There had been strife, a bloodless, political strife, for forty years
between the two great sections of the American nation. No efforts to
reconcile the estranged brethren of the same household had been
successful. The ties that bound the great sections of the country had
severed one by one; their contention had grown stronger through all these
years, until at last there was nothing left but a final appeal to the
arbitrament of the sword--then came the great war, the greatest civil war
in the annals of mankind.
"Hostilities" began with the secession of South Carolina from the Union,
December 20, 1860. On January 9, 1861, the _Star of the West_ was fired
upon in Charleston Harbor.
For the first time in the nation's history the newly-elected President had
entered the capital city by night and in secret, in the fear of the
assassin's plots. For the first time he had been inaugurated under a
military guard. Then came the opening shots, and the ruined walls of the
noble fort in Charleston harbor told the story of the beginnings of the
fratricidal war. The fall of Sumter, on April 14, 1861, had aroused the
North to the imminence of the crisis, revealing the danger that threatened
the Union and calling forth a determination to preserve it. The same event
had unified the South; four additional States cast their lot with the
seven which had already seceded from the Union. Virginia, the Old
Dominion, the first born of the sisterhood of States, swung into the
secession column but three days after the fall of Sumter; the next day,
April 18th, she seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry and on the 20th the
great navy-yard at Norfolk.
Two governments, each representing a different economic and political
idea, now stood where there had been but one--the North, with its powerful
industrial organization and wealth; the South, with its rich agricultural
empire. Both were calling upon the valor of their sons.
At the nation's capital all was confusion and disorder. The tramp of
infantry and the galloping of horsemen through the streets could be heard
day and night. Throughout the country anxiety and uncertainty reigned on
all sides. Would the South return to its allegiance, would the Union be
divided, or would there be war? The religious world called unto the
heavens in earnest prayer for peace; but the rushing torrent of events
swept on toward war, to dreadful internecine war.
The first call of the President for troops, for seventy-five thousand men,
was answered with surprising alacrity. Citizens left their farms, their
workshops, their counting rooms, and hurried to the nation's capital to
take up arms in defense of the Union. A similar call by the Southern
President was answered with equal eagerness. Each side believed itself in
the right. Both were profoundly sincere and deeply in earnest. Both have
won the respect of history.
After the fall of Fort Sumter, the two sides spent the spring months
marshaling their forces for the fierce conflict that was to follow.
President Lincoln had called for three-months' volunteers; at the
beginning of July some thirty thousand of these men were encamped along
the Potomac about the heights of Arlington. As the weeks passed, the great
Northern public grew impatient at the inaction and demanded that Sumter be
avenged, that a blow be struck for the Union.
The "call to arms" rang through the nation and aroused the people. No less
earnest was the feeling of the South, and soon two formidable armies were
arrayed against each other, only a hundred miles apart--at Washington and
at Richmond.
The commander of the United States Army was Lieut.-General Winfield Scott,
whose military career had begun before most of the men of '61 had been
born. Aged and infirm, he remained in Washington. The immediate command
of the army was entrusted to Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell.
Another Union army, twenty thousand strong, lay at Martinsburg, Virginia,
under the command of Major-General Patterson, who, like General Scott, was
a veteran of the War of 1812 and of the Mexican War.
Opposite McDowell, at Manassas Junction, about thirty miles from
Washington, lay a Confederate army under Brigadier-General Beauregard who,
three months before, had won the homage of the South by reducing Fort
Sumter. Opposed to Patterson in the Shenandoah valley was Joseph E.
