Produced by Alev Akman, Diane Beane, James J. Kelly Library
of St. Gregory's University and Robert J. Hall
THIS BOOK WAS DONATED TO PROJECT GUTENBERG BY THE JAMES J. KELLY
LIBRARY OF ST. GREGORY'S UNIVERSITY; THANKS TO ALEV AKMAN.
Scanned by Dianne Bean.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ABRAHAM LINCOLN EDITION
VOLUME 31
THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES
ALLEN JOHNSON
EDITOR
GERHARD R. LOMER
CHARLES W. JEFFERYS
ASSISTANT EDITORS
[Illustration: _GENERAL U. S. GRANT_
Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.]
CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
A CHRONICLE OF THE BLUE AND THE GRAY
BY WILLIAM WOOD
NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO.
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1921
TO MY AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB
PREFACE
Sixty years ago today the guns that thundered round Fort Sumter began
the third and greatest modern civil war fought by English-speaking
people. This war was quite as full of politics as were the other
two--the War of the American Revolution and that of Puritan and
Cavalier. But, though the present Chronicle never ignores the vital
correlations between statesmen and commanders, it is a book of
warriors, through and through.
I gratefully acknowledge the indispensable assistance of Colonel
G. J. Fiebeger, a West Point expert, and of Dr. Allen Johnson,
chief editor of the series and Professor of American History at
Yale.
WILLIAM WOOD,
Late Colonel commanding 8th Royal Rifles, and Officer-in-charge,
Canadian Special Mission Overseas.
QUEBEC,
April 18, 1921.
CONTENTS
I. THE CLASH: 1861
II. THE COMBATANTS
III. THE NAVAL WAR: 1862
IV. THE RIVER WAR: 1861
V. LINCOLN: WAR STATESMAN
VI. LEE AND JACKSON: 1862-3
VII. GRANT WINS THE RIVER WAR: 1863
VIII. GETTYSBURG: 1863
IX. FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4
X. GRANT ATTACKS THE FRONT: 1864
XI. SHERMAN DESTROYS THE BASE: 1864
XII. THE END: 1865
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
GENERAL U. S. GRANT
Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE
Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington
GENERAL T. J. (STONEWALL) JACKSON
Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.
NORTH AND SOUTH IN 1861
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
ADMIRAL D. G. FARRAGUT
Photograph by Brady.
CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1862
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
CIVIL WAR: VIRGINIA CAMPAIGNS, 1862
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1863
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN
Photograph by Brady. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.
CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1864
Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographical Society.
CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
THE CLASH: 1861
States which claimed a sovereign right to secede from the Union
naturally claimed the corresponding right to resume possession of
all the land they had ceded to that Union's Government for the use
of its naval and military posts. So South Carolina, after leading
the way to secession on December 20, 1860, at once began to work
for the retrocession of the forts defending her famous cotton port
of Charleston. These defenses, being of vital consequence to both
sides, were soon to attract the strained attention of the whole
country.
There were three minor forts: Castle Pinckney, dozing away, in
charge of a solitary sergeant, on an island less than a mile from
the city; Fort Moultrie, feebly garrisoned and completely at the
mercy of attackers on its landward side; and Fort Johnson over on
James Island. Lastly, there was the world-renowned Fort Sumter,
which then stood, unfinished and ungarrisoned, on a little islet
beside the main ship channel, at the entrance to the harbor, and
facing Fort Moultrie just a mile away. The proper war garrison of
all the forts should have been over a thousand men. The actual
garrison--including officers, band, and the Castle Pinckney
sergeant--was less than a hundred. It was, however, loyal to the
Union; and its commandant, Major Robert Anderson, though born in
the slave-owning State of Kentucky, was determined to fight.
The situation, here as elsewhere, was complicated by Floyd, President
Buchanan's Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of office on a
charge of misapplying public funds. Floyd, as an ardent Southerner,
was using the last lax days of the Buchanan Government to get the
army posts ready for capitulation whenever secession should have
become an accomplished fact. He urged on construction, repairs, and
armament at Charleston, while refusing to strengthen the garrison,
in order, as he said, not to provoke Carolina. Moreover, in November
he had replaced old Colonel Gardner, a Northern veteran of "1812," by
Anderson the Southerner, in whom he hoped to find a good capitulator.
But this time Floyd was wrong.
The day after Christmas Anderson's little garrison at Fort Moultrie
slipped over to Fort Sumter under cover of the dark, quietly removed
Floyd's workmen, who were mostly Baltimore Secessionists, and began
to prepare for defense. Next morning Charleston was furious and
began to prepare for attack. The South Carolina authorities at
once took formal possession of Pinckney and Moultrie; and three
days later seized the United States Arsenal in Charleston itself.
Ten days later again, on January 9, 1861, the _Star of the West_,
a merchant vessel coming in with reinforcements and supplies for
Anderson, was fired on and forced to turn back. Anderson, who had
expected a man-of-war, would not fire in her defense, partly because
he still hoped there might yet be peace.
While Charleston stood at gaze and Anderson at bay the ferment of
secession was working fast in Florida, where another tiny garrison
was all the Union had to hold its own. This garrison, under two
loyal young lieutenants, Slemmer and Gilman, occupied Barrancas
Barracks in Pensacola Bay. Late at night on the eighth of January
(the day before the _Star of the West_ was fired on at Charleston)
some twenty Secessionists came to seize the old Spanish Fort San
Carlos, where, up to that time, the powder had been kept. This
fort, though lying close beside the barracks, had always been
unoccupied; so the Secessionists looked forward to an easy capture.
But, to their dismay, an unexpected guard challenged them, and,
not getting the proper password in reply, dispersed them with the
first shots of the Civil War.
Commodore Armstrong sat idle at the Pensacola Navy Yard, distracted
between the Union and secession. On the ninth Slemmer received
orders from Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief at Washington, to
use all means in defense of Union property. Next morning Slemmer
and his fifty faithful men were landed on Santa Rosa Island, just
one mile across the bay, where the dilapidated old Fort Pickens
stood forlorn. Two days later the Commodore surrendered the Navy
Yard, the Stars and Stripes were lowered, and everything ashore fell
into the enemy's hands. There was no flagstaff at Fort Pickens; but
the Union colors were at once hung out over the northwest bastion,
in full view of the shore, while the _Supply_ and _Wyandotte_,
the only naval vessels in the bay, and both commanded by loyal
men, mastheaded extra colors and stood clear. Five days afterwards
they had to sail for New York; and Slemmer, whose total garrison
had been raised to eighty by the addition of thirty sailors, was
left to hold Fort Pickens if he could.
He had already been summoned to surrender by Colonel Chase and
Captain Farrand, who had left the United States Army and Navy for
the service of the South. Chase, like many another Southern officer,
was stirred to his inmost depths by his own change of allegiance.
"I have come," he said, "to ask of you young officers, officers of
the same army in which I have spent the best and happiest years
of my life, the surrender of this fort; and fearing that I might
not be able to say it as I ought, and also to have it in proper
form, I have put it in writing and will read it." He then began
to read. But his eyes filled with tears, and, stamping his foot,
he said: "I can't read it. Here, Farrand, you read it." Farrand,
however, pleading that his eyes were weak, handed the paper to the
younger Union officer, saying, "Here, Gilman, you have good eyes,
please read it." Slemmer refused to surrender and held out till
reinforced in April, by which time the war had begun in earnest.
