Book. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIC r^M I lUiio V:^!.oBURG. Battle Fields AND Camp Fires. A NARRATIVE OF THE PRINCIPAL MILITARY OPERA TIONS OF THE CIVIL WAR From the Removal of McClellan to the Accession of Grant. (1862— 1863) BY. WILLIS J. ABBOT AUTHOR OF "BLUE JACKETS OF '61," "BLUE JACKETS OF l8l2," "BLUE JACKETS OF '76, " BATTLE FIELDS OF '61 " ILLUSTRATED BY IV. C. JACKSON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPTRIGHT, 1890, Bt DODD, mead & COMPANY. -1^ INTRODUCTION. N this volume I have taken up the story of the mihtary operations of the civil war, at the moment when the Army of the Potomac, scattered and dispirited, was withdrawing rom the Virginia peninsula after the disastrous failure of McClellan's ampaign against Richmond. At this point begins what I conceive o be the second period of the war for the Union. An almost un- iroken series of victories in Virginia had greatly encouraged the Con- ederates. Though heavy reverses had been suffered in the West hey were not irreparable. The policy of fighting a purely defensive /SLT was now to be cast aside by the Confederates, and in the course if this volume we shall see them planning and executing such plans of ivasion as Lee's Gettysburg campaign, and Bragg's invasion of Ken- ucky. The second period of the war, the period covered by "Bat- ie Fields and Camp Fires," saw the Confederacy at the zenith of its ower. This epoch in the history of the war ends with the accession f General U. S. Grant to the chief command of the Union forces. In telling the story of this period I have confined myself to escribing the chief battles, with but a brief survey of the strategy, laneuvers, and minor engagements leading up to them. It has been ly aim to describe the salient features of the war, leaving out alto- ether the details of petty skirmishes, raids, demonstrations, and inde- isive engagements which serve only to impede the course of the narra- ve, and to confuse the youthful reader who wishes to learn how the eople of the South fought to achieve independence, and how the men f the North strove successfully to maintain the Union. WILLIS J. ABBOT. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE At the Gates of Richmond. — Pope Brought from the West. — General Halleck put in Supreme Command. — The Peninsula Abandoned. — Mosby Carries the News to Lee. — The Battle of Cedar Mountain. — Stuart's Raid to Catlett's Station. — Jackson's March to Pope's Rear, • i CHAPTER n. Jackson's Perilous Predicament. — Longstreet's March through Thoroughfare Gap. — Pope's Chase after the Confederates. — The Battle of Groveton. — The Battle of Manassas, Some- times Called the Second Battle of Bull Run. — A Battle with Stones. — The Death of Kearny. — Battle of Chantilly, 22 CHAPTER HI. The Invasion of Maryland. — High Hopes of the Confederates. — They Meet a Cold Reception. — The Lost Order. — Jackson's Capture of Harper's Ferry. — McClellan in Chase. — Battle OF South Mountain. — Battle of Sharpsburg or Antietam. — Lee Abandons Maryland, ^e viii BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. CHAPTER IV. PAGE The War in the West. — Halleck's Siege of Corinth. — Forrest's Raid on Murfreesboro'. — The Confederates Capture Chatta- nooga. — Bragg's Invasion of Kentucky. — Battle of Rich- mond. — Panic in Cincinnati. — Battle of Munfordsville. — Battle of Perryville. — Bragg Abandons Kentucky. — Battle of Iuka. — Battle of Corinth, 8i CHAPTER V. Bragg in Tennessee. — Revelry at Murfreesboro*. — Rosecrans in Command of the Army of the Cumberland. — Morgan's Raid. — RosECRANs's March. — Battle of Stone's River or Murfrees- boro'. — Bragg's Retreat. — The Raid on Holly Springs, . 119 CHAPTER VI. The War in the East. — Proclamation of Emancipation. — Gen- eral McClellan Dismissed. — Burnside in Command. — Crossing the Rappahannock. — Fredericksburg Bombarded. — The Bat- tle of Fredericksburg. — The Fight for Marye's Hill. — Re- treat of the Army of the Potomac, 136 CHAPTER VII. Burnside's Ill-fated "Mud March." — General Hooker Succeeds TO the Command of the Army of the Potomac. — Reorganiza- tion OF THE Army. — Development of the Cavalry. — Raids of FiTZ-HuGH Lee and Averill. — Hooker takes the Offensive. — His Strategy. — The March to Lee's Rear. — Chancellors- viLLE. — The Four Days' Battles. — Jackson's Flank Move- ment. — Confederate Successes. — Stonewall Jackson Wounded. — His Death. — Union Victory at Marye's Hill. — Retreat of the Union Army Beyond the Rappahannock, .... 160 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. ix CHAPTER VIII. PAGE CoNFEOERATE Activity. — General Lee Determines to Attempt the Invasion of Pennsylvania. — Cavalry Battle at Brandy Sta- tion. — Lee's Northward March. — Panic in Northern Cities. — Hooker in Pursuit. — Meade Supersedes Hooker. — Gettys- burg. —The Battle of the First Day. — Old John Burns. — Bayard VVilkeson's Heroism. — Incidents of the Battle, . . 