Johnston with a force of nine thousand men. The plans of the President and
General Scott were to send McDowell against Beauregard, while Patterson
was to detain Johnston in the Valley and prevent him from joining
Beauregard. It was confidently believed that, if the two Confederate
forces could be kept apart, the "Grand Army" could win a signal victory
over the force at Manassas; and on July 16th, with waving banners and
lively hopes of victory, amid the cheers of the multitude, it moved out
from the banks of the Potomac toward the interior of Virginia. It was a
motley crowd, dressed in the varied uniforms of the different State
militias. The best disciplined troops were those of the regular army,
represented by infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Even the navy was drawn
upon and a battalion of marines was included in the Union forces. In
addition to the regulars were volunteers from all the New England States,
from New York and Pennsylvania and from Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota,
organizations which, in answer to the President's call for troops, had
volunteered for three months' service. Many were boys in their teens with
the fresh glow of youth on their cheeks, wholly ignorant of the
exhilaration, the fear, the horrors of the battle-field. Onward through
the Virginia plains and uplands they marched to the strains of martial
music. Unused to the rigid discipline of war, many of the men would drop
out of line to gather berries or tempting fruits along the roadside, or
to refill their canteens at every fresh stream of water, and frequent
halts were necessary to allow the stragglers to regain their lines.
After a two days' march, with "On to Richmond" as their battle-cry, the
army halted at the quiet hamlet of Centreville, twenty-seven miles from
Washington and seven miles from Manassas Junction where lay the waiting
Confederate army of similar composition--untrained men and boys. Men from
Virginia, from North and South Carolina, from the mountains of Tennessee,
from Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, even from distant Arkansas, had
gathered on the soil of the Old Dominion State to do battle for the
Southern cause. Between the two armies flowed the stream of Bull Run,
destined to give its name to the first great battle of the impending
conflict. The opposing commanders, McDowell and Beauregard, had been
long-time friends; twenty-three years before, they had been graduated in
the same class at West Point.
Beauregard knew of the coming of the Federal army. The news had been
conveyed to him by a young man, a former government clerk at Washington,
whose sympathies, however, lay with the cause of the South. He won the
confidence of Beauregard. The latter sent him to the capital city bearing
a paper with two words in cipher, "Trust Bearer." With this he was to call
at a certain house, present it to the lady within, and wait a reply.
Traveling all night, he crossed the Potomac below Alexandria, and reached
the city at dawn, when the newsboys were calling out in the empty streets
the latest intelligence of the army. The messenger rang the doorbell at a
house within a stone's throw of the White House and delivered the scrap of
paper to the only one in the city to whom it was intelligible. She
hurriedly gave the youth his breakfast, wrote in cipher the words, "Order
issued for McDowell to march upon Manassas to-night," and giving him the
scrap of paper, sent him on his way. That night the momentous bit of news
was in the hands of General Beauregard. He instantly wired President
Davis at Richmond and asked that he be reënforced by Johnston's army.
As we have seen, General Scott had arranged that Patterson detain Johnston
in the Valley. He had even advised McDowell that "if Johnston joins
Beauregard he shall have Patterson on his heels." But the aged Patterson
was unequal to the task before him. Believing false reports, he was
convinced that Johnston had an army of thirty-five thousand men, and
instead of marching upon Johnston at Winchester he led his army to
Charlestown, twenty miles in the opposite direction. Johnston thereupon
was free to join Beauregard at Manassas, and he promptly proceeded to do
so.
McDowell's eager troops had rested at Centreville for two days. The time
for them to test their mettle in a general engagement was at hand. Sunday,
July 21st, was selected as the day on which to offer battle. At half-past
two in the morning the sleeping men were roused for the coming conflict.
Their dream of an easy victory had already received a rude shock, for on
the day after their arrival a skirmish between two minor divisions of the
opposing armies had resulted in the retreat of the Union forces after
nineteen of their number lay dead upon the plain. The Confederates, too,
had suffered and fifteen of their army were killed. But patriotic
enthusiasm was too ardent to be quenched by such an incident, and eagerly,
in the early dawn of the sultry July morning, they marched toward the
banks of the stream on which they were to offer their lives in the cause
of their country.
The army moved out in three divisions commanded by Generals Daniel Tyler,
David Hunter, and S. P. Heintzelman. Among the subordinate officers was
Ambrose E. Burnside, who, a year and five months later, was to figure in a
far greater and far more disastrous battle, not many miles from this same
spot; and William T. Sherman, who was to achieve a greater renown in the
coming war.