Fort Pickens was never taken. On the contrary, it supported the
bombardment of the Confederate 'longshore positions the next New
Year (1862) and witnessed the burning and evacuation of Pensacola
the following ninth of May.
While Charleston and Pensacola were fanning the flames of secession
the wildfire was running round the Gulf, catching well throughout
Louisiana, where the Governor ordered the state militia to seize
every place belonging to the Union, and striking inland till it
reached the farthest army posts in Texas. In all Louisiana the
Union Government had only forty men. These occupied the Arsenal at
Baton Rouge under Major Haskins. Haskins was loyal. But when five
hundred state militiamen surrounded him, and his old brother-officer,
the future Confederate General Bragg, persuaded him that the Union
was really at an end, to all intents and purposes, and when he
found no orders, no support, and not even any guidance from the
Government at Washington, he surrendered with the honors of war
and left by boat for St. Louis in Missouri.
There was then in Louisiana another Union officer; but made of
sterner stuff. This was Colonel W. T. Sherman, Superintendent of
the State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy at Alexandria,
up the Red River. He was much respected by all the state authorities,
and was carefully watching over the two young sons of another future
Confederate leader, General Beauregard. William Tecumseh Sherman
had retired from the Army without seeing any war service, unlike
Haskins, who was a one-armed veteran of the Mexican campaign. But
Sherman was determined to stand by the Union, come what might.
Yet he was equally determined to wind up the affairs of the State
Academy so as to hand them over in perfect order. A few days after
the seizure of the Arsenal, and before the formal secession of
the State, he wrote to the Governor:
"Sir: As I occupy a _quasi_-military position under the laws of
the State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such
position when Louisiana was a State of the Union, and when the motto
of this seminary was inserted in marble over the main door: "By
the liberality of the General Government of the United States. The
Union--_esto perpetua_." Recent events foreshadow a great change, and
it becomes all men to choose.... I beg you to take immediate steps
to relieve me as superintendent, the moment the State determines to
secede, for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any
thought hostile to, or in defiance of, the old Government of the
United States."
Then, to the lasting credit of all concerned, the future political
enemies parted as the best of personal friends. Sherman left everything
in perfect order, accounted for every cent of the funds, and received
the heartiest thanks and best wishes of all the governing officials,
who embodied the following sentence in their final resolution of
April 1, 1861: "They cannot fail to appreciate the manliness of
character which has always marked the actions of Colonel Sherman."
Long before this Louisiana had seceded, and Sherman had gone north
to Lancaster, Ohio, where he arrived about the time of Lincoln's
inauguration.
Meanwhile, on the eighteenth of February, the greatest of all surrenders
had taken place in Texas, where nineteen army posts were handed
over to the State by General Twiggs. San Antonio was swarming with
Secessionist rangers. Unionist companies were marching up and down.
The Federal garrison was leaving the town on parole, with the band
playing Union airs and Union colors flying. The whole place was
at sixes and sevens, and anything might have happened.
In the midst of this confusion the colonel commanding the Second
Regiment of United States Cavalry arrived from Fort Mason. He was
on his way to Washington, where Winfield Scott, the veteran
General-in-Chief, was anxiously waiting to see him; for this colonel
was no ordinary man. He had been Scott's Chief of Staff in Mexico,
where he had twice won promotion for service in the field. He had
been a model Superintendent at West Point and an exceedingly good
officer of engineers before he left them, on promotion, for the
cavalry. Very tall and handsome, magnificently fit in body and in
mind, genial but of commanding presence, this flower of Southern
chivalry was not only every inch a soldier but a leader born and
bred. Though still unknown to public fame he was the one man to
whom the most insightful leaders of both sides turned, and rightly
turned; for this was Robert Lee, Lee of Virginia, soon to become
one of the very few really great commanders of the world.
As Lee came up to the hotel at San Antonio he was warmly greeted
by Mrs. Darrow, the anxious wife of the confidential clerk to Major
Vinton, the staunch Union officer in charge of the pay and quartermaster
services. "Who are those men?" he asked, pointing to the rangers,
who wore red flannel shoulder straps. "They are McCulloch's," she
answered; "General Twiggs surrendered everything to the State this
morning." Years after, when she and her husband and Vinton had
suffered for one side and Lee had suffered for the other, she wrote
her recollection of that memorable day in these few, telling words:
"I shall never forget his look of astonishment, as, with his lips
trembling and his eyes full of tears, he exclaimed, 'Has it come
so soon as this?' In a short time I saw him crossing the plaza on
his way to headquarters and noticed particularly that he was in
citizen's dress. He returned at night and shut himself into his
room, which was over mine; and I heard his footsteps through the
night, and sometimes the murmur of his voice, as if he was praying.
He remained at the hotel a week and in conversations declared that
the position he held was a neutral one."
Three other Union witnesses show how Lee agonized over the fateful
decision he was being forced to make. Captain R. M. Potter says:
"I have seldom seen a more distressed man. He said, 'When I get
to Virginia I think the world will have one soldier less. I shall
resign and go to planting corn.'" Colonel Albert G. Brackett says:
"Lee was filled with sorrow at the condition of affairs, and, in a
letter to me, deploring the war in which we were about to engage,
made use of these words: 'I fear the liberties of our country will
be buried in the tomb of a great nation.'" Colonel Charles Anderson,
quoting Lee's final words in Texas, carries us to the point of parting:
"I still think my loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence
over that which is due to the Federal Government; and I shall so
report myself in Washington. If Virginia stands by the old Union,
so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession
as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for
revolution) then I will still follow my native State with my sword,
and, if need be, with my life. I know you think and feel very
differently. But I can't help it. These are my principles; and I
must follow them."
Lee reached Washington on the first of March. Lincoln, delivering
his Inaugural on the fourth, brought the country one step nearer
war by showing the neutrals how impossible it was to reconcile
his principles as President of the whole United States with those
of Jefferson Davis as President of the seceding parts. "The power
confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property
and places belonging to the government." Three days later the
provisional Confederate Congress at Montgomery in Alabama passed
an Army Act authorizing the enlistment of one hundred thousand
men for one year's service. Nine days later again, having adopted
a Constitution in the meantime, this Congress passed a Navy Act,
authorizing the purchase or construction of ten little gunboats.
In April the main storm center went whirling back to Charleston,
where Sherman's old friend Beauregard commanded the forces that
encircled Sumter. Sumter, still unfinished, had been designed for
a garrison of six hundred and fifty combatant men. It now contained
exactly sixty-five. It was to have been provisioned for six months.
The actual supplies could not be made to last beyond two weeks.
Both sides knew that Anderson's gallant little garrison must be
starved out by the fifteenth. But the excited Carolinians would
not wait, because they feared that the arrival of reinforcements
might balk them of their easy prey. On the eleventh Beauregard,
acting under orders from the Confederate Government, sent in a
summons to surrender. Anderson refused. At a quarter to one the
next morning the summons was repeated, as pilots had meanwhile
reported a Federal vessel approaching the harbor. Anderson again
refused and again admitted that he would be starved out on the
fifteenth. Thereupon Beauregard's aides declared immediate surrender
the only possible alternative to a bombardment and signed a note
at 3:20 A.M. giving Anderson formal warning that fire would be
opened in an hour.