195 CHAPTER IX. Battle of Gettysburg. — Lee Determines to Attack. — Long- street's Protest. — The Battlefield. — The Struggle for Lit- tle Round Top. — The Attack on the Peach Orchard. — The Sacrifice of Bigelow's Battery. — The Charge of Wilcox and Wright. — The Night Assault on the Union Right. — Charge of the Louisiana Tigers. — Battle of the Third Day. — Pick- ett's Great Charge. — Its Repulse. — Close of the Battle. — Retreat of the Confederates, 221 CHAPTER X. Opening THE Mississippi. — Sherman's Expedition. — Battle of Chick- asaw Bayou. — Expeditions up the Yazoo and through the Bayous. — Grant's Movements West of the River. — Crossing the River. — Battle of Port Gibson, — Battle at Jackson. — Battle of Champion Hill. — Battle at Big Black River Bridge. — Vicksburg Invested. — The Siege. — Pemberton's Sur- render. — Fall of Port Hudson, 263 CHAPTER XL Maneuvering Bragg out of Tennessee. — The Chattanooga Cam- paign. — Rosecrans's Army in Peril. — Battle of Chickamauga. — Thomas to the Rescue. — Bragg's Plans Foiled. — Starving in Chattanooga. — Opening the Cracker Line. — Grant in Com- mand. — Battle of Wauhatchie. — Battle of Lookout Moun- tain. — Missionary Ridge. — Bragg's Final Defeat, , . . 29S BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. CHAPTER XII. PAGE In Charleston Harbor. — Confederate Efforts to Break the Blockade. — General Gillmore in Command. — Union Troops on Folly Island. — A Lodgment on Morris Island. — Attack on Fort Wagner. — Bombardment of Fort Sumter. — The Swamp Angel. — Bombardment of Fort Wagner. — Victory of the Federals. — The End, -334 ILLUSTRATIONS. ^ Rations at Vicksburg Front ;s/.iece ■^ Looting Manassas Junction 17 V Starke's Brigade Fighting with Stones 35 . Death of General Kearnev 43 ^ Holding Turner's Gap 57 -The Charge at Burnside's Bridge 75 ^ The Surprise at Richmond 87 ' BuRL^L OF General Little 105 . Storming of Battery Robinett 113 ^Gathering the Wounded from the Battle-field 131 V The Stone Wall at Fredericksburg 151 Fi(;hting it out , 157 '' Fording the Rapidan 171 \j Death of Jackson 1S3 Charge of Union Cavalry, Brandy Station 199 ■ wilkeson at gettysburg . _. , ... 21 3 Climbing Little Round Top 229 Xll ILLUSTRATIONS. Around thk Camp Fire Raid upon a Baggage Train . " • Running the Vickst-urg Batteries . A Sheli, in the Streets of Vicksp.urg In the Trenches Dragginc; Battery through a Marsh In the Wake of Battle The Charge at Fort Wagner . In a Monitor's Turret Mortar Battery in Action 241 257 273 2C7 305 317 331 339 343 347 LIST OF MAPS. Pope's Campaign THE BATTLE OF MaNASSAS ^Positions at Noon, Atcgust 29//O THE Battle of Manassas {Posiiions August 30th, 6 P.M.) SCENE of Lee's Operations in Maryland Map of Gettysburg • 53 29 38 49 224 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. CHAPTER I. AT THE GATES OF RICHMOND. POPE BROUGHT FROM THE WEST. GENERAL HALLECK PUT IN SUPREME COMMAND. THE PENINSULA ABANDONED. — MOSBY CARRIES THE NEWS TO LEE. — THE BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN. — STUART's raid to CATLETT's STATION. JACKSO.n's MARCH TO POPE's REAR. HE few Union people in Richmond in July, 1863, — there were such, for the Richmond papers of that day tell how "vandals" sometimes under cover of darkness wrote patri- otic mottoes on the walls and fences of the Confederate capital — might occasionally hear the strains of national anthems, or perchance the tuneful notes of "John Brown's Body," borne to them on the wings of some favoring southeast wind. Far out beyond the Con- federate lines, a few miles from the city McClellan's army, some ninety thousand strong, still lay encamped about Malvern Hill and Harrison's Landing. The army recovered quickly from the fatigues of the seven days' retreat across the peninsula. In the lazy life of the camp the soldiers forgot the dreary days of toil in the miry depths BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. of the White Oak swamp, and the bottoms of the Chickahominy river. A lavish commissary department fed the Army of the Potomac as no army had ever been fed before. The storehouses and wharves groaned with provisions, and the huge corrals of beef cattle looked like the stockyards of a modern cattle market. The camp was a city in itself. Streets of tents and cabins covered acres of ground. Long wharves stretched out into the river to catch the steamers laden with troops and munitions of war that were constantly coming and going. Out in the stream the gunboats lay tugging at their anchors. Around the outskirts of the camp the batteries of artillery were parked, but ready for the first hint of an attack. Everywhere the stars and stripes were to be seen, and morning and evening, at inspection, guard mount and dress parade, the regimental bands, with great pounding of drums and braying of brass, made the Virginia woods resound with the stirring notes of our national songs. Richmond was but a few miles away from the picket line of the Federal camp, but Lee's army blocked the path. Ever since the end of that day when the Confederate general hurled his troops madly and uselessly against McClellan's terraced batteries at Malvern Hill, the railroads leading to Richmond from the south had re- sounded with the rumble of trains bringing more men to stand between McClellan and the capital city of the South. The Federal general was in no haste to renew the offensive, the Confederates were zealous to take advantage of his delay, and so it happened that when the war authorities at Washington began to urge McClellan on to an advance, he found the numbers of his foes so greatly augmented that he declared that it would be folly for him to attack unless reinforced by 20,000 men. Meantime there had been changes in the ranks of the Federal commanders in Virginia. Jackson's exploits in the Shenandoah valley had demonstrated that one general is apt to be better than three, so President Lincoln ordered the corps of McDowell, Banks, and Fremont consolidated, giving to