THE FATAL VICTORY
On the banks of the Potomac General Scott had massed against Beauregard
the most formidable army which had ever marched under the flag of the
Union. Its preparation was considered thorough, its numbers all that
could he handled, and its artillery was the best in the world. All the
regular army east of the Rockies, seasoned veterans of Indian campaigns,
were joined with the immense force of volunteers from the Northern
States--fifty full regiments of volunteers, eight companies of regular
infantry, four companies of marines, nine companies of regular cavalry
and twelve batteries of artillery with forty-nine big guns.
In command of this army of invasion was General McDowell, held to be the
most scientific general in the North.
To supplement Beauregard's weakness as a commanding General in case of
emergency, Joseph E. Johnston was placed at Harper's Ferry to guard the
entrance of the Shenandoah Valley, secure the removal of the invaluable
machinery saved from the Arsenal, and form a junction with Beauregard
the moment he should be threatened.
The movement of General Patterson's army against Harper's Ferry had been
too obviously a feint to deceive either Davis or Lee, his chief military
adviser. Johnston was given ten thousand men and able assistants
including General Jackson.
On the tenth of July Beauregard, anxiously awaiting information of the
Federal advance, received an important message from an accomplished
Southern woman, Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow. She had remained in
Washington as Miss Van Lew had in Richmond, to lay her life on the altar
of her country. During the administration of Buchanan she had been a
leader of Washington society. She was now a widow, noted for her wealth,
beauty, wit and forceful personality. Her home was the meeting place of
the most brilliant men and women of the old régime. Buchanan was her
personal friend, as was William H. Seward. Her niece, a granddaughter of
Dolly Madison, was the wife of the Little Giant of the West, Stephen A.
Douglas.
Before leaving Washington to become the Adjutant General of Beauregard's
army Colonel Thomas Jordan had given her the cipher code of the South
and arranged to make her house the Northern headquarters of the Southern
secret service.
Her first messenger was a girl carefully disguised as a farmer's
daughter returning from the sale of her vegetables in the Washington
market. She passed the lines without challenge and delivered her message
into Beauregard's hands.
With quick decision Beauregard called his aide and dispatched the news
to the President at Richmond:
"I have positive information direct from Washington that the enemy
will move in force across the Potomac on Manassas via Fairfax Court
House and Centreville. I urge the immediate concentration of all
available forces on my lines."
The Southern commander began his preparations to receive the attack.
The house on Church Hill had not been idle. Richmond swarmed with
Federal spies under the skillful guidance of Socola.
General Scott knew in Washington within twenty-four hours that
Beauregard was planting his men behind the Bull Run River in a position
of great strength and that the formation of the ground was such with
Bull Run on his front that his dislodgment would be a tremendous task.
The advance of the Federal army was delayed--delayed until the last gun
and scrap of machinery from Harper's Ferry had been safely housed in
Richmond and Fayetteville and Johnston had withdrawn his army to
Winchester in closer touch with Beauregard.
And still the Union army did not move. Beauregard sent a trusted scout
into Washington to Mrs. Greenhow with a scrap of paper on which was
written in cipher the two words:
"Trust Bearer--"
He arrived at the moment she had received the long sought information of
the date of the army's march. She glanced at the stolid masked face of
the messenger and hesitated a moment.
"You are a Southerner?"
Donellan smiled.
"I've spent most of my life in Washington, Madam," he said frankly. "I
was a clerk in the Department of the Interior. I cast my fortunes with
the South."
It was enough. Her keen intuitions had scented danger in the man's
manner, his walk and personality. He was not a typical Southerner. The
officials of the Secret Service Bureau had already given her evidence of
their suspicions. She could not be too careful.
She seized her pen and hastily wrote in cipher:
"Order issued for McDowell to move on Manassas to-night."
She handed the tiny scrap of paper to Donellan.
"My agents will take you in a buggy with relays of horses down the
Potomac to a ferry near Dumfries. You will be ferried across."
The man touched his hat.
"I'll know the way from there, Madam."
The scout delivered his message into Beauregard's hands that night
before eight o'clock.