On the Southern side we find equally striking characters. General Joseph
E. Johnston was not held by Patterson in the Valley and with a portion of
his army had reached Manassas on the afternoon of the 20th. In the Indian
wars of Jackson's time Johnston had served his country; like McDowell and
Beauregard, he had battled at the gates of Mexico; and like the latter he
chose to cast his lot with the fortunes of the South. There, too, was
Longstreet, who after the war was over, was to spend many years in the
service of the country he was now seeking to divide. Most striking of all
was "Stonewall" Jackson, whose brilliant military career was to astonish
the world.
The Union plan for this fateful July day was that Tyler should lead his
division westward by way of the Warrenton turnpike to a stone bridge that
crossed Bull Run, about four miles from Centreville. At the same time the
main army under Hunter and Heintzelman was to make a detour of several
miles northward through a dense forest to a ford of Bull Run, known as
Sudley's Ford. Here they were to cross the stream, march down its right
bank and, while Tyler guarded the Stone Bridge, engage the foe on the west
side of Bull Run. The plan of the battle was admirably drawn, but the
march around to Sudley's Ford was slower than had been expected, and it
was ten o'clock before the main army reached the point west of the Stone
Bridge. While the Federals were making their plans to attack the
Confederate left wing, Generals Beauregard and Johnston were planning an
aggressive movement against the left wing of the Federal army. They were
to cross Bull Run by fords several miles below the Stone Bridge and attack
the Northern troops on the weaker wing of the Union force in an effort to
rout them before relief could be sent from the Federal right. The
Confederate attack was planned to take place a few hours later than
McDowell had decided to move. The Southern troops were preparing to cross
the stream when the boom of cannon at the Stone Bridge told that the
Federals had taken the aggressive and that the weak Confederate left was
in danger of being overwhelmed by the superior numbers of the Union right
wing. Orders countermanding the command to attack were quickly sent to the
Southerners at the lower fords, and preparations were hurriedly made to
repulse the attack of the Northern force.
Tyler reached the Stone Bridge before six in the morning and opened fire
on a Confederate force under Colonel Evans on the other side of the run.
For some time this was kept up, and Evans was much puzzled that the
Federals did not attempt to cross the bridge; they merely kept up a
desultory fire. The failure of the Union troops to advance led Evans to
believe that Tyler's attack was only a feint and that the real attacking
force would approach from some other direction. This belief was confirmed
when he descried a lengthening line of dust above the tree-tops far in the
distance, north of the Warrenton turnpike. Evans was now convinced (and he
was right) that the main Union army was marching to Sudley's Ford, three
miles above the Stone Bridge, and would reach the field from that
direction. Quickly then he turned about with six companies of brave South
Carolinians and a battalion of "Louisiana Tigers" and posted them on a
plateau overlooking the valley of Young's Branch, a small tributary of
Bull Run. Here, not far from the Matthews and Carter houses, he awaited
the coming of the Federals.
His force was stationed overlooking the Sudley and Newmarket road and an
open field through which the Federal troops would be forced to pass to
reach the higher ground held by the Confederates. Two 6-pound howitzers
were placed to sweep the field of approach, one at each end of Evans' line
of defense.
With guns loaded, and howitzers ready to pour their charges into an
advancing force, the Southerners stood and watched the line of dust that
arose above the trees. It moved slowly to the westward. Then, where the
Sudley road turns to the southward to cross the Sudley Ford, it followed
the trend of the highway. It reached the crossing of Bull Run, and the
line of dust faded as the Federals spread into battle-line behind the
expanse of woodland that hid each column from the other's view.
It was nearing ten o'clock. The rays of the summer sun were beating in
sweltering heat upon the waiting troops. Those who could find shelter
beneath the trees moved from their places into the shade. Heavy banks of
storm clouds were gathering on the horizon, giving promise of relief from
oppressive warmth. A silence settled over the ranks of the Confederates as
they watched the edge of the woodland for the first appearance of the
approaching troops.