the organization thus formed the name of the BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. Army of Virginia. To command this army he summoned from the west General Pope, who had been active and successful in military operations along the Mississippi. The choice was an unfortunate one. Fremont, who was Pope's senior in rank, promptly declined to serve under the officer thus suddenly put over him, and transferred his command to General Sigel. Pope himself gave great offense to the officers and soldiers under his command by signalizing his assumption of command by an address in which he covertly criticised the tactics of his predecessors, and rather vaingloriously promised better things of himself. But .the sentence which chiefly irritated his troops was this: "I have come from the West, where we have always seen the backs of our enemies; from an army whose business it has been to seek the enemy and to beat him where found ; whose policy has been attack and not defense." This the soldiers thought amounted to a simple declaration that the armies of the east were deficient in cour. age, and their resentment was greatly aroused. The creation of Pope's command made two great armies in Vir- ginia, — the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia. The President determined to have a general-in-chief at Washington to fill this post, which had been vacant since McClellan had been deposed in March, 1862. Again he looked westward for an ofificer, and this time he chose Major-General Henry A. Halleck. This ofificer was then in command of the department of the Mississippi. The great success of the Federal forces in the west, the victories at Donelson, Island No. 10, and Shiloh had drawn the attention of the people to Halleck, who was then in chief command of the department in which these successes had been achieved. We know, to-day, that for these victories little or no credit is due to the department commander. Grant himself has left on record a declaration that he was hampered and embarrassed in his expeditions along the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers by General Halleck's steady opposition. But in that day people only knew that Halleck was in chief command in the west, and that in the west the greatest victories had been gained. And so from an army which con- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. tained a Grant, a Sherman, and a Sheridan, General Halleck was chosen to take chief command of the Union armies. Halleck's first act was to withdraw the Army of the Potomac from the peninsula altogether. Abandoning the conclusions reached by his predecessor, he determined that Richmond was to be attacked best from the north. Though he visited McClellan at Harrison's Landing and saw the noble army and the vast stores of provisions and muni- tions of war that had been transported thither at great expense, he felt that it was better to abandon all this, to count all the work done to secure a lodgment near Richmond as work wasted, and to begin the campaign anew upon fresh lines. McClellan protested, but protested in vain. He was ready to abandon the attempt to force his way into Richmond through Lee's lines north of the James river, but he wished to cross the river and invest the city on the south. By doing this he would place himself between Richmond and the great territory of the Confederacy. He could effectually check the stream of reenforcements coming to Lee, and in time starve the Confederate city into subjection. It will be seen later that this was exactly the course by which General Grant took Richmond two years later. Halleck at first acceded to the plan, and promised the necessary reenforcements, but soon after his return to Washington became alarmed at some of Stonewall Jackson's charac- teristic maneuvers in the Shenandoah Valley, and peremptorily ordered McClellan to leave the peninsula and bring his army to Washington. With the promulgation of this order the peninsula ceased to be the theater of war in Virginia. Meanwhile General Lee was watching every movement of his ene- mies, and carefully weighing the rumors which came to him daily from Washington as to the plan of the Federals. His army lay between the two widely separated wings of the Federal forces. He could strike either before the other could come to its assistance. He waited only to find out the plans of the Federals in order that he might plant the blow where it would do the Confederate cause the most good* BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. At Fortress Monroe lay a great flotilla of transports loaded with Fed- eral troops and evidently awaiting only the order to weigh anchor. It was of the utmost importance that the Confederate commander should learn whether these troops were to reenforce Pope or McClel- lan, in order that he might attack and if possible defeat the army for which the reenforcements were intended before they could arrive. If the flotilla should turn into the James river it would mean that the troops were for McClellan ; if into the Rappahannock, then Pope was relied upon to make the attack upon Richmond. For a time Lee was left in suspense, but one evening early in August a small steamer flying a flag of truce was seen coming up the James. It was found to be loaded with Confederate prisoners sent to Richmond for exchange. Among them was a man whose name was known throughout both armies as one of the most daring, audacious cavalry