridge, posted the remainder of his men in as favourable a
position to resist attack as he could come upon in the limited time at
his disposal. When Hunter emerged from the wood, at ten o’clock in the
morning, he found that his advance had been made known, and that there
was now no chance of taking the Confederates by surprise.
First began an artillery duel. The sound of guns on his side of
Bull Run told Johnston that the Federals had crossed the stream and
had attacked his left. He hurried General Bee with four regiments
and two companies to the support of Evans, already sorely pressed.
Next Heintzelman, having now safely crossed the stream, came at the
double-quick with a regiment to the assistance of Hunter, and joining
forces, bore down upon the Southern lines. The front of battle at once
changed from Bull Run stream to what had been the Confederates’ left.
And now began the battle proper. The men who, a few hours before had
refused discipline and disregarded orders from whatever quarter given,
at last, within shot of the enemy, faced the situation seriously and
fought well. With now the advantage of position and numbers, the men
from the North drove the Southerners steadily down the hill, the
Confederates fighting every inch of the way with that fiery courage
that distinguished them all through the war. Every fence, house, and
wood, every hillock, every stone on the way, every hollow and every
ditch, was made a standing-place by the South, and tenaciously held
to as long as mortal could endure the hail of bullets and crash of
cannon-ball. But the Federals fought splendidly, and carried position
after position with the courage and dash of veterans. McDowell, coming
upon the scene of action at this point, hurried word to Tyler to
press his attack upon the stone bridge. This Tyler did not do, but
instead, fording Bull Run a short distance above the bridge, came upon
the rear of the defenders and swept them away from their stronghold.
Then, marching towards the sound of the fighting, he safely joined his
commander-in-chief. At noon McDowell had the satisfaction of knowing
that not a hitch had taken place in his plans. The bridge had been
cleared, the Confederates’ left turned, and his men had driven the
enemy down the hillside, over a creek, across the valley, and up into
a wood. The morning’s work was all the North could desire. Everything
pointed to a Northern victory, full and complete.
Johnston and Beauregard now found a difficult task before them. Their
men, numbers of them thinking all lost, were hurrying to the rear in
dire confusion, throwing away their arms and accoutrements as they ran.
Many companies were entirely disorganised, and others cut to pieces
in the fight. But the two Southern generals, riding to the front,
personally supervised the re-formation of the lines. On top of the
hills up which the Confederates had been forced was a large plateau,
thickly wooded, and on this plateau the generals checked the retreat,
and swung their disorganised regiments into line. Early’s Brigade
formed the left flank, and faced Wilcox and Porter, Elzey’s fronted
Sherman, and Hampton lay nearest to Bull Run. The Confederate position
for the renewal of the fight was clearly a strong one. Down in the
valley lay the Federals. To reach the Southerners, they must charge up
a hill and into a dense wood. This proved altogether too difficult a
task. Sherman said afterwards that had McDowell ignored the partially
defeated and strongly entrenched army of the South, and, instead of
attempting to carry the plateau, marched around the hill and captured
the enemy’s headquarters, Manassas Junction, the Southerners would
have been defeated by the very act. But probably neither McDowell nor
Sherman thought of this at the time. The order was to further rout the
apparently routed, and the Federals dashed themselves to pieces in the
attempt. When Johnston and Beauregard got their men ready, the latter
took personal command, and Johnston--superior in rank--hastened to
headquarters to superintend the whole.
The battle of the afternoon was a battle of hopeless confusion. No
two on the Federal side could afterwards agree as to what had taken
place. The want of cohesion, of discipline; the rawness of the
troops, the ignorance and lack of executive ability on the part of
the officers, added to the disadvantageous position, soon brought the
army of the North into a state of helpless chaos. The Confederates,
strongly situated, lay quietly in the wood firing grimly down the hill.
When the Northerners were first ordered to charge, they did so with
determination; but scarcely had they advanced a few hundred feet than
they came under an appalling fire, volley after volley sweeping down
the steep incline. Time after time the attempt to scale the height was
made; and the right did at one time gain a footing, but to no purpose.
