All this sort of feeling was destin'd to be arrested and revers'd by a
terrible shock--the battle of first Bull Run--certainly, as we now know
it, one of the most singular fights on record. (All battles, and their
results, are far more matters of accident than is generally thought; but
this was throughout a casualty, a chance. Each side supposed it had won,
till the last moment. One had, in point of fact, just the same right
to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series of fictions, the
national forces at the last moment exploded in a panic and fled from the
field.) The defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the
Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22d--day drizzling all through with
rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle (20th, 21st,) had been
parch'd and hot to an extreme--the dust, the grime and smoke, in layers,
sweated in, follow'd by other layers again sweated in, absorb'd by those
excited souls--their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling
the air--stirr'd up everywhere on the dry roads and trodden fields by
the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, &c.--all the men with this
coating of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the
Long Bridge--a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington
baffed, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts, and the proud
boasts with which you went forth? Where are your banners, and your bands
of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't
a band playing--and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to
its staff.
The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely and
shame-faced enough, then thicker, in the streets of Washington--appear
in Pennsylvania avenue, and on the steps and basement entrances. They
come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies.
Occasionally, a rare regiment, in perfect order, with its officers (some
gaps, dead, the true braves,) marching in silence, with lowering faces,
stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his
musket, and stepping alive; but these are the exceptions. Sidewalks
of Pennsylvania avenue, Fourteenth street, &c., crowded, jamm'd with
citizens, darkies, clerks, everybody, lookers-on; women in the windows,
curious expressions from faces, as those swarms of dirt-cover'd return'd
soldiers there (will they never end?) move by; but nothing said, no
comments; (half our lookers-on secesh of the most venomous kind--they
say nothing; but the devil snickers in their faces.) During the
forenoon Washington gets all over motley with these defeated
soldiers--queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench'd (the
steady rain drizzles on all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard,
blister'd in the feet. Good people (but not over-many of them either,)
hurry up something for their grub. They put wash-kettles on the fire,
for soup, for coffee. They set tables on the side-walks--wagon-loads
of bread are purchas'd, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged
ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm, they
stand with store of eating and drink at an improvis'd table of rough
plank, and give food, and have the store replenished from their house
every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active,
silent, white-hair'd, and give food, though the tears stream down their
cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time. Amid the deep
excitement, crowds and motion, and desperate eagerness, it seems strange
to see many, very many, of the soldiers sleeping--in the midst of all,
sleeping sound. They drop down anywhere, on the steps of houses, up
close by the basements or fences, on the sidewalk, aside on some vacant
lot, and deeply sleep. A poor 17 or 18 year old boy lies there, on the
stoop of a grand house; he sleeps so calmly, so profoundly. Some clutch
their muskets firmly even in sleep. Some in squads; comrades, brothers,
close together--and on them, as they lay, sulkily drips the rain.
As afternoon pass'd, and evening came, the streets, the bar-rooms, knots
everywhere, listeners, questioners, terrible yarns, bugaboo, mask'd
batteries, our regiment all cut up, &c.--stories and story-tellers,
windy, bragging, vain centres of street-crowds. Resolution, manliness,
seem to have abandon'd Washington. The principal hotel, Willard's, is
full of shoulder-straps--thick, crush'd, creeping with shoulder-straps.
(I see them, and must have a word with them. There you are,
shoulder-straps!--but where are your companies? where are your men?
Incompetents! never tell me of chances of battle, of getting stray'd,
and the like. I think this is your work, this retreat, after all. Sneak,
blow, put on airs there in Willard's sumptuous parlors and bar-rooms, or
anywhere--no explanation shall save you. Bull Run is your work; had you
been half or one-tenth worthy your men, this would never have happen'd.)
Meantime, in Washington, among the great persons and their entourage, a
mixture of awful consternation, uncertainty, rage, shame, helplessness,
and stupefying disappointment. The worst is not only imminent, but
already here. In a few hours--perhaps before the next meal--the secesh
generals, with their victorious hordes, will be upon us. The dream of
humanity, the vaunted Union we thought so strong, so impregnable--lo!
it seems already smash'd like a china plate. One bitter, bitter
hour--perhaps proud America will never again know such an hour. She must
pack and fly--no time to spare. Those white palaces--the dome-crown'd
capitol there on the hill, so stately over the trees--shall they be
left--or destroy'd first? For it is certain that the talk among certain
of the magnates and officers and clerks and officials everywhere, for
twenty-four hours in and around Washington after Bull Run, was loud
and undisguised for yielding out and out, and substituting the southern
rule, and Lincoln promptly abdicating and departing. If the secesh
officers and forces had immediately follow'd, and by a bold Napoleonic
movement had enter'd Washington the first day, (or even the second,)
they could have had things their own way, and a powerful faction north
to back them. One of our returning colonels express'd in public that
night, amid a swarm of officers and gentlemen in a crowded room, the
opinion that it was useless to fight, that the southerners had made
their title clear, and that the best course for the national government
to pursue was to desist from any further attempt at stopping them, and
admit them again to the lead, on the best terms they were willing to
grant. Not a voice was rais'd against this judgment, amid that large
crowd of officers and gentlemen. (The fact is, the hour was one of the
three or four of those crises we had then and afterward, during the
fluctuations of four years, when human eyes appear'd at least just as
likely to see the last breath of the Union as to see it continue.)