Fort Sumter stood about half a mile inside the harbor mouth, fully
exposed to the converging fire of four relatively powerful batteries,
three about a mile away, the fourth nearly twice as far. At the northern
side of the harbor mouth stood Fort Moultrie; at the southern stood
the batteries on Cummings Point; and almost due west of Sumter stood
Fort Johnson. Near Moultrie was a four-gun floating battery with an
iron shield. A mile northwest of Moultrie, farther up the harbor,
stood the Mount Pleasant battery, nearly two miles off from Sumter.
At half-past four, in the first faint light of a gray morning,
a sudden spurt of flame shot out from Fort Johnson, the dull roar
of a mortar floated through the misty air, and the big shell--the
first shot of the real war--soared up at a steep angle, its course
distinctly marked by its burning fuse, and then plunged down on
Sumter. It was a capital shot, right on the center of the target,
and was followed by an admirable burst. Then all the converging
batteries opened full; while the whole population of perfervid
Charleston rushed out of doors to throng their beautiful East Battery,
a flagstone marine parade three miles in from Sumter, of which and
of the attacking batteries it had a perfect view.
But Sumter remained as silent as the grave. Anderson decided not to
return the fire till it was broad daylight. In the meantime all ranks
went to breakfast, which consisted entirely of water and salt pork.
Then the gun crews went to action stations and fired back steadily
with solid shot. The ironclad battery was an exasperating target;
for the shot bounced off it like dried peas. Moultrie seemed more
vulnerable. But appearances were deceptive; for it was thoroughly
quilted with bales of cotton, which the solid shot simply rammed
into an impenetrable mass. Wishing to save his men, in which he was
quite successful, Anderson had forbidden the use of the shell-guns,
which were mounted on the upper works and therefore more exposed.
Shell fire would have burst the bales and set the cotton flaming.
This was so evident that Sergeant Carmody, unable to stand such
futile practice any longer, quietly stole up to the loaded guns
and fired them in succession. The aim lacked final correction;
and the result was small, except that Moultrie, thinking itself
in danger, concentrated all its efforts on silencing these guns.
The silencing seemed most effective; for Carmody could not reload
alone, and so his first shots were his last.
At nightfall Sumter ceased fire while the Confederates kept on
slowly till daylight. Next morning the officers' quarters were set
on fire by red-hot shot. Immediately the Confederates redoubled
their efforts. Inside Sumter the fire was creeping towards the
magazine, the door of which was shut only just in time. Then the
flagstaff was shot down. Anderson ran his colors up again, but the
situation was rapidly becoming impossible. Most of the worn-out men
were fighting the flames while a few were firing at long intervals to
show they would not yet give in. This excited the generous admiration
of the enemy, who cheered the gallantry of Sumter while sneering
at the caution of the Union fleet outside. The fact was, however,
that this so-called fleet was a mere assemblage of vessels quite
unable to fight the Charleston batteries and without the slightest
chance of saving Sumter.
Having done his best for the honor of the flag, though not a man
was killed within the walls, Anderson surrendered in the afternoon.
Charleston went wild with joy; but applauded the generosity of
Beauregard's chivalrous terms. Next day, Sunday the fourteenth,
Anderson's little garrison saluted the Stars and Stripes with fifty
guns, and then, with colors flying, marched down on board a transport
to the strains of _Yankee Doodle_.
Strange to say, after being four years in Confederate hands, Sumter
was recaptured by the Union forces on the anniversary of its surrender.
It was often bombarded, though never taken, in the meantime.
The fall of Sumter not only fired all Union loyalty but made
Confederates eager for the fray. The very next day Lincoln called
for 75,000 three-month volunteers. Two days later Confederate letters
of marque were issued to any privateers that would prey on Union
shipping. Two days later again Lincoln declared a blockade of every
port from South Carolina round to Texas. Eight days afterwards he
extended it to North Carolina and Virginia.
[Illustration: _GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE_
Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.]
But in the meantime Lincoln had been himself marooned in Washington.
On the nineteenth of April, the day he declared his first blockade,
the Sixth Massachusetts were attacked by a mob in Baltimore, through
which the direct rails ran from North to South. Baltimore was full
of secession, and the bloodshed roused its fury. Maryland was a
border slave State out of which the District of Columbia was carved.
Virginia had just seceded. So when the would-be Confederates of
Maryland, led by the Mayor of Baltimore, began tearing up rails,
burning bridges, and cutting the wires, the Union Government found
itself enisled in a hostile sea. Its own forces abandoned the Arsenal
at Harper's Ferry and the Navy Yard at Norfolk. The work of demolition
at Harper's Ferry had to be bungled off in haste, owing to shortness
of time and lack of means. The demolition of Norfolk was better
done, and the ships were sunk at anchor. But many valuable stores
fell into enemy hands at both these Virginian outposts of the Federal
forces. Through six long days of dire suspense not a ship, not a
train, came into Washington. At last, on the twenty-fifth, the
Seventh New York got through, having come south by boat with the
Eighth Massachusetts, landed at Annapolis, and commandeered a train
to run over relaid rails. With them came the news that all the
loyal North was up, that the Seventh had marched through miles of
cheering patriots in New York, and that these two fine regiments
were only the vanguard of a host.
But just a week before Lincoln experienced this inexpressible relief
he lost, and his enemy won, a single officer, who, according to
Winfield Scott, was alone worth more than fifty thousand veteran
men. On the seventeenth of April Virginia voted for secession.
On the eighteenth Lee had a long confidential interview with his
old chief, Winfield Scott. On the twentieth he resigned, writing
privately to Scott at the same time: "My resignation would have been
presented at once but for the struggle it has cost me to separate
myself from a service to which I have devoted the best years of my
life. During the whole of that time I have experienced nothing but
kindness from my superiors and a most cordial friendship from my
comrades. I shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections
of your kind consideration, and your name and fame shall always be
dear to me. Save in the defense of my native State I never desire
again to draw my sword."
The three great motives which finally determined his momentous
course of action were: first, his aversion from taking any part
in coercing the home folks of Virginia; secondly, his belief in
State rights, tempered though it was by admiration for the Union;
and thirdly, his clear perception that war was now inevitable, and
that defeat for the South would inevitably mean a violent change
of all the ways of Southern life, above all, a change imposed by
force from outside, instead of the gradual change he wished to
see effected from within. He was opposed to slavery; and both his
own and his wife's slaves had long been free. Like his famous
lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson, he was particularly kind to the
blacks; none of whom ever wanted to leave, once they had been domiciled
at Arlington, the estate that came to him through his wife, Mary
Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. But, like Lincoln
before the war, he wished emancipation to come from the slave States
themselves, as in time it must have come, with due regard for
compensation.
On the twenty-third of this eventful April Lee was given the chief
command of all Virginia's forces. Three days later "Joe" Johnston
took command of the Virginians at Richmond. One day later again
"Stonewall" Jackson took command at Harper's Ferry. Johnston played
a great and noble part throughout the war; and we shall meet him
again and again, down to the very end. But Jackson claims our first
attention here.
Like all the great leaders on both sides Jackson had been an officer
of regulars. He was, however, in many ways unlike the army type.