rangers that the Confederate army contained. His name was John Mosby, and his evi- dent haste to get through with the formalities of the exchange and to be off might well have aroused the suspicion of the Federal offi- cers who were there to attend to the details. Twelve miles under the broiling sun he walked, after the formalities which set him free were ended, and had fallen exhausted by the wayside when a mounted Con- federate officer happened along and carried him to headquarters, where he soon told General Lee that at Fortress Monroe he had heard the order given to the commanders of some of the vessels of Burnside's flotilla to take their ships up the Rappahannock to Acquia creek. General Lee had already sent Jackson to block Pope's advance, and he now dispatched word to that officer to press upon the Union lines, while he himself made preparations for moving his entire army from Richmond to the vicinity of Gordonsville, where Jackson's men were confronting the blue-coated brigades of Pope's army. A glance at the maps of Virginia will show that Gordonsville is the point at which the railroad leading south from Washington divides, one branch going to Richmond and the other leading off to Char- lottesville and the south. Here was Jackson with some twenty thou- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. sand men. The great body of Pope's army was at Culpepper Court House, a few miles nearer Washington on the same railroad. The ground between the hostile armies was swept over by the cavalry commands of each daily, and slight cavalry skirmishes had been of frequent occurrence ever since the two armies had come to that region. About midway between Gordonsville and Culpepper there rises by the side of the wood a hill of considerable eminence known locally as Cedar Mountain, or sometimes Slaughter Mountain. Just beyond the foot of its northern slope is the deep ravine of Cedar creek crossed by the road to Culpepper. It was on the densely wooded slopes of Cedar Mountain that the two armies were destined to fight for the first victory in the campaign of Northern Virginia. Jackson had advanced from Gordonsville at once, upon receiving his orders from Lee. Pope in his turn had speedily advanced to meet him. Gen. Banks commanded the advance of the Union line, and had 7500 men in his division. At Cedar Run he halted, and an aide bear- ing an order from General Pope overtook him. It is p;obable that the order Pope intended to give was that Banks should select a posi- tion and hold it against the enemy, sending back to the main body of the army for reenforcements if needed. But the order was a ver- bal one only, and when Banks asked the aide to put it in writing it was done in so ambiguous a phraseology that it seemed rather an order for an attack than for a mere stubborn resistance. Perhaps, too. General Banks was a little too ready to construe the order as an order to give battle to the enemy in any event. He was one of those eastern soldiers who had felt themselves aggrieved by the bombastic address of General Pope when that officer took command of the army, and he felt anxious to demonstrate to his supe- rior officer that there was plenty of good fighting spirit in the Army of Virginia. There had been a spluttering warfare for two or three days be- tween the cavalry scouts of the two armies, and on the 9th of August Jackson found himself on the crest of Cedar Mountain looking down BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. upon the camp of his foe. A line of skirmishers confronted the van of the Confederate army, and a Union battery on the banks of Cedar Run was throwing shells into the woods in which the Confed- erates were hiding. Jackson thought the outlook for a battle good, and he sent Ewell forward through the woods, while Early took position on the side of the mountain, two hundred feet above the plateau upon which the Federal troops were deploying and which his guns could sweep with a searching fire. He disposed his troops as though he had an army of at least his own strength to encounter. But as a matter of fact Jackson had over 20,000 men, while the Union troops numbered about 7500. General Banks had made one attempt to reenforce his army by sending hastily to Sigel at Sperryville to come immediately to his aid. But Sigel instead of marching sent a courier to ask what road he should take, and before Banks could answer that there was but one road from Sperryville to Cedar Run, the battle had been fought and lost. For several hours the battle took the form of an artillery duel. From the slope of Cedar Mountain the Confederate batteries roared out their deep notes of defiance, which the Federals hurled back in their teeth. The Confederates were all the time pushing forward, but this they did so slowly and cautiously that their advance was hardly suspected. But the sharp fire of the Federal batteries, though inade- quate to clieck the enemy's advance, yet inflicted serious loss upon his crowded ranks. General Winder was struck down by a flying bit of shell, and a host of less prominent officers were made to feel the accuracy of the Federal aim. After three hours of artillery fighting Banks began to get restive. He knew not how large a force might be massed in the woods be- fore him; and his orders from General Pope seemed to authorize him to keep on the defensive only. But the Confederates had been so cau- tious in their maneuvering that Banks felt convinced