It was a hopeless task from the first.
[Illustration: GENERAL “STONEWALL” JACKSON.]
In the woods on top of the plateau lay Thomas Jonathan Jackson and his
men. Jackson was of English descent, and having been left an orphan at
seven, he grew to manhood on a rough farm in Western Virginia, joined
the army, fought in Mexico, and after teaching school was with Johnston
at Harper’s Ferry. Jackson’s brigade was the first to get into position
and check the advance of the Federals, the panic-stricken Southerners
rallying upon his line. During the crisis, General Bee, rallying his
men, shouted: “See; there is Jackson, standing like a stone wall. Rally
on the Virginians.” Immediately afterwards General Bee was shot dead;
but the nickname “Stonewall” stuck to Jackson, and became probably the
most familiar nickname of the war.
To the Confederate left stood Henry House. Built on a knoll, it
commanded the whole field of action, and here McDowell deemed it
important to plant a battery. To this ground two batteries were sent,
and Ellsworth’s Zouaves ordered to support them. In making their way to
the position the officers of the Zouaves mistook an Alabama regiment
for a Northern one, and did not find out their mistake until they had
exposed their men to a fire that wiped the regiment out of existence.
Another and another regiment was sent to the support of the battery,
and the battle raged its wildest around the knoll at Henry House.
Keyes, on the right, after a successful charge was driven back, Sherman
in the centre charged again and again up the hill, each charge only
resulting in a heavier loss, and the batteries at Henry House were
taken and retaken time and time again. As the afternoon grew older,
confusion gradually settled on the Northern lines. Companies beaten
back from the brow of the hill got mixed with companies charging up
the hill; men lost their officers and officers their companies, until
after a few hours’ fighting all was confusion, and the Northern army,
victorious as it seemed a little earlier in the day, degenerated into
a mob of struggling men, into which the South continued to pour a
merciless fire.
Just when the army had been reduced to this pitiable state of
confusion, a body of close upon two thousand fresh men came hurrying
across the fields to take part in the conflict. They were the last
arrivals from Winchester, Johnston’s men, who hearing the roar of
battle, stopped their train at the nearest point to the scene of
action, and running as fast as legs could carry poured a volley into
the Federals’ right. This proved to be the last straw. Raising the
cry: “Here’s Johnston from the valley!” the army of the North broke and
fled panic-stricken across Bull Run, along the turnpike to Centreville
and on to Washington, to let the President and the people of the North
know that an appalling disaster had befallen the Federal cause. General
McDowell tried his utmost to stay the flight, but to no purpose. It was
every man for himself, and never was rout more complete.
[Illustration: “THE ARMY OF THE NORTH BROKE AND FLED
PANIC-STRICKEN.”]
When the sum of battle came to be reckoned, it was found that the North
had 481 men killed, 1,011 men wounded, and 1,461 taken prisoners; while
the Southern loss was 387 killed and 1,582 wounded.
Public opinion held General McDowell responsible for the crushing
defeat, and as a consequence he was superseded in his command by
General McClellan; and although a capable and honourable officer, he
played no great part in the subsequent events of the war. The first
battle of Bull Run brought the seriousness of the situation vividly
to the minds of the people of the North, and showed how fatally the
position had been underestimated by everyone from President to peasant.
[Illustration: THE JULY BATTLES BEFORE PLEVNA
BY ARCHIBALD FORBES]
In the early days of July, 1877, the soldiers of the Tzar were
jubilant. So early as April Russian army-corps after army-corps had
come tramping across the Pruth into Roumania, and in May the Danubian
Principalities swarmed with sturdy Russian soldiers along the left
bank of the great river, from Galatz on the east to Kalafat on the
west. They gazed eagerly across the brown water of the Danube to
the precipitous Bulgarian bank on the further side, but had to wait
impatiently until the falling of the river gave them the opportunity
for which they craved so ardently. At length, however, they had
effected the crossing of the Danube from Simnitza to Sistova and from
Braila to Matchin, and the whole Russian army was now on Turkish
soil. By the middle of the month Gourko was beyond the Balkans on
that adventurous raid of his which spread panic from Hankioj to
Constantinople. “Hey for Adrianople!” was the hilarious and confident
shout, as army-corps after army-corps started on the enterprise which
seemed so ridiculously easy. Princes and staff-officers betted with
each other in hundreds of dingy paper-roubles as to the day on which
they would dine in Stamboul.
