A Brigadier-General.
During the spring of 1861, the States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and
Arkansas, also left the Union and joined the new Confederacy, the
capital of which was now Richmond, Virginia.
The great object of the North was to capture Richmond. For this they
raised four large armies to invade Virginia. The first was to go by way
of Fortress Monroe; the second, by way of Manassas; the third was to
march up the Shenandoah Valley; and the fourth was to come from the
northwest.
Turn to the map of Virginia on the opposite page and find the places
which I have mentioned, and you will understand the plan at once.
[Illustration: MAP OF VIRGINIA AND Adjacent States.]
Now, the Confederate army was much smaller than the Federal army,
because the Southern States were thinly settled, while the North
contained very many large cities and had the world from which to draw
supplies of men as well as munitions of war.
[Illustration: _General Beauregard._]
The North also was rich, because it had the treasury of the United
States, while the South was poor in both money and arms, and had the
outside world closed against her.
So the Confederate leaders had to use great skill in meeting such large
armies with so few men.
You remember that in the last chapter I told how General Johnston, at
Winchester, with a small force was watching General Patterson. Now, just
across the mountains, sixty miles southeast, at Manassas, Beauregard
(bo-re-gard), another famous Southern general, was facing a large
Northern army under General McDowell. This army was thirty-five thousand
strong, while the Confederates had only twenty-eight thousand men.
General McDowell’s army was composed of the best soldiers in the
Northern States, and they had splendid fire-arms, artillery, uniforms,
and tents—in fact, all that money could buy to make them do good service
in the field.
On the other hand, the Confederates were poorly clad and had old muskets
and cannon; many of the cavalry had only the shot-guns which they had
used for hunting in their boyhood days.
The North fully expected that this fine army would crush the
Confederates at one blow, and, when General McDowell was a little slow
in marching forward to battle, began to cry, “On to Richmond.”
Large crowds of idlers, editors, reporters, members of Congress,
government officials, and even ladies went from Washington to the rear
of the Federal army in order to witness the defeat of the Confederates.
General Beauregard now sent word to General Johnston to leave Patterson
and come across the mountains to his aid. General Johnston at once sent
Colonel Stuart with his cavalry to face Patterson, and to try to keep
him from finding out that Johnston had left Winchester and had gone to
the help of Beauregard.
This order Stuart obeyed so well that Johnston was at Manassas, sixty
miles away, before Patterson discovered the ruse.
General Johnston’s army set out from Winchester on the forenoon of
Thursday, July 18th. The First Virginia Brigade, led by General Jackson,
headed the line of march. As they passed through the streets of
Winchester, the people asked, with sad faces, if they were going to hand
them over to the foe. The soldiers, for reply, said that they knew not
where, or for what purpose, they were marching southeast.
But when they had marched about three miles, General Johnston called a
halt, and an order was read to them explaining that they were going to
Beauregard, who was then on the eve of a great battle with McDowell. The
General hoped that his troops would act like men and save their country.
At these words, the men rent the air with their shouts and went forward
at a double-quick, waded the Shenandoah river, which was waist deep,
crossed the Blue Ridge mountains at Ashby’s Gap, and some hours after
night paused to rest for awhile at the village of Paris, on the eastern
slope of the mountains.
Dr. Dabney tells us that here, while the men slept, Jackson himself kept
watch, saying, “Let the poor fellows sleep; I will guard the camp
myself.” For two hours he paced up and down under the trees, or sat on
the fence. At last, an hour before daybreak, he gave up his watch to a
member of his staff, and rolling himself upon the grass in a
fence-corner, was soon fast asleep.
[Illustration: “_Let the poor fellows sleep; I will guard the camp
myself._”]
At peep of day, the brigade was up and away, and, by dusk on July 19th,
the whole command, dusty, hungry, and foot-sore, marched into an old
pine-field near Manassas, where they spent Saturday in resting for the
coming battle.
The Confederate lines stretched for eight miles along the southern bank
of Bull Run, which could be forded at several places. At these fords
General Beauregard had placed large bodies of men. On July 18th, before
Jackson had come up, General McDowell had tried to take these fords, but
his troops had been driven back.
He then made a plan to march a part of his forces around the
Confederates’ left wing at a certain stone bridge, and to get in their
rear. Being thus between two large forces, the Confederates would be
crushed or forced to surrender.