that they could not be greatly superior to him in numbers; and as for his orders, they were just sufficiently ambiguous to give him an excuse for at- 8 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. tacking if ^he thought success certain. And so between his ignorance of the enemy's strength, and his gallant wish for victory, he committed the fatal error of determining to attack Jackson's army of 20,000 with his handful of troops. And it is worthy of note that the admir- able plan of the attack, and the glorious daring of the boys in blue, came very near winning the day for the Union. So with his handful of men General Banks moved forward to attack his enemy. It was five o'clock on the afternoon of a sultry day. The artillerymen, who had been serving their guns since noon, were begrimed with smoke and powder and almost prostrated by the heat, but the infantry had as yet done but little hard work, and came from the cool, shady depths of the woods about Cedar Run fresh and ready for the conflict. Crawford's brigade was on the right of the Union line, and the plan was that he should turn the left flank of the Confederate line while the brigades of Geary and Prince should attack in the center and on the right flank. Right well did Crawford perform the part allotted to him. Through the sheltering woods he led his column unseen by the enemy. The edge of the woods once reached, he saw before him a broad corn-field. The rip- ened grain had been harvested and the sheaves were piled up in stacks about the field, affording shelter to the skirmishers between the hos- tile lines. The Confederates were not slow to see the danger that was threatening them, and a storm of musket-balls and cannon-shot sought out the Union lines that were forming in the edge of the woods. The place was too hot for endurance. Desperate though the charge across the stubble-field might be, it was better to take the chance than to stand idly, to be mowed down in their ranks by the enemy's fire. So doubtless thought the blue-coated soldiers as with a cheer they dashed across the stubble-field where bullets hummed like bees. The men fell fast, but the field was quickly crossed. The Confederates on the extreme left of Campbell's brigade gave way in confusion. The Federals outflanked them, drove them back, won a position behind them, rolled them back in hopeless rout upon their supporting divi- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 9 sions. Meantime the brigades of Prince and Geary had been doing their duty well. They pressed so hotly upon the lines of Taliaferro and Early that made up the Confederate center and right, that these ofificers had all they could do to hold their men in ranks. But when the broken masses of Campbell's brigade came pouring down on Talia- ferro's left hotly pursued by the exultant Federals, that brigade too gave way and Early was left alone to stem the flood of blue-coats that seemed destined to sweep Jackson's army back again to the Rapidan. At this moment the field was actually held by the Federals, for parts of two Virginia and one Georgia regiment alone withstood them ; the rest of the Confederate army was worsted. But meantime reenforements from the teeming Confederate brigades in the rear were hastening to Early's aid. Ronald's division, which was nearest, reached the scene first and was led into ac Jon by Stone- wall Jackson himself. The sight of that hero of the Confederate armies gave new spirit to the men who were on the verge of defeat. "Stonewall Jackson ! Here is Jackson," they cried, and formed again their shattered lines. Crawford's brigade after all its hard fighting had to receive the shock of this new attack. Once the gray-clad line was rolled back, but Jackson rode to the front. He forgot that he was commander of the whole field. For the time he was again only a colonel at the head of his regiment. His eyes flashed. In a voice that rose above the thunders of the battle he cheered on his men. The old "Stonewall brigade," which had never failed to respond to the call of its leader, answered nobly. The Federals were beaten back. Geary was wounded. Prince was captured. Though Banks sent for his small reserve under Gordon, it was useiess. Before the Confed- erates, constantly increasing in numbers, the P'ederals were forced back until at last they occupied the position behind Cedar Run which they had left at noon. Here they rallied and made so bold a show that Jackson halted, and the descending shades of night put an end to the battle. A few shells thrown from the Confederate batteries brought so lively a response from the woods in which the Union lines were 10 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. formed that Jackson thought he must have the whole of Pope's army in his front, and soon after dark he fell back toward the Rapidan. The victory in this hard-fought battle has been claimed by par- tisans of both the hostile generals. Jackson himself considered the victory his, though he did not follow it up with an advance. "On the evening of the 9th instant, God blessed our arms with another vic- tory," he wrote in his report. Pope on his part sent to Washington a despatch which at least implied that the victory rested with him. "The enemy has retreated under cover of the night," he wrote. "Our cavalry and artillery are in pursuit." As a matter of fact the battle was won by the Confederates. That they retired during the night does not alter the fact