The route which the main advance over the Balkans was to take was by
Tirnova and the Shipka Pass, and thence on Adrianople through the
rose-gardens of Kazanlik and down the beautiful valley of the Tundja.
Two corps had been sent to the left to protect the advance from the
Turks holding the Bulgarian quadrilateral. Old Krüdener, the chief of
the 9th Corps, had been sent off to the right, with the airy order
to storm the fortress of Nicopolis and then to march to the Balkans
without delay, leaving as he passed detachments in Plevna and Loftcha
for the protection of the right wing, and to cross the great range
into Roumelia by the Trajan Pass. “Grandfather” Krüdener, grimmest and
toughest of warriors, began handsomely. He so smothered with shell-fire
the obsolete and crumbling fortress of Nicopolis, that after two days’
endurance of the Russian cannonade the garrison capitulated. It was
quick work, and there were not wanting hints that he had backed his
shell-fire by a bribe to the pasha in command. Anyhow, Krüdener scored,
when on the 17th there surrendered to him 7,000 men, including the
pasha--the cost of the triumph 1,300 Russians killed and wounded, and
the trophies of it, among other things, six flags and 110 guns.
FIRST BATTLE OF PLEVNA, JULY 20TH.
Next day the Grand Duke Nicolas telegraphed to Krüdener to “occupy
Plevna as promptly as possible.” That smart old warrior had
anticipated this order by pushing out towards Plevna, which is about
twenty miles south-east of Nicopolis, an infantry regiment and the
brigade of Caucasian Cossacks, and on the same day moved out General
Schilder-Schuldner with an infantry brigade. In all this there was
no apprehension in regard to Plevna; the order and movements just
mentioned were simply in the line of fulfilment of the original
instructions that Krüdener should hasten to cross the Balkans by the
Trajan Pass.
But no Russian troops were to enter Plevna for six long months to come.
Osman Pasha, whose fame was soon to ring through Europe, was on the
march down the Bulgarian bank of the Danube from Widdin, with an army
of 40,000 of the best troops in Turkey. Learning that the Russians had
already crossed the Danube, he had turned inland, reached Plevna on the
17th, and, recognising the strategical and defensive characteristics
of the place and its immediate surroundings, settled himself there,
and promptly set about throwing up a line of entrenchments along the
northern ridge from the village of Bukova eastward to the site of the
subsequently famous Grivitza redoubt.
In utter ignorance that Plevna was already in Osman’s occupation,
Schilder-Schuldner advanced in its direction without the commonest
precautions. He made no reconnaissances, for he had no cavalry with his
main body; and the result of this stupid neglect was that, as he was
unconcernedly crossing the Verbitza heights, he was suddenly halted
by Turkish artillery fire from the Grivitza ridge. He had already
sent the Kostroma regiment eastward to Zgalevitza, and the Caucasian
brigade to Tutchenitza, actually south-east of Plevna. The disposal of
his little force by Schilder-Schuldner for the night of the 19th July
was a lively instance of an almost comic inability how to make war.
His troops--6,500 men all told, with forty-six guns--were distributed
over a distance of seventeen miles. Osman Pasha must have smiled as
he posted his 40,000 men and ninety guns in the shelter-trenches and
battery-emplacements with which his northern and eastern front was
already garnished. Schilder-Schuldner scouted the suggestion that he
should wait for reinforcements. No! He had his orders to attack on the
morning of the 20th; he had always obeyed orders, and he meant to do so
now!