At noon the next day Colonel Jordan had placed in her hands his answer:
"Yours received at eight o'clock. Let them come. We are ready. We rely
upon you for precise information. Be particular as to description and
destination of forces and quantity of artillery."
She had not been idle. She was able to write a message of almost equal
importance to the one she had dispatched the day before. With quick
nervous hand she wrote on another tiny scrap of paper:
"The Federal commander has ordered the Manassas railroad to be cut to
prevent the junction of Johnston with Beauregard."
The moment the first authentic information reached President Davis of
the purpose to attack Beauregard he immediately urged General Johnston
to make his preparations for the juncture of their forces.
And at once the President received confirmation of his fears of his
General-in-Chief. Johnston delayed and began a correspondence of
voluminous objections.
July 17, on receipt of the dispatch to Beauregard announcing the plan to
cut the railroad, the President was forced to send Johnston a positive
order to move his army to Manassas. The order was obeyed with a
hesitation which imperiled the issue of battle. And while on the march,
Beauregard's pickets exchanging shots with McDowell's skirmish line,
Johnston began the first of his messages of complaint and haggling to
his Chief at Richmond. Jealous of Beauregard's popularity and fearful
of his possible insubordination, Johnston telegraphed Davis demanding
that his relative rank to Beauregard should be clearly defined before
the juncture of their armies.
The question was utterly unnecessary. The promotion of Johnston to the
full grade of general could leave no conceivable doubt on such a point.
The President realized with a sickening certainty the beginning of a
quarrel between the two men, dangerous to the cause of the South. Their
failure to act in harmony would make certain the defeat of the raw
recruits on their first field of battle.
He decided at the earliest possible moment to go in person and prevent
this threatened quarrel. Already blood had flowed. With a strong column
of infantry, artillery and cavalry McDowell had attempted to force the
approaches to one of the fords of Bull Run. They were twice driven back
and withdrew from the field. Longstreet's brigade had lost fifteen
killed and fifty-three wounded in holding his position.
The President hastened to telegraph his sulking general the explicit
definition of rank he had demanded:
Richmond, July 20, 1861.
"General J. E. Johnston,
"Manassas Junction, Virginia.
"You are a General of the Confederate Army possessed of the power
attached to that rank. You will know how to make the exact knowledge
of Brigadier General Beauregard, as well of the ground as of the
troops and preparation avail for the success of the object for which
you coöperate. The zeal of both assures me of harmonious action.
"Jefferson Davis."
As a matter of fact the President was consumed with painful anxiety lest
there should not be harmonious action if Johnston should reach the
field in time for the fight. His own presence was required by law at
Richmond on July 20, for the delivery of his message to the assembled
Congress. It was impossible for him to leave for the front before Sunday
morning the 21st.
The battle began at eight o'clock.
General McDowell's army had moved to this attack hounded by the clamor
of demagogues for the immediate capture of Richmond by his "Grand Army."
Every Northern newspaper had dinned into his ears and the ears of an
impatient public but one cry for months:
"On to Richmond!"
At last the news was spread in Washington that the army would move and
bivouac in Richmond's public square within ten days. The march was to be
a triumphal procession. The Washington politicians filled wagons and
carriages with champagne to celebrate the victory. Tickets were actually
printed and distributed for a ball in Richmond. The army was accompanied
by long lines of excited spectators to witness the one grand struggle of
the war--Congressmen, toughs from the saloons, gaudy ladies from
questionable resorts, a clamoring, perspiring rabble bent on witnessing
scenes of blood.
The Union General's information as to Beauregard's position and army was
accurate and full. He knew that Johnston's command of ten thousand men
had begun to arrive the day before. He did not know that half of them
were still tangled up somewhere on the railroad waiting for
transportation. Even with Johnston's entire command on the ground his
army outnumbered the Southerners and his divisions of seasoned veterans
from the old army and his matchless artillery gave him an enormous
advantage.
With consummate skill he planned the battle and began its successful
execution.
His scouts had informed him that the Southern line was weak on its left
wing resting on the Stone Bridge across the river. Here the long drawn
line of Beauregard's army thinned to a single regiment supported at some
distance by a battalion. Here the skillful Union General determined to
strike.