On Sunday morning, July 21st, General McDowell sent forward a portion of
his troops to the stone bridge, which was guarded at that time by the
gallant Colonel Evans, with only eleven hundred men. After he had fought
desperately for several hours, and just as he was outflanked and sorely
beset, Generals Bee and Bartow came up to his aid, and for awhile turned
the tide of battle.
At last, however, the Confederates were slowly forced back by larger
numbers. At this moment, General Jackson reached the spot with his
brigade of two thousand six hundred men. These he quickly placed on the
crest of a ridge in the edge of a pine thicket, and before them posted
seventeen cannon.
Generals Bee and Bartow and Colonel Evans rallied their broken lines on
the right; while on the left were a few regiments of Virginia and
Carolina troops. The whole force numbered about six thousand five
hundred men. The infantry of his brigade were ordered by Jackson to lie
down behind the artillery to escape the fire of the enemy, who were now
coming across the valley and up the hill with twenty thousand men and
twenty-four cannon. Just then, Generals Johnston and Beauregard galloped
to the front and cheered the men on in every part of the field.
From eleven o’clock A. M. until three o’clock P. M., the artillery shook
the earth with its dreadful roar, and thousands of musket-balls whizzed
through the air, black with the smoke of battle.
While the artillery fight was going on, General Jackson rode back and
forth between the guns and his regiments lying prone upon the ground in
the burning sun, and greatly tried by bursting shell and grape-shot. His
erect form and blazing eyes brought hope and courage to them in this
their first baptism of fire.
[Illustration: “_There is Jackson, standing like a Stone Wall!_”]
At last General Bee, seeing his thin ranks begin to waver, said,
“General, they are beating us back.” “Then,” said Jackson, “we will give
them the bayonet.” Bee, catching the spirit of Jackson, galloped back to
his men, saying, “There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall! Rally
behind the Virginians!” A few score of the men rallied around the
gallant Bee and charged upon the foe. In a few moments the brave Bee
fell dead, with his face to the foe. “From that time,” says Draper, an
historian of the North, “the name which Jackson had received in a
baptism of fire, displaced that which he had received in a baptism of
water, and he was known ever after as ‘Stonewall Jackson.’”
Both of Jackson’s flanks were now in danger, and he saw that the moment
had come to use the bayonet. Wheeling his cannon to right and left, he
gave the signal to his men to rise, and cried out to the Second
regiment, “Reserve your fire until they come within fifty yards; and
then fire and give them the bayonet; and when you charge, yell like
furies.”
His men sprang to their feet, fired one deadly volley, and then dashed
down upon the foe. The latter could not stand this dreadful onset, but
turned and fled. A battery which had been captured by the foe was
retaken, and the centre of the enemy’s line of battle pierced by
Jackson’s men.
For four hours, Jackson had kept the enemy at bay, but now help was near
at hand. Just as the Federals had rallied and again advanced in large
numbers, General Kirby Smith, with a body of men which had just come
from the Valley, and Generals Early and Holmes, with reserve troops,
hurried up and struck the right wing of the Federal army, while the
Confederates in the centre turned against them their own guns. This
onset proved too much for the Federals. They again fled; and this time,
their retreat became a general rout. The men in terror cast away their
guns, and leaving cannon and flags, rushed for the nearest fords of Bull
Run. The Confederate cavalry pursued them, while Kemper’s field battery
ploughed them through and through with shells. The road to Washington
was one surging mass of human beings struggling to get away from the
dreadful field of death.
General Jackson’s troops took no part in pursuit except to plant a
battery and fire at the fleeing foe, many of whom did not stop until
they were safe across the Long Bridge at Washington.
[Illustration: _Rout of Federal Troops at Manassas._]
Though the Confederates were the victors, they had lost many brave men.
Generals Bee and Bartow were killed, and General Kirby Smith was badly
wounded. General Jackson had been wounded in his left hand early in the
action, but had taken no notice of it. Now that the battle was over, he
felt the pain acutely, and went to the field-hospital, which had been
placed by the side of a brook beneath the shade of some friendly
willow-trees.
When he came up, his friend, Dr. McGuire, said, “General, are you much
hurt?” “No,” replied he; “I believe it is a trifle.” “How goes the day?”
asked the Doctor. “Oh!” exclaimed Jackson, “We have beaten them; we have
gained a glorious victory.” Dr. Dabney says that this was the only time
that Jackson was ever heard to express joy at having gained the day.