[Illustration: Second battle of PLEVNA.
July 30th 1877.
PLEVNA: THE POSITION OF THE RUSSIANS.]
Accordingly, at daybreak of that morning, he moved forward from Riben,
three batteries in the centre, a regiment on either flank. After an
hour’s cannonade, the troops moved forward and assailed the Grivitza
heights. The western extremity of the trenches was carried after a
desperate struggle, in which both sides freely used the bayonet. The
Vologda regiment, with part of the Archangel regiment on its left,
notwithstanding a withering fire from the Turkish shelter-trenches,
was able to continue the advance; and, after repelling a succession of
attacks made by Turkish battalions, the Vologdas and Archangels fought
their way to the northern outskirts of Plevna, where, at seven o’clock,
they were brought to a halt by a very hot fire from behind the hedges
and ditches on the edge of the town. They nevertheless hung on here
for some hours, fighting hard and losing heavily, until about eleven
o’clock they received the order to withdraw.
The Kostroma regiment, coming from Zgalevitza, advanced from the
south-east on the Grivitza position, where the subsequently famous
redoubt had as yet scarcely been traced, and after a short cannonade
delivered its assault in columns of companies. Over and over again the
successive tiers of trenches were taken and retaken at the point of the
bayonet and with cruel slaughter. A moment’s hesitation in front of
the last and strongest line of defence ended in the breaking up of the
regiment into small columns of attack. The lines of those columns were
strewn with dead and wounded, and all the superior officers went down.
There was, therefore, no one who could order a retreat, and the troops
charged forward under the command of a simple lieutenant, and finally
carried the last Turkish entrenchment. They then chased the Turks right
up to the edge of the town, where the latter found prepared positions
in the gardens and houses of the eastern suburb, whence a cross-fire of
artillery caused terrible losses in the Kostroma ranks. These losses,
the exhaustion of ammunition, and the lack of reserves compelled its
reluctant retreat, which was followed by heavy swarms of Turkish
skirmishers and by volley after volley of artillery.
The Russian troops had been engaged to the last man for hours, and were
worn out with their exertions. A general retreat was, therefore, wisely
ordered at about noon; but in effecting it heavy losses were sustained
by the sallies made by the Turks, who, however, did not pursue beyond
their trenches. The Russians left on the field all their dead and most
of their wounded, as well as two guns, twenty ammunition waggons, and
all the baggage of the Kostroma regiment. Their losses were close on
3,000 men; nearly two-thirds of the officers and over one-third of
the men were _hors de combat_. There are no data from which to
estimate the Turkish loss. The Russians reckoned it about 4,000; the
Swiss writer Le Compte calls it “about 200”--a wide discrepancy indeed.
The Russian army was furious against Schilder-Schuldner, and there was
a great clamour for a court-martial; but he was not even called upon
to resign, and he blundered cheerfully along to the very end of the
campaign. There is no need to point out his faults and errors. Without
having learned anything about the strength or position of the enemy,
and with no reserves, he sent his troops blindly to the assault in
two lines which had no communication with each other, and against an
enemy more than four times their own strength. He had the doubtful and
dangerous virtue of acting on his orders to their very letter. True,
that is one way of avoiding responsibility.
[Illustration: GRAND DUKE NICOLAS.]
THE SECOND BATTLE OF PLEVNA, JULY 30TH.