He disliked society amusements, was awkward, shy, reserved, and
apparently recluse. Moderately tall, with large hands and feet,
stiff in his movements, ungainly in the saddle, he was a mere nobody
in public estimation when the war broke out. A few brother-officers
had seen his consummate skill and bravery as a subaltern in Mexico;
and still fewer close acquaintances had seen his sterling qualities
at Lexington, where, for ten years, he had been a professor at
the Virginia Military Institute. But these few were the only ones
who were not surprised when this recluse of peace suddenly became
a very thunderbolt of war--Puritan in soul, Cavalier in daring:
a Cromwell come to life again.
Harper's Ferry was a strategic point in northern Virginia. It was
the gate to the Shenandoah Valley as well as the point where the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crossed the Potomac some sixty miles
northwest of Washington. Harper's Ferry was known by name to North
and South through John Brown's raid two years before. It was now
coveted by Virginia for its Arsenal as well as for its command of
road, rail, and water routes. The plan to raid it was arranged at
Richmond on the sixteenth of April. But when the raiders reached
it on the eighteenth they found it abandoned and its Arsenal in
flames. The machine shops, however, were saved, as well as the
metal parts of twenty thousand stand of arms. Then the Virginia
militiamen and volunteers streamed in, to the number of over four
thousand. They were a mere conglomeration of semi-independent units,
mostly composed of raw recruits under officers who themselves knew
next to nothing. As usual with such fledgling troops there was no
end to the fuss and feathers among the members of the busybody
staffs, who were numerous enough to manage an army but clumsy enough
to spoil a platoon. It was said, and not without good reason, that
there was as much gold lace at Harper's Ferry, when the sun was
shining, as at a grand review in Paris.
Into this gaudy assemblage rode Thomas Jonathan Jackson, mounted
on Little Sorrel, a horse as unpretentious as himself, and dressed
in his faded old blue professor's uniform without one gleam of
gold. He had only two staff officers, both dressed as plainly as
himself. He was not a major-general, nor even a brigadier; just a
colonel. He held no trumpeting reviews. He made no flowery speeches.
He didn't even swear. The armed mob at Harper's Ferry felt that
they would lose caste on Sunday afternoons under a commandant like
this. Their feelings were still more outraged when they heard that
every officer above the rank of captain was to lose his higher
rank, and that all new reappointments were to be made on military
merit and direct from Richmond. Companies accustomed to elect their
officers according to the whim of the moment eagerly joined the
higher officers in passing adverse resolutions. But authorities who
were unanimous for Lee were not to be shaken by such absurdities
in face of a serious war. And when the froth had been blown off
the top, and the dregs drained out of the bottom, the solid mass
between, who really were sound patriots, settled down to work.
There was seven hours' drill every day except Sunday; no light task
for a mere armed mob groping its ignorant way, however zealously,
towards the organized efficiency of a real army. The companies had
to be formed into workable battalions, the battalions into brigades.
There was a deplorable lack of cavalry, artillery, engineers,
commissariat, transport, medical services, and, above all, staff.
Armament was bad; other munitions were worse. There would have been
no chance whatever of holding Harper's Ferry unless the Northern
conglomeration had been even less like a fighting army than the
Southern was.
Harper's Ferry was not only important in itself but still more
important for what it covered: the wonderfully fruitful Shenandoah
Valley, running southwest a hundred and forty miles to the neighborhood
of Lexington, with an average width of only twenty-four. Bounded
on the west by the Alleghanies and on the east by the long Blue
Ridge this valley was a regular covered way by which the Northern
invaders might approach, cut Virginia in two (for West Virginia
was then a part of the State) and, after devastating the valley
itself (thus destroying half the food-base of Virginia) attack
eastern Virginia through whichever gaps might serve the purpose
best. More than this, the only direct line from Richmond to the
Mississippi ran just below the southwest end of the valley, while
a network of roads radiated from Winchester near the northeast
end, thirty miles southwest of Harper's Ferry.
Throughout the month of May Jackson went on working his men into
shape and watching the enemy, three thousand strong, at Chambersburg,
forty-five miles north of Harper's Ferry, and twelve thousand strong
farther north still. One day he made a magnificent capture of rolling
stock on the twenty-seven miles of double track that centered in
Harper's Ferry. This greatly hampered the accumulation of coal at
Washington besides helping the railroads of the South. Destroying
the line was out of the question, because it ran through West Virginia
and Maryland, both of which he hoped to see on the Confederate
side. He was himself a West Virginian, born at Clarksburg; and it
grieved him greatly when West Virginia stood by the Union.
Apart from this he did nothing spectacular. The rest was all just
sheer hard work. He kept his own counsel so carefully that no one
knew anything about what he would do if the enemy advanced. Even
the officers of outposts were forbidden to notice or mention his
arrival or departure on his constant tours of inspection, lest a
longer look than usual at any point might let an awkward inference
be drawn. He was the sternest of disciplinarians when the good of
the service required it. But no one knew better that the finest
discipline springs from self-sacrifice willingly made for a worthy
cause; and no one was readier to help all ranks along toward real
efficiency in the kindest possible way when he saw they were doing
their best.
At the end of May Johnston took over the command of the increasing
force at Harper's Ferry, while Jackson was given the First Shenandoah
Brigade, a unit soon, like himself, to be raised by service into
fame.
On the first and third of May Virginia issued calls for more men;
and on the third Lincoln, who quite understood the signs of the
times, called for men whose term of service would be three years
and not three months.
Just a week later Missouri was saved for the Union by the daring
skill of two determined leaders, Francis P. Blair, a Member of
Congress who became a good major-general, and Captain Nathaniel Lyon,
an excellent soldier, who commanded the little garrison of regulars
at St. Louis. When Lincoln called upon Governor Claiborne Jackson
to supply Missouri's quota of three-month volunteers the Governor
denounced the proposed coercion as "illegal, unconstitutional,
revolutionary, inhuman, and diabolical"; and thereafter did his
best to make Missouri join the South. But Blair and Lyon were too
quick for him. Blair organized the Home Guards, whom Lyon armed
from the arsenal. Lyon then sent all the surplus arms and stores
across the river into Illinois, while he occupied the most commanding
position near the arsenal with his own troops, thus forestalling
the Confederates, under Brigadier-General D. M. Frost, who was now
forced to establish Camp Jackson in a far less favorable place. So
vigorously had Blair and Lyon worked that they had armed thousands
while Frost had only armed hundreds. But when Frost received siege
guns and mortars from farther south Lyon felt the time had come
for action.
Lyon was a born leader, though Grant and Sherman (then in St. Louis
as junior ex-officers, quite unknown to fame) were almost the only
men, apart from Blair, to see any signs of preëminence in this
fiery little redheaded, weather-beaten captain, who kept dashing
about the arsenal, with his pockets full of papers, making sure
of every detail connected with the handful of regulars and the
thousands of Home Guards.
On the ninth of May Lyon borrowed an old dress from Blair's
mother-in-law, completing the disguise with a thickly veiled sunbonnet,
and drove through Camp Jackson. That night he and Blair attended
a council of war, at which, overcoming all opposition, answering
all objections, and making all arrangements, they laid their plans
for the morrow. When Lyon's seven thousand surrounded Frost's seven
hundred the Confederates surrendered at discretion and were marched
as prisoners through St. Louis. There were many Southern sympathizers
among the crowds in the streets; one of them fired a pistol; and
the Home Guards fired back, killing several women and children
by mistake. This unfortunate incident hardened many neutrals and
even Unionists against the Union forces; so much so that Sterling
Price, a Unionist and former governor, became a Confederate general,
whose field for recruiting round Jefferson City on the Missouri
promised a good crop of enemies to the Union cause.
