IF THE CONFEDERATES HAD MARCHED ON WASHINGTON AFTER BULL RUN
There have been a great many attempts to excuse or minimize the failure
of General Joseph E. Johnston to follow up the tremendous Confederate
victory won by his second in command, General G. T. Beauregard, at Bull
Run, July 21, 1861. That the Federal army was beaten literally to a pulp
there can be no doubt. General Irwin McDowell, who commanded the Union
forces, officially reported, after the battle, that all his troops were
in flight "in a state of utter disorganization." "They could not," he
wired on July 22d, "be prepared for action by to-morrow morning even
were they willing. The larger part of the men are a confused mob,
entirely demoralized." They were actually running away in such a state
of panic that they could not get away, for commissary and ammunition
wagons, congressmen's and other spectators' horses and carriages,
artillery and sutlers' wagons were blocking the road, and panicstricken
soldiers were falling over one another. When General McClellan came to
take command after McDowell had been superseded, he reported this state
of affairs: "I found no army to command--a mere collection of regiments
cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others
dispirited by defeat."
To reach the spot where the beaten raw recruits were thus cowering,
General Johnston and General Beauregard had to advance only twenty
miles, over a road every foot of which was well known to them. That the
Federal army was in ignominious flight they were well aware, for they
reported it joyfully to the government at Richmond. Why did they settle
down into utter inaction and allow McClellan to fortify the capital and
organize, drill and inspire with hope and confidence a great army?
There are a good many "ifs" in connection with the actual fighting of
the battle of Bull Run, but this "if" that comes after it--if the elated
and triumphant Confederate army had immediately advanced to the Potomac,
invested the intrenchments at Arlington Heights and, very likely,
effected a crossing above or near the Great Falls of the river, and
flanked the capital of the Union--is the greatest and most interesting
of them all.
General Beauregard actually commanded at the battle on the 21st, because
General Johnston, who ranked him, had but just arrived on the scene and
was unfamiliar with the ground and the disposition of the troops. But
he, Johnston, became responsible for the further prosecution of the
campaign, once the battle was won. It was in large measure his fault
that the fruits of victory were not reaped.
The commonly accepted explanation of the matter is that the Confederates
were "almost as much disorganized by victory as the Federals were by
defeat;" that they had no fresh troops and no cavalry with which to
pursue, and that Arlington Heights were too well fortified to be
attacked.
But General Beauregard, sore at the attempt to rob him of the laurels of
victory, has been able to show that all of the Confederate brigades of
Ewell, Holmes, D. R. Jones and Longstreet, and two regiments of Bonham's
brigade, were perfectly fresh and unharmed after the fight; that Early's
brigade had hardly been under fire; that new regiments had come up
during the day; that the fresh troops in all numbered at least fifteen
thousand; that more than half the Confederate army, in fact, had not
been engaged--a very unusual proportion after an important battle. "The
remaining forces, after a night's rest," says Beauregard himself, "would
have been instantly reorganized and found thoroughly safe to join the
advance."
Apparently nothing but shame on the Northern side, and an unwillingness
on the Southern side to discredit their great generals, has prevented a
full acknowledgment of the fatal tactics which prevented an advance on
the Potomac after Bull Run.
Now let us see what would have resulted from a Confederate investment of
Washington in the summer of 1861. Federal troops had already been
attacked in the streets of Baltimore. That city was preponderantly
disloyal, and had to be garrisoned with Union troops. Missouri had not
yet been won to the Union. Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky, all of
which were necessary to the maintenance of the Northern position, were
slave States, and their loyalty was doubtful. If the capital of the
Union had been taken, all these States, in spite of their previous
unwillingness to join the secession movement, would probably have been
impelled by strong self-interest to range themselves on the side of the
other slave States; and the Confederacy would have been strengthened by
the addition of at least four States.
There was an important party among the Confederates from the western
Southern States--it was led by Postmaster-General John H. Reagan and
included General Albert Sidney Johnston--who believed in advancing at
the very outset into Kentucky and making the Ohio River the first line
of Southern defense. The plan was rejected by Davis and his advisers. It
was an unfortunate rejection. The Confederacy was finally beaten
because it was flanked in the west and cut in two at Vicksburg. But if
Washington had been captured or invested after Bull Run, it is certain
that the Confederate line would have been pushed to the Ohio, and it
would probably have been held there. The advantage gained by McClellan
in West Virginia would have been lost, for he would practically have
found himself within the Confederate lines and would have been compelled
to withdraw into Pennsylvania.
Even as matters were, the position of the Union was highly precarious
all through the summer and autumn of 1861. There were signs of a demand
for peace in the North. Lincoln's own party was turning against him. The
sympathy of Europe was rapidly passing over to the Confederacy. But so
long as Lincoln stood firm in the White House and Congress sat at the
capital, "the government at Washington still lived," and the people
felt it. The truce so kindly, so inexplicably permitted by Davis and Lee
and Johnston enabled McClellan to organize and drill a great army, to
fortify the capital, to spread renewed confidence in the North, and, in
short, to establish a fulcrum for future victory.
This was not the last time that opportunity knocked at the door of the
Confederacy. It knocked again, and loudly, as will be shown in the next
chapter, the same year. Either event, taken alone, appears decisive. For
as we contemplate the events of the 21st of July, 1861, it quite appears
as if the flag of two republics--three, perhaps, and conceivably
four--might have been flying over this great American domain to-day if
Johnston had pressed his advance down the Warrenton turnpike early
Monday morning, July 22d. Wars, divisions, European intrusion,
retrogression and darkness would have been America's fate, instead of
that imperial advance, with liberty and union, which has dazzled and
heartened the whole world.