The Grand Duke Nicolas, commander-in-chief of the Russian armies in
Bulgaria, was an obstinate and narrow-minded man. He would not believe
that the Turks were in force in Plevna, notwithstanding the crushing
defeat which Schilder-Schuldner had received on July 20th. He would
not take the trouble to come down from Tirnova to the Plevna front,
contenting himself with ordering Krüdener to make a renewed attack
on Plevna with his own corps (the 9th), strengthened by the addition
of an infantry and a cavalry brigade from the 11th corps, under the
command of Lieutenant-General Prince Schahofskoy, and of the 30th
division (4th corps), which had just crossed the Danube. Krüdener had
reconnoitred the Plevna position with great care; and on account of
its natural strength and the force of the enemy, which he estimated
at not less than 50,000 men, he did not at all fancy the task laid
upon him. He had even ventured to remonstrate against the risk of
failure which he apprehended; but he received a peremptory and even
angry order from the Grand Duke to obey orders without delay, and not
bother the headquarters with any more querulous croaking. Krüdener now
became furious; he had the full belief that with 30,000 men in the
open field against 50,000 in a strong fortified position, he was bound
to be beaten disastrously, a belief which the event justified--but
he was resolved to put in his last man, and as regarded himself he
would rather prefer that he did not come out of the business alive.
Throughout the Russian camp there was little of that excitement of
anticipation which had been manifest on the evening before the crossing
of the Danube. The Russian officer, subject of a despot though he is,
has a habit of speaking his mind; and on the eve of this battle the
ears of the Grand Duke Nicolas would have tingled had he heard the
comments made upon him. Meanwhile the Turks were working with the
utmost diligence upon their fortifications, confident that they would
be again attacked in the course of a few days. By the 30th, the day
of the battle, the Grivitza redoubt and four redoubts of the “middle
group” east of Plevna were in condition for defence.
Krüdener was in chief command of the assailing forces. His orders for
the 30th were that the troops of his own corps, forming the right wing,
should advance to the attack of the Grivitza redoubt and the adjacent
positions on the northern heights, the 31st division to lead, the
5th to follow in support; and that the left wing under Schahofskoy,
consisting of two infantry brigades, should occupy the Radischevo
ridge to the south-east of Plevna, and assail the redoubts of the
“middle group” on the lower swell, due east of the town. Krüdener’s
whole army was a little over 30,000 men, consisting of 36 battalions,
30 squadrons, and 176 guns; of which 24 battalions, 110 guns, and 10
squadrons belonged to his own (the right) wing, 11 battalions, 54
guns, and 8 squadrons constituted Schahofskoy’s (the left) wing, and 1
battalion, 12 guns, and 12 squadrons was Skobeleff’s detached command
on the extreme left. The main fault of the dispositions was that
Krüdener and Schahofskoy were practically independent of each other, so
that the two attacks were far apart and with no connecting link; but
the gravest evil was the weakness of the assailing force. The key of
the Turkish position was the Grivitza redoubt.
[Illustration: “THE GENERAL HAD RISEN, AND WAS STANDING
AGAINST A TREE” (_p._ 106).]
Schahofskoy’s advance from Poradim began at 6 a.m. As the infantry
went swinging past their general, they cheered vigorously, and seemed
ready for anything. After a two-hours’ march the head of the column
reached the upland in front of Pelischat, whence the whole Plevna
region lay before it. The headquarter stood temporarily halted near the
apex of a great horse-shoe, closed in at the heel by a wooded valley
running north and south, in the centre of which lay the town of Plevna,
its white minarets, on which the sun was shining, visible above the
encircling trees. On the long ridge forming the northern section of
the horse-shoe were discernible the tents of the Turkish camps, and on
its nearer shoulder lay the Grivitza redoubt, of which later the world
was to hear so much. Now it did not seem very formidable--merely a
rough parallelogram--all of defence visible being a bank of earth with
a ditch at its outer foot, a few guns here and there, and a good many
Turks inside the work. To his left front, as Schahofskoy looked toward
Plevna, he saw the long ridge of Radischevo, forming the southern edge
of the horse-shoe, and the valley behind it into which his advance
troops were already moving.
Some of the gay young officers of Schahofskoy’s staff would have it
that slow old Krüdener had not yet got out of bed. But the old warrior
was wide awake and well to the front. About 9 a.m. the Turkish guns
opened fire on him from the Grivitza redoubt. Answering smoke rose to
the eastward, and the cannon thunder came booming down on the wind.
[Illustration: “THEN THERE FOLLOWED A HEADLONG
RUSH” (_p._ 107).]