that they drove the Federals first from the field. But the victory they won v/as won by overwhelming numbers only. Until the Confederate reen- forcements came up the field was in the hands of the Federals. Fierce, obstinate and sanguinary was the fighting on both sides, but too much praise can hardly be given to the Union soldiers for the valor with which they dashed into the fight, almost carrying the day with the first charge. It was a bloody battle too, in proportion to the forces engaged. The Union loss was 2393, of whom 1661 were killed or wounded. The Confederates had 1283 killed or wounded, with a total loss of 1 3 14. The scene of war was now to shift to a point much nearer Washington. The old dread lest the Confederates should enter the capital was about to be revived. The people of Richmond for a time were to miss the familiar sight of tented plains about the city, and to hear no longer the ceaseless rattle of the musketry along the picket lines. The region about Manassas which had been the scene of the first battle of the war was again to be trodden b}' the huge armies of the North and South. August 15th had come. McClellan's troops on their way back to Washington from the peninsula had reached Yorktown. There was not a single armed enemy to threaten Richmond, and Lee had brought BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 11 his whole army — 75.000 men in all — out to Gordonsville to confront Pope. That officer, alarmed by the tremendous odds against him, fell back beyond the Rappahannock. Here he determined to make a des- perate stand. Indeed, it was there that the battle for Washington must be fought, for with Pope once swept out of the way, Lee could march into the capital before McClellan's troops which were hasten- ing from the peninsula to its defense could get there. General Hal- leck saw how essential the maintenance of the line along the Rap- pahannock was to the safety of the capital. "Defend every inch of ground," he telegraphed to Pope, "fight like the devil until we can reenforce you." And so for several days Pope manfully beat back every attempt of the enemy to force a crossing. Thus unexpectedly checked, Lee grew restive. He had expected to ride roughshod over Pope's lines, but the strong defensive positions afforded by the Rappahannock were not to be easily taken. The soldiers in the Confederate army shared the discontent of their leader. Cold, rainy weather and a poor commissariat made life far from pleas- ant to the men on the south bank of the river. "We live on what we can get," wrote one in his diary, " now and then an ear of corn, fried green apples, or a bit of ham broiled on a stick, but quite as frequently do without either from morning to night. We sleep on the ground without any other covering than a blanket, and consider ourselves fortunate if we are not frozen stiff by morning. The nights are both stiff and cold." While the two armies thus rested on their arms, watching each other across the narrow river and now and then exchanging greetings in the shape of a few shells or rifle-shot, that dashing trooper "Jeb" Stuart made one of his characteristic raids into the Union lines and came out triumphantly with information that made Lee expedite his advance. With a cavalry squadron of some 1500 men this adventurous officer left the Confederate camp and started to make a long detour to the rear of the Federal lines. As he was riding past Jackson's headquarters he met that other noted partisan ranger, Col. Mosby. 12 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. "I am going after my hat," sung out Stuart gaily as he saw his colleague. A few days before a Union cavalry expedition had come within an ace of capturing both Stuart and Mosby as they were sleeping in a house beyond the Confederate lines. The Confederates made their escape but left sundry trophies behind, among them Stu- art's hat, which the raiders carried away in triumph. Stuart led his troopers — picked men every one — by circuitous paths beyond the flank of the Federal picket line, and then around inside the lines to Catlett's Station, back of the center of the Union line and then occupied as headquarters by Gen. Pope himself. It was night when the raiders reached their destination, and a heavy thunder- storm blackened the sky and sent sheets of driving rain into the faces of the hardy adventurers. A flash of lightning betrayed them to the sentries, who fired a hasty volley and fell back, followed fast by the troopers, who charged through the darkness over unknown ground at a break-neck pace, and uttering the famous yell of the Southern soldiery. The affrighted Federals fled from their tents. The surprise was complete and they had no time to make any de- fense. General Pope, the chief prize sought by Stuart and his raiders, was not there, but his coat and hat fell into the hands of Stuart, who felt himself thus somewhat recompensed for the loss of his own raiment at the hands of the Union raiders. But a prize of far greater importance rewarded the bold invaders. Though General Pope escaped, his field quartermaster, with a portfolio containing all the commanding general's official papers, was captured. A hasty examina- tion of these papers convinced Stuart that they should be placed in General Lee's hands without delay. So stopping only to burn a few stores he retraced his steps, and was soon safe again within the Con- federate lines. From the captured documents Lee