Suddenly there was a glimmer of the sunlight reflected from burnished
steel among the trees. Then, in open battle array, the Federal advance
guard, under the command of Colonel Burnside, emerged from the wood on a
neighboring hill, and for the first time in the nation's history two
hostile American armies faced each other in battle array. At Fort Sumter
only the stone walls had suffered; not a drop of human blood was shed. But
here was to be a gigantic conflict, and thousands of people believed that
here on this field on this day would be decided the fate of the Union and
the fate of the Confederacy. The whole country awaited in breathless
expectancy the news of this initial conflict, to become known as the
battle of Bull Run.
With little delay the battle opened. The Federals had a clear advantage in
numbers as their outlying forces came up; but they met with a brave
resistance. General Bee, of South Carolina, with two brigades, crossed a
valley to the south of Evans in the face of a heavy artillery fire to a
point within one hundred yards of the Federal lines. At this short range
thousands of shots were fired and many brave men and boys were stretched
upon the green. The outcome at this point was uncertain until the Union
forces were joined by Heintzelman with heavy reënforcements and by Sherman
with a portion of Tyler's division. Bee could now do nothing but
withdraw, and in doing so his men fell into great disorder. Cheer after
cheer arose from the ranks of the Union army.
Meanwhile, Generals Beauregard and Johnston had remained at the right of
their line, near Manassas, nearly four miles from the scene of action,
still determined to press their attack on the Federal left if the
opportunity was offered. As the morning passed and the sounds of conflict
became louder and extended further to the westward, it became evident to
the Confederate leaders that the Federals were massing all their strength
in an effort to crush the left of the Southern army. Plans for an
aggressive movement were then abandoned, the commanders withdrawing all
their reserve forces from the positions where they had been held to follow
up the Confederate attack, and sending them to the support of the small
force that was holding back the Federals. After dispatching troops to
threaten the Union left, Johnston and Beauregard galloped at full speed to
the scene of the battle. They arrived about noon--at the moment when Bee's
brigade was fleeing across the valley from the hail of Federal bullets. As
the frightened men were running in the utmost disorder, General Bee,
seeing Thomas J. Jackson's brigade calmly waiting the onset, exclaimed to
his men, "Look at Jackson; there he stands like a stone wall!" The
expression spread to the army and to the world, and that invincible
soldier has since been known as "Stonewall" Jackson.
Beauregard and Johnston found it a herculean task to rally the fleeing men
and re-form the lines, but they succeeded at length; the battle was
renewed, and from noon till nearly three o'clock it raged with greater
fury than before. The fight was chiefly for the possession of the plateau
called the Henry hill. Up and down the slopes the two armies surged in the
broiling sun. Beauregard, like McDowell on the other side, led his men in
the thickest of the fight. A bursting shell killed his horse under him and
tore the heel from his boot; he mounted another horse and continued the
battle. At half-past two the Confederates had been entirely driven from
the plateau, had been pressed back for a mile and a half, and for the
second time within three or four hours the Union troops raised the shout
of victory.
At three o'clock, while McDowell and his men were congratulating
themselves on having won the battle, a faint cheering was heard from a
Confederate army far across the hills. It grew louder and nearer, and
presently the gray lines were seen marching gallantly back toward the
scene of the battle from which they had been driven. The thrilling cry
then passed through the Union ranks, "Johnston has come, Johnston has
come!" and there was terror in the cry. They did not know that Johnston,
with two-thirds of his army, had arrived the day before; but it was true
that the remaining third, twenty-three hundred fresh troops, had reached
Manassas at noon by rail, and after a forced march of three hours, under
the command of Kirby Smith, had just united with the army of Beauregard.
It was this that caused the cheering and determined Beauregard to make
another attack on the Henry plateau.
The Union men had fought valiantly in this, their first battle, untrained
and unused to warfare as they were; they had braved the hail of lead and
of bursting shells; they had witnessed their comrades, their friends, and
neighbors fall at their feet to rise no more. They nevertheless rejoiced
in their success. But with the long march and the five hours' fighting in
the scorching July sun they were weary to exhaustion, and when they saw
the Confederates again approaching, reënforced with fresh troops, their
courage failed and they began to retreat down the hill. With waving colors
the Confederates pressed on, opening a volley of musketry on the
retreating Federals, and following it with another and another.