At two-thirty before daylight his dense lines of enthusiastic men swung
into the dusty moonlit road for their movement to flank the Confederate
left.
Swiftly and silently the flower of McDowell's army, eighteen thousand
picked men, moved under the cover of the night to their chosen crossing
at Sudley's Ford, two miles beyond the farthest gray picket of
Beauregard's left.
Tyler's division was halted at the Stone Bridge on which the lone
regiment of Col. Evans lay beyond the stream. He was ordered to feign an
attack on that point while the second and third divisions should creep
cautiously along a circuitous road two miles above, cross unopposed and
slip into the rear of Beauregard's long-drawn left wing, roll it up in a
mighty scroll of flame, join Tyler's division as it should sweep across
the Stone Bridge and together the three divisions in one solid mass
could crush the ten-mile battle line into hopeless confusion.
The plan was skillfully and daringly conceived.
Tyler's division halted at the Stone Bridge and silently formed as the
first glow of dawn tinged the eastern hills.
The dull red of the July sun was just coloring the sky with its flame
when the second and third divisions crossed Bull Run at Sudley's Ford
and began their swift descent upon the rear of the unsuspecting Southern
army.
As the sun burst above the hills, a circle of white smoke suddenly
curled away from a cannon's mouth above the Stone Bridge and slowly rose
in the still, clear morning air. Its sullen roar echoed over the valley.
The gray figures on the hill beyond leaped to their feet and looked.
Only the artillery was engaged and their shots were falling short.
The Confederates appeared indifferent. The action was too obviously a
feint. Colonel Evans was holding his regiment for a clearer plan of
battle to develop. From the hilltop on which his men lay he scanned with
increasing uneasiness the horizon toward the west. In the far distance
against the bright Southern sky loomed the dark outline of the Blue
Ridge. The heavy background brought out in vivid contrast the woods and
fields, hollows and hills of the great Manassas plain in the foreground.
Suddenly he saw it--a thin cloud of dust rising in the distance. As the
rushing wall of sixteen thousand men emerged from the "Big Forest,"
through which they had worked their way along the crooked track of a
rarely used road, the dust cloud flared in the sky with ominous menace.
Colonel Evans knew its meaning. Beauregard's army had been flanked and
the long thin lines of his left wing were caught in a trap. When the
first rush of the circling host had swept his little band back from the
Stone Bridge Tyler's army would then cross and the three divisions swoop
down on the doomed men.
Evans suddenly swung his regiment and two field pieces into a new line
of battle facing the onrushing host and sent his courier flying to
General Bee to ask that his brigade be moved instantly to his support.
When the shock came there were five regiments and six little field
pieces in the Southern ranks to meet McDowell's sixteen thousand
troops.
With deafening roar their artillery opened. The long dense lines of
closely packed infantry began their steady firing in volleys. It sounded
as if some giant hand had grasped the hot Southern skies and was tearing
their blue canvas into strips and shreds.
For an hour Bee's brigade withstood the onslaught of the two Federal
divisions--and then began to slowly fall back before the resistless wall
of fire. The Union army charged and drove the broken lines a half mile
before they rallied.
Tyler's division now swept across the Stone Bridge and the shattered
Confederate left wing was practically surrounded by overwhelming odds.
Again the storm burst on the unsupported lines of Bee and drove them
three quarters of a mile before they paused.
The charging Federal army had struck something they were destined to
feel again on many a field of blood.
General T. J. Jackson had suddenly swung his brigade of five regiments
into the breach and stopped the wave of fire.
Bee rushed to Jackson's side.
"General," he cried pathetically, "they are beating us back!"
The somber blue eyes of the Virginian gleamed beneath the heavy lashes:
"Then sir, we will give them the bayonet!"
Bee turned to his hard-pressed men and shouted:
"See Jackson and his Virginians standing like a stone wall! Let us
conquer or die!"
The words had scarcely passed his lips when Bee fell, mortally wounded.
Four miles away on the top of a lonely hill sat Beauregard and Johnston
befogged in a series of pitiable blunders.
The flanking of the Southern army was a complete and overwhelming
surprise. Johnston, unacquainted with the ground, had yielded the
execution of the battle to his subordinate.