Lyon and Blair wished to march against Price immediately and smash
every hostile force while still in the act of forming. But General
Harney, who commanded the Department of the West, returned to St.
Louis the day after the shooting and made peace instead of war with
Price. By the end of the month, however, Lincoln removed Harney and
promoted Lyon in his place; whereupon Price and Governor Jackson at
once prepared to fight. Then sundry neutrals, of the gabbling kind
who think talk enough will settle anything, induced the implacables
to meet in St. Louis. The conference was ended by Lyon's declaration
that he would see every Missourian under the sod before he would
take any orders from the State about any Federal matter, however
small. "This," he said in conclusion, "means war." And it did.
Again a single week sufficed for the striking of the blow. The
conference was held on the eleventh of June. On the fourteenth
Lyon reached Jefferson City only to find that the Governor had
decamped for Boonville, still higher up the Missouri. Here, on
the seventeenth, Lyon attacked him with greatly superior numbers
and skill, defeated him utterly, and sent him flying south with
only a few hundred followers left. Boonville was, in itself, a
very small affair indeed. But it had immense results. Lyon had
seized the best strategic point of rail and river junction on the
Mississippi by holding St. Louis. He had also secured supremacy
in arms, munitions, and morale. By turning the Governor out of
Jefferson City, the State capital, he had deprived the Confederates
of the prestige and convenience of an acknowledged headquarters.
Now, by defeating him at Boonville and driving his forces south in
headlong flight he had practically made the whole Missouri River a
Federal line of communication as well as a barrier between would-be
Confederates to the north and south of it. More than this, the
possession of Boonville struck a fatal blow at Confederate recruiting
and organization throughout the whole of that strategic area; for
Boonville was the center to which pro-Southern Missourians were
flocking. The tide of battle was to go against the Federals at
Wilson's Creek in the southwest of the State, and even at Lexington
on the Missouri, as we shall presently see; but this was only the
breaking of the last Confederate waves. As a State, Missouri was
lost to the South already.
In Kentucky, the next border State, opinions were likewise divided;
and Kentuckians fought each other with help from both sides. Anderson,
of Fort Sumter fame, was appointed to the Kentucky command in May.
But here the crisis did not occur for months, while a border campaign
was already being fought in West Virginia.
West Virginia, which became a separate State during the war, was
strongly Federal, like eastern Tennessee. These Federal parts of
two Confederate States formed a wedge dangerous to the whole South,
especially to Virginia and the Carolinas. Each side therefore tried
to control this area itself. The Federals, under McClellan, of
whom we shall soon hear more, had two lines of invasion into West
Virginia, both based on the Ohio. The northern converged by rail,
from Wheeling and Parkersburg, on Grafton, the only junction in
West Virginia. The southern ran up the Great Kanawha, with good
navigation to Charleston and water enough for small craft on to
Gauley Bridge, which was the strategic point.
In May the Confederates cut the line near Grafton. As this broke
direct communication between the West and Washington, McClellan
sent forces from which two flying columns, three thousand strong,
converged on Philippi, fifteen miles south of Grafton, and surprised
a thousand Confederates. These thereupon retired, with little loss,
to Beverly, thirty miles farther south still. Here there was a
combat at Rich Mountain on the eleventh of July. The Confederates
again retreated, losing General Garnett in a skirmish the following
day. This ended McClellan's own campaign in West Virginia.
But the Kanawha campaign, which lasted till November, had only
just begun, with Rosecrans as successor to McClellan (who had been
recalled to Washington for very high command) and with General
Jacob D. Cox leading the force against Gauley. The Confederates
did all they could to keep their precarious foothold. They sent
political chiefs, like Henry A. Wise, ex-Governor of Virginia,
and John B. Floyd, the late Federal Secretary of War, both of whom
were now Confederate brigadiers. They even sent Lee himself in
general commend. But, confronted by superior forces in a difficult
and thoroughly hostile country, they at last retired east of the
Alleghanies, which thenceforth became the frontier of two warring
States.
The campaign in West Virginia was a foregone conclusion. It was not
marked by any real battles; and there was no scope for exceptional
skill of the higher kind on either side. But it made McClellan's
bubble reputation.
McClellan was an ex-captain of United States Engineers who had
done very well at West Point, had distinguished himself in Mexico,
had represented the American army with the Allies in the Crimea,
had written a good official report on his observations there, had
become manager of a big railroad after leaving the service, and had
so impressed people with his ability and modesty on the outbreak
of war that his appointment to the chief command in West Virginia
was hailed with the utmost satisfaction. Then came the two affairs
at Philippi and Rich Mountain, the first of which was planned and
carried out by other men, while the second was, if anything, spoiled
by himself; for here, as afterwards on a vastly greater scene of
action, he failed to strike home at the critical moment.
Yet though he failed in arms he won by proclamations; so much so,
in fact, that _Words not Deeds_ might well have been his motto. He
began with a bombastic address to the inhabitants and ended with
another to his troops, whom he congratulated on having "annihilated
two armies, commanded by educated and experienced soldiers, intrenched
in mountain fastnesses fortified at their leisure."
It disastrously happened that the Union public were hungering for
heroes at this particular time and that Union journalists were itching
to write one up to the top of their bent. So all McClellan's tinsel
was counted out for gold before an avaricious mob of undiscriminating
readers; and when, at the height of the publicity campaign, the
Government wanted to retrieve Bull Run they turned to the "Man
of Destiny" who had been given the noisiest advertisement as the
"Young Napoleon of the West." McClellan had many good qualities
for organization, and even some for strategy. An excited press and
public, however, would not acclaim him for what he was but for
what he most decidedly was not.
Meanwhile, before McClellan went to Washington and Lee to West
Virginia, the main Union army had been disastrously defeated by
the main Confederate army at Bull Run, on that vital ground which
lay between the rival capitals.
In April Lincoln had called for three-month volunteers. In May the
term of service for new enlistments was three years. In June the
military chiefs at Washington were vainly doing all that military
men could do to make something like the beginnings of an army out of
the conglomerating mass. Winfield Scott, the veteran General-in-Chief,
rightly revered by the whole service as a most experienced, farsighted,
and practical man, was ably assisted by W. T. Sherman and Irvin
McDowell. But civilian interference ruined all. Even Lincoln had
not yet learned the quintessential difference between that civil
control by which the fighting services are so rightly made the
real servants of the whole people and that civilian interference
which is very much the same as if a landlubber owning a ship should
grab the wheel repeatedly in the middle of a storm. Simon Cameron,
then Secretary of War, was good enough as a party politician, but
all thumbs when fumbling with the armies in the field. The other
members of the Cabinet had war nostrums of their own; and every
politician with a pull did what he could to use it. Behind all these
surged a clamorous press and an excited people, both patriotic
and well meaning; but both wholly ignorant of war, and therefore
generating a public opinion that forced the not unwilling Government
to order an armed mob "on to Richmond" before it had the slightest
chance of learning how to be an army.