learned the size and extent of Pope's army. He discovered that McClcllan's troops were being brought up the Potomac to reenforce that army, and a copy of a letter written by Pope gave him the pleasant news that the Federal BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 13 general foresaw nothing but defeat should the Confederates break his line at the Rappahannock before McClellan should arrive. Lee had begun to doubt his ability to force a crossing of the Rappahannock in Pope's front, but he saw the need of striking a crushing blow before McClellan's arrival should enable Pope to do the striking. So looking for a way out of this dilemma, he hit upon an expedient which was ■ in violation of all the principles of s c i e n t i fi c warfare, which was perilous in any event, and which would have been impracticable had it not been for the presence with the Confederate army of the redoubtable Stonewall Jackson and his tireless vet- erans of the "foot cavalry." Lee's plan was to send Jackson by a long detour to the Federal rear, there to harass and attack Pope so as to create a diver- sion under cover of which Lee should slip across the Rappahannock. It is morning of the 25th of August. In the camp of Jackson's division on the far left of the Confederate line all is life and bustle. The camp followers are packing wagons, teamsters harnessing refractory mules, artillery men greasing axles and getting ready for a long march. There is no stowing of tents, for "the tented field" was a sight little seen in the encampments of the Confederacy. Jackson's Pope's Campaign, ( The dotted line shows the course o/ Jackson's inarch to Pope's rear.) 14 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. foot cavalry had no time for tent raising or striking. A blanket in a fence corner was good enough for the sturdy fellows whose command- ing general did not scorn to bivouac himself snug under the lee of a log. There is but little packing of haversacks too. Provisions are scarce, and the tightly rolled blankets slung across one shoulder, in which the Confederate soldier carries all "traps" and provender, is chiefly filled with "traps" in the case of these ragged veterans who are about to make a march of near sixty miles to the enemy's rear. The sun is not above the horizon when they take up the march. It is no holiday parade, the march of this gray-clad column. No harmonious band nor resonant drum cheers the men on. The quick- sighted enemy will be notified of the movement speedily enough by the great clouds of dust which a marching column always stirs up, without further attracting his attention by the sound of martial mu- sic. And so wi h guns at ease the veterans go trooping along, each at the gait that suits him best, but all keeping close in the column, for General Jackson doesn't like straggling and his officers and men all know it. So on in solid column, the infantry to the front, the artillery and wagons toiling painfully on in the rear, Jackson's thirty- five thousand men push their way along to the northwest until the range of hills called the Bull Run Mountains are between them and the Union army. Stuart and his cavalry have not yet left the borders of the Rappahannock, but they will do so speedily and overtake the column next day. Meantime the signal officers and the scouts of the Union army are not asleep. They have seen the clouds of yellow dust rising above the tree-tops, they have heard the rumbling and creaking of the wagons and the artillery, and even faint sounds of human shouts and cries are wafted to their ears — the voices of the teamsters urg- ing on their unwilling beasts. Where the column is going, and how great is its strength, are the chief questions which worry the Fed- erals. The second is solved by a Union officer, Colonel Clark, who being out on picket far beyond the lines of his own command, hears BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 15 the Confederate column approaching. Clambering up into a tree, he watches the l^ng line pass before him. All day he clings to the branches, for he knows that to come down would mean discovery and certain death. At nightfall he makes his way back to his camp and reports that Jackson with thirty-five regiments and artillery has gone up the road toward the Shenandoah Valley. Though puzzled to account for this apparently inexplicable ma- neuver, General Pope sees nothing alarming in it. He thinks only that Jackson has gone off on one of those raids down the Shenan- doah Valley, which had made his name famous. But did the Federal commander but know the true destination of that flying column of gray-clad veterans, he would find that a brilliant if desperate move was being made against him by one of the first strategists of the war. Behind the sheltering wall of the Bull Run mountains — a spur of the Blue Ridge — Jackson's column is speeding to the northwestward. Across open fields, pulling down fences that bar their path ; by quiet country byways where hardly a wayfarer is met ; past secluded homesteads where the women and the slaves come out to gaze won- deringly at the soldiers (for there were few other than women and slaves left in the homesteads of the South in that day) ; on under the burning sun, stopping neither to eat nor rest, nibbling ears of corn as they marched, weary, footsore, but brimful of enthusiasm, the sol- diers plod on until at nightfall they bivouac near the little town of Salem. Just outside