When the surgeons came around him to dress his wounded hand he said,
“No, I can wait; my wound is but a trifle; attend first to those poor
fellows.” He then sat down upon the grass and waited until the wounds of
the badly hurt had been dressed. At first it was thought that his middle
finger would have to be cut off, but Dr. McGuire having dressed it very
skilfully, it was saved, and his hand at length healed.
It is stated by several friends that General Jackson said, while having
his hand dressed, that, with ten thousand fresh troops, he believed that
he could go into Washington city. However, as he was not the commanding
general, he could not make the attempt, but could only do as he was
ordered.
I must not fail to give you a part of a letter which he wrote to his
wife the day after the battle, July 22nd:
“Yesterday we fought a great battle and gained a great victory, for
which all the glory is due _to God alone_. Though under fire for
several hours, I received only one wound, the breaking of the longest
finger of the left hand, but the doctor says that it can be saved. My
horse was wounded, but not killed. My coat got an ugly wound near the
hip. * * * While great credit is due to other parts of our gallant
army, God made my brigade more instrumental than any other in
repulsing the main attack.
This is for you alone. Say nothing about it. Let another speak praise,
not myself.”
But the praise of the Stonewall Brigade was not sung by Jackson alone.
Both friend and foe unite in saying that if Jackson had not held the
hill, which was the key to the Confederate position, until help came,
the battle of Manassas (Bull Run) would have been a defeat, and not a
victory for the South.
Jackson’s eagle eye saw the place to make a stand, and he held it for
four hours against all odds.
At one time, while his men were lying upon the ground, they were so
harassed by the bursting of shells that some of the officers begged to
be permitted to advance. “No,” said Jackson, “wait for the signal; _this
place must be held_.”
We do not seek to take glory from other heroes of this wonderful battle,
many of whom, as Bee and Bartow, bravely gave up their lives in the
storm of battle; or, as Smith and Early, made forced marches in order to
rescue those so sorely pressed; but we do say that, in one sense,
Jackson was the hero of the first battle of Manassas.
In this battle the Confederates captured twenty-eight cannon with five
thousand muskets and vast stores of articles useful to their needy army.
The Confederates lost three hundred and sixty-nine killed on the field,
and fourteen hundred and eighty-three wounded.
The road to Washington was now open, and there is no doubt that General
Jackson thought it best to press on while the enemy was routed and take
possession of the city.
But the commanding generals were afraid to risk the attempt with an army
which had been drilled only a few weeks and which had so little
discipline; and, thus, the moment to strike passed by.
In a few days the North had chosen a new commander, General McClellan,
who set himself to raise new armies to defend Washington and to scourge
the South.
Soon after the battle, General Jackson moved his men to a piece of
woodland near by, where he employed the time in drilling his troops.
After a time the Confederate lines were pushed forward to within sight
of Washington city, but no battle took place, as General McClellan was
too wise to risk another engagement so soon after Manassas.
In October, General Jackson was promoted to the rank of Major-General,
and was sent to the Shenandoah Valley to take command of the army which
had been fighting in West Virginia.
The Stonewall Brigade was left behind with General Johnston. This was a
great trial, both to General Jackson and to the brigade.
When the time came for him to leave for the new field of war, he ordered
the brigade to march out under arms, and then rode to their front with
his staff. Dr. Dabney says that no cheer arose, but every face was sad.
After speaking a few words of praise and love, he threw his bridle reins
on the neck of his horse, and stretching his arms towards them said: “In
the Army of the Shenandoah, you were the First Brigade. In the Army of
the Potomac, you were the First Brigade. In the Second Corps of the
army, you are the First Brigade. You are the First Brigade in the
affections of your General; and I hope, by your future deeds and
bearing, you will be handed down to posterity as the First Brigade in
this, our second War of Independence. Farewell.”
He then waved his hand, and left the grounds at a gallop, followed by
the cheers of his brave soldiers. This separation, however, was for but
a short time. In November following, the First Brigade was ordered to
join Jackson at Winchester, and it remained with him until the fatal
hour at Chancellorsville, when it lost him forever.
Rüse (rooz), a trick.
Stáff, certain officers attached to an army.
Rout, fleeing in a confused and disorderly manner.
Ĭn′strū-mĕn′tăl, conducive to some end.
Dĭs′ciplĭne, order, rule.
Tell about—
General Johnston’s army at Winchester.
Colonel Jackson’s first battle in the Civil War.
The march to Manassas.
The first battle of Manassas.
Jackson’s farewell to the Stonewall Brigade.
[Illustration: _Jackson’s military cap, sword, and buttons._]