The Congress that met on the Fourth of July voted five hundred
thousand men and two hundred and fifty million dollars. This showed
that the greatness of the war was beginning to be seen. But the
men, the money, and the Glorious Fourth were so blurred together
in the public mind that the distinction between a vote in Congress
and its effect upon some future battlefield was never realized.
The result was a new access of zeal for driving McDowell "on to
Richmond." Making the best of a bad business, Scott had already
begun his preparations for the premature advance.
By the end of May Confederate pickets had been in sight of Washington,
while McDowell, crossing the Potomac, was faced by his friend of
old West Point and Mexican days, General Beauregard, fresh from the
capture of Fort Sumter. By the beginning of July General Patterson,
a veteran of "1812" and Mexico, was in command up the Potomac near
Harper's Ferry. He was opposed by "Joe" Johnston, who had taken
over that Confederate command from "Stonewall" Jackson. Down the
Potomac and Chesapeake Bay there was nothing to oppose the Union
navy. General Benjamin Butler, threatening Richmond in flank, along
the lower Chesapeake, was watched by the Confederates Huger and
Magruder. Meanwhile, as we have seen already, the West Virginian
campaign was in full swing, with superior Federal forces under
McClellan.
Thus the general situation in July was that the whole of northeastern
Virginia was faced by a semicircle of superior forces which began
at the Kanawha River, ran northeast to Grafton, then northeast
to Cumberland, then along the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay and on
to Fortress Monroe. From the Kanawha to Grafton there were only
roads. From Grafton to Cumberland there was rail as well. From
Cumberland to Washington there were road, rail, river, and canal.
From Washington to Fortress Monroe there was water fit for any
fleet. The Union armies along this semicircle were not only twice
as numerous as the Confederates facing them but they were backed
by a sea-power, both naval and mercantile, which the Confederates
could not begin to challenge, much less overcome. Lee was the military
adviser to the Confederate Government at Richmond as Scott then
was to the Union Government at Washington.
Such was the central scene of action, where the first great battle
of the war was fought. The Union forces were based on the Potomac
from Washington to Harper's Ferry. The Confederates faced them
from Bull Run to Winchester, which points were nearly sixty miles
apart by road and rail. The Union forces were fifty thousand strong,
the Confederate thirty-three thousand. The Union problem was how to
keep "Joe" Johnston in the Winchester position by threatening or
actually making an invasion of the Shenandoah Valley with Patterson's
superior force, while McDowell's superior force attacked or turned
Beauregard's position at Bull Run. The Confederate problem was how to
give Patterson the slip and reach Bull Run in time to meet McDowell
with an equal force. The Confederates had the advantage of interior
lines both here and in the semicircle as a whole, though the Union
forces enjoyed in general much better means of transportation. The
Confederates enjoyed better control from government headquarters,
where the Cabinet mostly had the sense to trust in Lee. Scott, on
the other hand, was tied down by orders to defend Washington by
purely defensive means as well as by the "on to Richmond" march.
Patterson was therefore obliged to watch the Federal back door
at Harper's Ferry as well as the Confederate side doors up the
Shenandoah: an impossible task, on exterior lines, with the kind
of force he had. The civilian chiefs at Washington did not see
that the best of all defense was to destroy the enemy's means of
destroying _them_, and that his greatest force of fighting _men_,
not any particular _place_, should always be their main objective.
On the fourteenth of June Johnston had destroyed everything useful
to the enemy at Harper's Ferry and retired to Winchester. On the
twentieth Jackson's brigade marched on Martinsburg to destroy the
workshops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway and to support the
three hundred troopers under J. E. B. Stuart, who was so soon to
be the greatest of cavalry commanders on the Confederate side.
Unknown at twenty-nine, killed at thirty-one, "Jeb" Stuart was a
Virginian ex-officer of United States Dragoons, trained in frontier
fighting, and the perfect type of what a cavalry commander should
be: tall, handsome, splendidly supple and strong, hawk-eyed and
lion-hearted, quick, bold, determined, and inspiring, yet always
full of knowledge and precaution too; indefatigable at all times,
and so persistent in carrying out a plan that the enemy could no
more shake him off than they could escape their shadows.
On the second of July the first brush took place at Falling Waters,
five miles south of the Potomac, where Jackson came into touch
with Patterson's advanced guard. As Jackson withdrew his handful
of Virginian infantry the Federal cavalry came clattering down
the turnpike and were met by a single shot from a Confederate gun
that smashed the head of their column and sent the others flying.
Meanwhile Stuart, who had been reconnoitering, came upon a company
of Federal infantry resting in a field. Galloping among them suddenly
he shouted, "Throw down your arms or you are all dead men!" Whereupon
they all threw down their arms; and his troopers led them off.
Patterson, badly served by his very raw staff, reported Jackson's
little vanguard as being precisely ten times stronger than it was.
He pushed out cautiously to right and left; and when he tried to
engage again he found that Jackson had withdrawn. Falling Waters was
microscopically small as a fight. But it served to raise Confederate
morale and depress the Federals correspondingly.
Patterson occupied Martinsburg, while Johnston, drawn up in line
of battle, awaited his further advance four days before retiring.
Then, with his fourteen thousand, Patterson advanced again, stood
irresolute under distracting orders from the Government in Washington,
and finally went to Charlestown on the seventeenth of July--almost
back to Harper's Ferry. Johnston, with his eleven thousand, now
stood fast at Winchester, fifteen miles southwest, while Stuart,
like a living screen, moved to and fro between them.
Meanwhile McDowell's thirty-six thousand had marched past the President
with bands playing and colors flying amid a scene of great enthusiasm.
The press campaign was at its height; so was the speechifying;
and ninety-nine people out of every hundred thought Beauregard's
twenty-two thousand at Bull Run would be defeated in a way that
would be sure to make the South give in. McDowell had between two
and three thousand regulars: viz., seven troops of cavalry, nine
batteries of artillery, eight companies of infantry, and a little
battalion of marines. Then there was the immense paper army voted
on the Glorious Fourth. And here, for the general public to admire,
was a collection of armed and uniformed men that members of Congress
and writers in the press united in calling one of the best armies
the world had ever seen. Moreover, the publicity campaign was kept
up unflaggingly till the very clash of arms began. Reporters marched
along and sent off reams of copy. Congressmen, and even ladies,
graced the occasion in every way they could. "The various regiments
were brilliantly uniformed according to the æsthetic taste of peace,"
wrote General Fry, then an officer on McDowell's staff, and "during
the nineteenth and twentieth the bivouacs at Centreville, almost
within cannon range of the enemy, were thronged with visitors,
official and unofficial, who came in carriages from Washington,
were under no military restraint, and passed to and fro among the
troops as they pleased, giving the scene the appearance of a monster
military picnic."
Had McDowell been able to attack on either of these two days he
must have won. But previous Governments had never given the army
the means of making proper surveys; so here, within a day's march
of the Federal capital, the maps were worthless for military use.
Information had to be gleaned by reconnaissance; and reconnaissance
takes time, especially without trustworthy guides, sufficient cavalry,
and a proper staff. Moreover, the army was all parts and no whole,
through no fault of McDowell's or of his military chiefs. The
three-month volunteers, whose term of service was nearly over,
had not learned their drill as individuals before being herded
into companies, battalions, and brigades, of course becoming more
and more inefficient as the units grew more and more complex. Of
the still more essential discipline they naturally knew still less.