While the two puzzled generals were waiting on their hill top for their
orders of battle to be developed on the right they looked to the left
and the whole valley was a boiling hell of smoke and dust and flame.
Their left flank had been turned and the triumphant enemy was rolling
their long line up in a shroud of flame and death.
The two Generals put spurs to their horses and dashed to the scene of
action, sending their couriers flying to countermand their first orders.
They reached the scene at the moment Bee's and Evans' shattered lines
were taking refuge in a wooded ravine and Jackson had moved his men into
a position to breast the shock of the enemy's avalanche.
In his excitement Johnston seized the colors of the fourth Alabama
regiment and offered to lead them in a charge.
Beauregard leaped from his horse, faced the troops and shouted:
"I have come to die with you!"
The first of the reserves were rushing to the front in a desperate
effort to save the day. But in spite of the presence of the two
Commanding Generals, in spite of the living stone wall Jackson had
thrown in the path of the Union hosts, a large part of the crushed left
wing could not be stopped and in mad panic broke for the rear toward
Manassas Junction.
The fate of the Southern army hung on the problem of holding the hill
behind Jackson's brigade. On its bloody slopes his men crouched with
rifles leveled and from them poured a steady flame into the ranks of the
charging Union columns.
Beauregard led the right wing of his newly formed battle line and
Jackson the center in a desperate charge. The Union ranks were pierced
and driven, only to re-form instantly and hurl their assailants back to
their former position. Charge and counter-charge followed in rapid and
terrible succession.
The Confederates were being slowly overwhelmed. The combined Union
divisions now consisted of an enveloping battle line of twenty thousand
infantry, seven companies of cavalry and twenty-four pieces of
artillery, while behind them yet hung ten thousand reserves eager to
rush into action.
Beauregard's combined forces defending the hill were scarcely seven
thousand men. At two o'clock the desperate Southern commander succeeded
in bringing up additional regiments from his right wing. Two brigades at
last were thrown into the storm center and a shout rose from the
hard-pressed Confederates. Again they charged, drove the Union hosts
back and captured a battery of artillery.
The hill was saved and the enemy driven across the turnpike into the
woods.
McDowell now hurried in a division of his reserves and re-formed his
battle line for the final grand assault. Once more he demonstrated his
skill by throwing his right wing into a wide circling movement to
envelop the Confederate position on its left flank.
The scene was magnificent. As far as the eye could reach the glittering
bayonets of the Union infantry could be seen sweeping steadily through
field and wood flanked by its cavalry. Beauregard watched the cordon of
steel draw around his hard-pressed men and planted his regiments with
desperate determination to hurl them back.
Far off in the distance rose a new cloud of dust in the direction of the
Manassas railroad. At their head was lifted a flag whose folds drooped
in the hot, blistering July air. They were moving directly on the rear
of McDowell's circling right wing.
If they were Union reserves the day was lost.
The Southerner lifted his field glasses and watched the drooping flag
now shrouded in dust--now emerging in the blazing sun. His glasses were
not strong enough. He could not make out its colors.
Beauregard turned to Colonel Evans, whose little regiment had fought
with sullen desperation since sunrise.
"I can't make out that flag. If it's Patterson's army from the
valley--God help us--"
"It may be Elzey and Kirby Smith's regiments," Evans replied. "They're
lost somewhere along the road from Winchester."
Again Beauregard strained his eyes on the steadily advancing flag. It
was a moment of crushing agony.
"I'm afraid it's Patterson's men. We must fall back on our last
reserve--"
He quickly lowered his glasses.
"I haven't a courier left, Colonel. You must help me--"
"Certainly, General."
"Find Johnston, and ask him to at once mass the reserves to support and
protect our retreat--"
Evans started immediately to execute the order.
"Wait!" Beauregard shouted.
His glasses were again fixed on the advancing flag. A gust of wind
suddenly flung its folds into the bright Southern sky line--the Stars
and Bars of the Confederacy!
"Glory to God!" the commander exclaimed. "They're our men!"