In vain McDowell and his officers attempted to rally his panic-stricken
men and re-form his lines. Only the regulars, about sixteen hundred in
number, were subject to the orders of their superiors, and they made a
brave stand against the oncoming foe while they covered the retreat of the
disorganized mass. On the Henry hill were the two powerful batteries of
Griffin and Ricketts. They had done most valiant service while the tide of
battle ebbed and flowed. But at last their hour had come. A Confederate
regiment, dashing from a neighboring hill, poured in a deadly volley, cut
down the cannoneers almost to a man, killed their horses, and captured the
guns. A few minutes later General Beauregard rode up to the spot and
noticed Captain Ricketts lying on the ground, desperately wounded. The two
men had been friends in the years gone by. Beauregard, recognizing his old
friend, asked him if he could be of any service. He then sent his own
surgeons to care for the wounded captain and detailed one of his staff to
make him comfortable when he was carried to Richmond as a prisoner of war.
There is little more to relate of the battle of Bull Run. In his report
McDowell stated that after providing for the protection of the retreat
from the battlefield by Porter's and Blenker's volunteer brigades, he took
command in person of the force previously stationed for holding the road
back to Centreville and made such disposition "as would best serve to
check the enemy," at the Centreville ridge. Some hundreds of civilians,
members of Congress and others, had come out from Washington to witness a
victory for the Grand Army, and they saw that army scattered in wild
flight to escape an imaginary pursuer. The Confederates made no serious
effort to follow after them, for the routed Federals had destroyed the
Stone Bridge as they passed it in their retreat, and had obstructed the
other avenues of pursuit. As darkness settled over the field the
Confederates returned to their camps.
McDowell made a desperate effort to check and reorganize his army at
Centreville, but he was powerless. The troops refused to listen to any
commands; they rushed on and great numbers of them traveled all night,
reaching Washington in the morning.
These raw troops had now received their first baptism of blood and fire.
Nearly five hundred of their number were left dead on the field of battle,
and fourteen hundred were wounded. The captured and missing brought the
Federal loss to nearly three thousand men. The Confederate loss in killed,
wounded, and missing was less than two thousand. The Federal forces
engaged were nearly nineteen thousand, while the Confederates had more
than eighteen thousand men on the field.
The Confederate victory at Bull Run did the South great injury in that it
led vast numbers to believe the war was over and that the South had won.
Many soldiers went home in this belief, and for months thereafter it was
not easy to recruit the Southern armies. The North, on the other hand, was
taught a needed lesson--was awakened to a sense of the magnitude of the
task before it.
The first great battle of the American Civil War brought joy to the
Confederacy and grief to the States of the North. As the Federal troops
marched into Washington through a drenching downpour of rain, on July 22d,
the North was shrouded in gloom. But the defeated army had not lost its
courage. The remnants of the shattered forces were gathered, and from the
fragments a mightier host was to be rallied under the Stars and Stripes to
meet the now victorious foe on future battle-grounds.
[Illustration: THE DEFENDER OF WASHINGTON--GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL AND HIS
STAFF.]
The man who planned the battle of Bull Run for the Northern Army was
Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell, then in command of the forces before
Washington. When assured that Patterson would hold Johnston in the
Shenandoah, he undertook to advance with his raw and unorganized troops on
Beauregard at Manassas. The plan for the battle which he adopted on the
night of July 18th was, according to General Sherman, one of the best
formed during the entire war. But it failed because, even before he began
his attack, Johnston with a good part of his troops had already joined
Beauregard at Manassas. After the defeat McDowell was placed in charge of
the defenses of Washington on the Virginia side of the Potomac. This
picture was taken the next year at General Robert E. Lee's former home in
Arlington.
[Illustration: G. T. Beauregard
_Copyright by Review of Reviews Co._]