There was no lack of courage; for these were the same breed of
men as those with whom Washington had won immortal fame, the same
as those with whom both Grant and Lee were yet to win it. But,
as Napoleon used to say, mere men are not the same as soldiers.
Nor are armed mobs the same as armies.
The short march to the front was both confused and demoralizing.
No American officer had ever had the chance even of seeing, much
less handling, thirty-six thousand men under arms. This force was
followed by an immense and unwieldy train of supplies, manned by
wholly undisciplined civilian drivers; while other, and quite
superfluous, civilians clogged every movement and made confusion
worse confounded. "The march," says Sherman, who commanded a brigade,
"demonstrated little save the general laxity of discipline; for,
with all my personal efforts, I could not prevent the men from
straggling for water, blackberries, or anything on the way they
fancied." In the whole of the first long summer's day, the sixteenth
of July, the army only marched six miles; and it took the better
part of the seventeenth to herd its stragglers back again. "I wished
them," says McDowell, "to go to Centreville the second day [only
another six miles out] but the men were foot-weary, not so much
by the distance marched as by the time they had been on foot."
That observant private, Warren Lee Goss, has told us how hard it
is to soldier suddenly. "My canteen banged against my bayonet; both
tin cup and bayonet badly interfered with the butt of my musket,
while my cartridge-box and haversack were constantly flopping up
and down--the whole jangling like loose harness and chains on a
runaway horse." The weather was hot. The roads were dusty. And
many a man threw away parts of his kit for which he suffered later
on. There was food in superabundance. But, with that unwieldy and
grossly undisciplined supply-and-transport service, the men and
their food never came together at the proper time.
Early on the eighteenth McDowell, whose own work was excellent
all through, pushed forward a brigade against Blackburn's Ford,
toward the Confederate right, in order to distract attention from
the real objective, which was to be the turning of the left. The
Confederate outposts fell back beyond the ford. The Federal brigade
followed on; when suddenly sharp volleys took it in front and flank.
The opposing brigade, under Longstreet (of whom we shall often
hear again), had lain concealed and sprung its trap quite neatly.
Most of the Federals behaved extremely well under these untoward
circumstances. But one whole battery and another whole battalion,
whose term of service expired that afternoon, were officially reported
as having "moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy's cannon."
Thereafter, as military units, they simply ceased to exist.
At one o'clock in the morning of this same day Johnston received
a telegram at Winchester, from Richmond, warning him that McDowell
was advancing on Bull Run, with the evident intention of seizing
Manassas Junction, which would cut the Confederate rail communication
with the Shenandoah Valley and so prevent all chance of immediate
concentration at Bull Run. Johnston saw that the hour had come.
It could not have come before, as Lee and the rest had foreseen;
because an earlier concentration at Bull Run would have drawn the
two superior Federal forces together on the selfsame spot. There
was still some risk about giving Patterson the slip. True, his
three-month special-constable array was semi-mutinous already; and
its term of service had only a few more days to run. True, also,
that the men had cause for grievance. They were all without pay,
and some of them were reported as being still "without pants." But,
despite such drawbacks, a resolute attack by Patterson's fourteen
thousand could have at least held fast Johnston's eleven thousand,
who were mostly little better off in military ways. Patterson,
however, suffered from distracting orders, and that was his undoing.
Johnston, admirably screened by Stuart, drew quietly away, leaving
his sick at Winchester and raising the spirits of his whole command
by telling them that Beauregard was in danger and that they were
to "make a forced march to save the country."
Straining every nerve they stepped out gallantly and covered mile
after mile till they reached the Shenandoah, forded it, and crossed
the Blue Ridge at Ashby's Gap. But lack of training and march discipline
told increasingly against them. "The discouragement of that day's
march," said Johnston, "is indescribable. Frequent and unreasonable
delays caused so slow a rate of marching as to make me despair of
joining General Beauregard in time to aid him." Even the First
Brigade, with all the advantages of leading the march and of having
learnt the rudiments of drill and discipline, was exhausted by a
day's work that it could have romped through later on. Jackson
himself stood guard alone till dawn while all his soldiers slept.
As Jackson's men marched down to take the train at Piedmont, Stuart
gayly trotted past, having left Patterson still in ignorance that
Johnston's force had gone. By four in the afternoon of the nineteenth
Jackson was detraining at Manassas. But, as we shall presently
see, it was nearly two whole days before the last of Johnston's
brigades arrived, just in time for the crisis of the battle. When
Johnston had joined Beauregard their united effective total was
thirty thousand men. There had been a wastage of three thousand.
McDowell also had no more than thirty thousand effectives present
on the twenty-first; for he left one division at Centreville and
lost the rest by straggling and by the way in which the battery
and battalion already mentioned had "claimed their discharge" at
Blackburn's Ford. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth, while,
sorely against his will, the Federals were having their "monster
military picnic" at Centreville, he was reconnoitering his constantly
increasing enemy under the greatest difficulties, with his ill-trained
staff, bad maps, and lack of proper guides.
Lee had chosen six miles of Bull Run as a good defensive position.
But Beauregard intended to attack, hoping to profit by the Federal
disjointedness. Consequently none of the eight fords were strongly
defended except at Union Mills on the extreme right and the Stone
Bridge on the extreme left, where the turnpike from Centreville
to Warrenton crossed the Run. Bull Run itself was a considerable
obstacle, having fairly high banks and running along the Confederate
front like the ditch of a fortress. Three miles in rear stood Manassas
Junction on a moderate plateau intersected by several creeks. The
most important of these creeks, Young's Branch, joined Bull Run on
the extreme left, near the Stone Bridge and Warrenton turnpike,
after flowing through the little valley between the Henry Hill
and Matthews Hill. Three miles in front, across Bull Run, stood
Centreville, the Federal camp and field base during the battle.
Sunday, July 21, 1861, was a beautiful midsummer day. Both armies
were stirring soon after dawn. But a miscarriage of orders delayed
the Confederate offensive so much that the initiative of attack passed
to the Federals, who advanced against the Stone Bridge shortly after
six. This attack, however, though made by a whole division against a
single small brigade, was immediately recognized as a mere feint
when, two hours later, Evans, commanding the Confederate brigade,
saw dense clouds of dust rising above the woods on his left front,
where the road crossed Sudley Springs, nearly two miles beyond his
own left. Perceiving that this new development must be a regular
attempt to turn the whole Confederate left by crossing Bull Run, he
sent back word to Beauregard, posted some men to hold the Stone
Bridge, and marched the rest to crown the Matthews Hill, facing
Sudley Springs a mile away. Meanwhile four of "Joe" Johnston's five
Shenandoah brigades--Bee's, Bartow's, Bonham's, and Jackson's--had
been coming over from the right reserve to strengthen Evans at the
Bridge. As the great Federal turning movement developed against the
Confederate left these brigades followed Evans and were themselves
followed by other troops, till the real battle raged not along Bull
Run but across the Matthews Hill and Henry Hill.