The dark face of the little General flashed with excitement as he turned
to Evans:
"Ride, Colonel--ride with all your might and order General Kirby Smith
to press his command forward at double quick and strike that circling
line in the flank and rear!"
There were but two thousand in the advancing column but the moral effect
of their sudden assault on the rear of the advancing victorious men,
unconscious of their presence, would be tremendous. A charge at the same
moment by his entire army confronting the enemy might snatch victory out
of the jaws of defeat.
Beauregard placed himself at the head of his hard-pressed front, and
waited the thrilling cry of Smith's men. At last it came, the
heaven-piercing, hell-quivering, Rebel yell--the triumphant cry of the
Southern hunter in sight of his game!
Jackson, Longstreet and Early with sudden rush of tigers sprang at the
throats of the Union lines in front.
The men had scarcely gripped their guns to receive the assault when from
the rear rose the unearthly yell of the new army swooping down on their
unprotected flank.
It was too much for the raw recruits of the North. They had marched and
fought with dogged courage since two o'clock before day--without pause
for food or drink. It was now four in the afternoon and the blazing sun
of July was pouring its merciless rays down on their dust-covered and
smoke-grimed faces without mercy.
McDowell's right wing was crumpled like an eggshell between the combined
charges front and rear. It broke and rushed back in confusion on his
center. The whole army floundered a moment in tangled mass. In vain
their officers shouted themselves hoarse proclaiming their victory and
ordering them to rally.
Wild, hopeless, senseless, unreasoning panic had seized the Union army.
They threw down their guns in thousands and started at breakneck speed
for Washington. With every jump they cursed their idiotic commanders
for leading them blindfolded into the jaws of hell. At least they had
common sense enough left to save what was left.
The fields were covered with black swarms of flying soldiers. They cut
the horses from the gun carriages, mounted them and dashed forward
trampling down the crazed mobs on foot.
As the shouting, screaming throng rushed at the Cub Run bridge, a well
directed shot from Kemper's battery smashed a team of horses that were
crossing. The wagon was upset and the bridge choked.
In mad efforts to force a passage mob piled on mob until the panic
enveloped every division of the army that thirty minutes before was
sweeping with swift, sure tread to its final victorious charge.
Across every bridge and ford of Bull Run the panic-stricken thousands
rushed pellmell, horse, foot, artillery, wagons, ambulances, excursion
carriages, red-jowled politicians mingling with screaming women whose
faces showed death white through the rouge on their lips and cheeks.
For three miles rolled the dark tide of ruin and confusion--with not one
Confederate soldier in sight.
It was three o'clock before the train bearing the anxious Confederate
President and his staff drew into Manassas Junction. He had heard no
news from the front and feared the worst. The long deep boom of the
great guns told him that the battle was raging.
From the car window he saw rising an ominous cloud of dust rapidly
approaching the Junction. To his trained eye it could mean but one
thing--retreat.
He sprang from the car and asked its meaning of a pale trembling youth
in disheveled, torn gray uniform.
Billy Barton turned his bloodshot eyes on the President. His teeth were
chattering.
"M-m-eaning of w-what?" he stammered.
"That cloud of dust coming toward the station?"
Billy stared in the direction the President pointed.
"Why, that's the--the--w-w-wagoners--they're trying to save the pieces I
reckon--"
"The army has been pushed back?" the President asked.
"No, sir--they--they never p-p-ushed 'em back! They--they just jumped
right on top of 'em and made hash out of 'em where they stood! Thank God
a few of us got away."
The President turned with a gesture of impatience to an older man,
dust-covered and smoke-smeared.
"Can you direct me to General Beauregard's headquarters?"
"Beauregard's dead!" he shouted, rushing toward the train to board it
for home. "Johnston's dead. Bee's dead. Bartow's dead. They're all
dead--piled in heaps--fur ez ye eye kin see. Take my advice and get out
of here quick."
Without waiting for an answer he scrambled into the coach from which the
President had alighted.
The station swarmed now with shouting, gesticulating, panic-stricken men
from the front. They crowded around the conductor.
"Pull out of this!"
"Crowd on steam!"
"Save your engine and your train, man!"
"And take us with you for God's sake!"
The President pushed his way through the crowd.