Forming the new front at right angles to the old, so as to attack
and defend the Confederate left on the Matthews and Henry Hills,
caused much confusion on both sides; but more on the Federal, as
the Confederates knew the ground better. By eleven Bee had reached
Evans and sent word back to hurry Bartow on. But the Federals,
having double numbers and a great preponderance in guns, soon drove
the Confederates off the Matthews Hill. As the Confederates recrossed
Young's Branch and climbed the Henry Hill the regular artillery of
the Federals limbered up smartly, galloped across the Matthews
Hill, and from its nearer slope plied the retreating Confederates
on the opposite slope with admirably served shell. Under this fire
the raw Confederates ran in confusion, while their uncovered guns
galloped back to find a new position.
[Illustration: _GENERAL T. J. (STONEWALL) JACKSON_
Photograph. In the collection of L. C. Handy, Washington.]
"Curse them for deserting the guns," snapped Imboden, whose battery
came face to face with Jackson's brigade. "I'll support you," said
Jackson, "unlimber right here." At the same time, half-past eleven,
Bee galloped up on his foaming charger, saying, "General, they're
beating us back." "Then, Sir," said Jackson, "we'll give them the
bayonet"; and his lips shut tight as a vice.
Bee then went back behind the Henry Hill, where his broken brigade
was trying to rally, and, pointing toward the crest with his sword,
shouted in a voice of thunder: "Rally behind the Virginians! Look!
There's Jackson standing like a stone wall!" From that one cry
of battle Stonewall Jackson got his name.
While the rest of the Shenandoahs were rallying, in rear of Jackson,
Beauregard and Johnston came up, followed by two batteries. Miles
behind them, all the men that could be spared from the fords were
coming too. But the Federals on the Matthews Hill were still in
more than double numbers; and they enjoyed the priceless advantage
of having some regulars among them. If the Federal division at the
Stone Bridge had only pushed home its attack at this favorable
moment the Confederates must have been defeated. But the division
again fumbled about to little purpose; and for the second time
McDowell's admirable plan was spoilt.
It was now past noon on that sweltering midsummer day; and there
was a welcome lull for the rallying Confederates while the Federals
were coming down the Matthews Hill, struggling across the swamps
and thickets of Young's Branch, and climbing the Henry Hill. Within
another hour the opposing forces were at close grips again, and
the Federals, flushed with success and steadied by the regulars,
seemed certain to succeed.
Imboden has vividly described his meeting Jackson at this time.
"The fight was just then hot enough to make him feel well. His
eyes fairly blazed. He had a way of throwing up his left hand with
the open palm towards the person he was addressing; and, as he told
me to go, he made this gesture. The air was full of flying missiles,
and as he spoke he jerked down his hand, and I saw that blood was
streaming from it. I exclaimed, 'General, you are wounded.' 'Only
a scratch--a mere scratch,' he replied; and, binding it hastily
with a handkerchief, he galloped away along his line."
Five hundred yards apart the opposing cannon thundered, while the
musketry of the long lines of infantry swelled the deafening roar.
Suddenly two Federal batteries of regulars dashed forward to even
shorter range, covered by two battalions on their flank. But the
gaudy Zouaves of the outer battalion lost formation in their advance;
whereupon "Jeb" Stuart, with only a hundred and fifty horsemen,
swooped down and smashed them to pieces by a daring charge. Then,
just as the scattered white turbans went wildly bobbing about,
into the midst of the inner battalion, out rushed the Thirty-third
Virginians, straight at the guns. The battery officers held their
fire, uncertain in the smoke whether the newcomers were friend or
foe, till a deadly volley struck home at less than eighty yards.
Down went the gunners to a man; down went the teams to a horse;
and off ran the Zouaves and the other supporting battalion,
helter-skelter for the rear.
But other Federals were still full of fight and in superior numbers.
They came on with great gallantry, considering they were raw troops
who were now without the comfort of the guns. Once more a Federal
victory seemed secure; and if the infantry had only pressed on
(not piecemeal, by disjoined battalions, but by brigades) without
letting the Confederates recover from one blow before another struck
them, the day would have certainly been theirs. Moreover, they
would have inflicted not simply a defeat but a severe disaster
on their enemy, who would have been caught in flank by the troops
at the Stone Bridge; for these troops, however dilatory, must have
known what to do with a broken and flying Confederate flank right
under their very eyes. Premonitory symptoms of such a flight were
not wanting. Confederate wounded, stragglers, and skulkers were
making for the rear; and the rallied brigades were again in disorder,
with Bee and Bartow, two first-rate brigadiers, just killed, and
other seniors wounded. Another ominous sign was the limbering up
of Confederate guns to cover the expected retreat from the Henry
Hill.
But on its reverse slope lay Jackson's Shenandoahs, three thousand
strong, and by far the best drilled and disciplined brigade that
either side had yet produced--apart, of course, from regulars.
Jackson had ridden up and down before them, calm as they had ever
seen him on parade, quietly saying, "Steady, men, steady! All's
well." In this way he had held them straining at the leash for
hours. Now, at last, their time had come. Riding out to the center
of his line he gave his final orders: "Reserve your fire till they
come within fifty yards. Then fire and give them the bayonet; and yell
like furies when you charge!" Five minutes later, as the triumphant
Federals topped the crest, the long gray line rose up, stood fast,
fired one crashing point-blank volley, and immediately charged home
with the first of those wild, high rebel yells that rang throughout
the war. The stricken and astounded Federal front caved in, turned
round, and fled. At the same instant the last of the Shenandoahs--Kirby
Smith's brigade, detrained just in the nick of time--charged the
wavering flank. Then, like the first quiver of an avalanche, a
tremor shook the whole massed Federals one moment on that fatal
hill: the next, like a loosened cliff, they began the landslide
down.
There, in the valley, along Young's Branch, McDowell established
his last line of battle, based on the firm rock of the regulars.
But by this time the Confederates had brought up troops from the
whole length of their line; the balance of numbers was at last in
their favor; and nothing could stay the Federal recoil. Lack of
drill and discipline soon changed this recoil into a disorderly
retreat. There was no panic; but most of the military units dissolved
into a mere mob whose heart was set on getting back to Washington in
any way left open. The regulars and a few formed bodies in reserve
did their best to stem the stream. But all in vain.
One mile short of Centreville there was a sudden upset and consequent
block on the bridge across Cub Run. Then the stream of men retreating,
mixed with clogging masses of panic-struck civilians, became a
torrent.
Bull Run was only a special-constable affair on a gigantic scale.
The losses were comparatively small--3553 killed and wounded on both
sides put together: not ten per cent of the less than forty thousand
who actually fought. Moreover, the side that won the battle lost
the war. And yet Bull Run had many points of very great importance.
In spite of all shortcomings it showed the good quality of the
troops engaged: if not as soldiers, at all events as men. It proved
that the war, unlike the battle, would not be fought by special
constables, some of whom first fired their rifles when their target
was firing back at them. It brought one great leader--Stonewall
Jackson--into fame. Above all, it profoundly affected the popular
points of view, both North and South. In the South there was undue
elation, followed by the absurd belief that one Southerner could
beat two Northerners any day and that the North would now back
down _en masse_, as its army had from the Henry Hill. A dangerous
slackening of military preparation was the unavoidable result.
In the North, on the other hand, a good many people began to see
the difference between armed mobs and armies; and the thorough
Unionists, led by the wise and steadfast Lincoln, braced themselves
for real war.