"I must go on, Conductor--the train is the only way to reach the
field--"
"I'm sorry, sir," the conductor demurred. "I'm responsible for the
property of the railroad--"
The panic-stricken men backed him up.
"What's the use?"
"The battle's lost!"
"The whole army's wiped off the earth."
"There's not a grease spot left!"
The President confronted the trembling conductor:
"Will you move your train?"
"I can't do it, sir--"
"Will you lend me your engine?"
The conductor's face brightened.
"I might do that."
The engine was detached to the disgust of the panic-stricken men and the
cool-headed engineer nodded to the President, pulled his lever and the
locomotive shot out of the station and in five minutes Davis alighted
with his staff near the battle field. By the guidance of stragglers they
found headquarters.
Adjutant General Jordan sent for horses and volunteered to conduct the
President to the front.
While they were waiting he turned to Mr. Davis anxiously:
"I think it extremely unwise, sir, for you to take this risk."
The thin lips smiled:
"I'll take the responsibility, General."
The President and his staff mounted and galloped toward the front.
The stragglers came now in droves. They were generous in their warnings.
"Say, men, do ye want to die?"
"You're ridin' straight inter the jaws er death."
"Don't do it, I tell ye!"
The President began to rally the men. As they neared the front he was
recognized and the wounded began to cheer.
A big strapping soldier was carrying a slender wounded boy to the rear.
The boy put his trembling hand on the man's shoulder, snatched off his
cap and shouted: "Three cheers for the President! Look, boys, he's
here--we'll lick 'em yet!"
The President lifted his hat to the stripling, crying:
"To a hero of the South!"
The storm of battle was now rolling swiftly to the west--its roar
growing fainter with each cannon's throb.
The President, sitting his horse with erect tense figure, dashed up the
hill to General Johnston:
"How goes the battle, General?"
"We have won, sir," was the sharp curt answer.
[Illustration: "'We have won, sir!' was the short, curt answer."]
The President wheeled his horse and rode rapidly into the front lines
until stopped by the captain of a command of cavalry.
"You are too near the front, sir, without an escort--"
The President rode beside the captain and watched him form his men for
their last charge on the enemy. He inspected the field with growing
amazement. For miles the earth was strewn with the wreck of the Northern
army--guns, knapsacks, blankets, canteens--and Brooklyn-made handcuffs!
Their defeat had been so sudden, so complete, so overwhelming, it was
impossible at first to grasp its meaning.
He passed the rugged figure of Jackson who had won his immortal title of
"Stonewall." An aide was binding a cloth about his wounded arm.
The grim General pushed aside his surgeon, raised his battered cap and
shouted:
"Hurrah for the President! Ten thousand fresh men and I will be in
Washington to-night!"
The President lifted his hat and congratulated him.
The victory of the South was complete and overwhelming. Jefferson Davis
breathed a sigh of relief for deliverance. Within two hours he knew that
this victory had not been won by superior generalship of his commanding
officers. They had been outwitted at every turn and overwhelmed by the
plan of battle their wily foe had forced upon them. It had not been won
by the superior courage of his men in the battle which raged from
sunrise until four o'clock. The broken and disorganized lines of the
South and the panic-stricken mob he had met on the way were eloquent
witnesses of Northern valor.
His army had been saved from annihilation by the quick wit and daring
courage of a single Brigadier General who had moved his five regiments
on his own initiative in the nick of time and saved the Confederates
from utter rout.
Victory had been snatched at last from the jaws of defeat by an
accident. The misfortune of a delayed regiment of Johnston's army was
suddenly turned into an astounding piece of luck. The sudden charge of
those two thousand men on the flank of the victorious army had produced
a panic among tired raw recruits. McDowell was at this moment master of
the field. In a moment of insane madness his unseasoned men had thrown
down their guns and fled.
The little dark General in his flower-decked tent had made good his
boasts. And worse--the Northern army had proven his wildest assertions
true. They were a rabble. The star of Beauregard rose in the Southern
sky, and with its rise Disaster stalked grim and silent toward the
hilarious Confederacy.
The South had won a victory destined to prove itself the most fatal
calamity that ever befell a nation.