the village stands Jackson himself, looking with satisfaction on the well-filled ranks as they file past him, and answering the cheers of the men as they march past shoulder to shoulder with unwearying salutes. That night the column rests in the fields about Salem. The Vir- ginians in the ranks who know the country thereabouts draw maps in the dusty roads to show their comrades how great is the stra- tegic value of the point to which "Old Jack" has led them. By the railroad which passes through Salem they might make a sudden 1(5 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. descent upon Pope's great storehouse at Manassas Junction, cutting" him off from his suppHes and breaking his communications with Washing- ton ; or by following the same railroad in the opposite direction Jackson might lead his men again into the Shenandoah Valley through Manassas Gap ; or should the general so desire he might desert the railway altogether, and by taking his forces down the turn- pike fall on Pope's rear at Warrenton while Lee should re-attempt the passage of the Rappahannock in his front. It is easy enough for the strategists in the ranks to conjecture what might be done, but not one of them knows what Jackson actu- ally purposes doing until morning, when the head of the column is turned toward Thoroughfare Gap. Then every man in the ranks knows that they arc to fall on the enemy's rear, to loot his provi- sion depots, and to cut him off from Washington. Thoroughfare Gap is reached and passed in safety. It is there in these mountainous defiles that Pope might have checked the raiders with a mere handful of men had he not lacked foresight. Once in the open country the column moves more swiftly. Stuart's cavalry hovers upon the right flank, capturing all Federal scouts and bring- ing in all persons who seem likely to carry news of the raid to Pope's headquarters. It is eight o'clock in the evening when the van of the cavalry reaches the railroad between Manassas and Warrenton. The first thing to do is to cut the telegraph wires, which is speedily done ; and the sudden cessation of the clicking of the instrument in Gen- eral Pope's headquarters warns that officer that something is going wrong between his position and Washington. While the men are busy cutting the wires the thunder of a train coming from the south is heard, and before the track can be torn up it dashes by at full speed, heedless of a volley which is poured into it as it rolls by. Two other trains following close behind are thrown from the track by torn-up rails, and then the railroad is closed. The news of Jack- son's approach has now doubtless reached Manassas, and thence been LOOTING MANASSAS JUNCTION. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 19 sent to Washington, but Pope is still in ignorance of the size and character of the force in his rear. How complete was his ignorance is shown by the fact that when his telegraph instrument stopped he ordered that one regiment be sent to Manassas "to repair the tele- graph wires and to protect the railroad." One regiment to cope with Jackson's thirty-five ! However, it is not solely to wreck a railroad that Jackson has made his long and rapid march. Manassas Junction with untold stores of provisions and ammunition is his destination, and thither he turns his steps though it is nearly midnight and his men are fagged out. But the thought of the booty awaiting them lends those tired Con- federates new vigor, and they step out as gaily as though on dress parade. Manassas is soon reached. The petty Federal force there stationed makes no resistance. A volley — a charge of Stuart's cavalry, and the vast storehouse of Pope's great army is in the hands of the Confederates. What a prize it was, and with what zest did the half-starved Confederates set out to plunder the vast depot in which were housed the provisions for an army of 60,000 men ! Jackson looked on indul- gently as his men clothed and fed themselves from the spoil of the enemy. One precaution only he took. "The first order that General Jackson issued," writes Major Mason, "was to knock out the heads of hundreds of barrels of whisky, wine, brandy, etc., intended for the army. I shall never forget the scene when this was done. Streams of spirits ran like water through the sands of Manassas, and the sol- diers on hands and knees drank it greedily from the ground as it ran," " 'Twas a curious sight," writes another eye-witness, "to see our ragged and famished men helping themselves to every imaginable arti- cle of luxury or necessity, whether of clothing, food, or what not. For my part I got a toothbrush, a box of candles, a quantity of lob- ster salad, a barrel of coffee, and other things which I forget. The scene utterly beggared description. Our men had been living on 20 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. roasted corn since crossing the Rappahannock, and we had brought no wagons, so we could carry away httle of the riches before us. But the men could eat one meal at least. So they were marched up, and as much of everything eatable served out as they could carry. To see a starving man eating lobster salad and drinking Rhine wine, barefooted and in tatters, was curious; the whole thing was inde- scribable." Though in the heart of his enemy's territory, with Federal troops on all sides save that by which he had entered — the narrow opening of Thoroughfare Gap — Jackson halted to let his troops enjoy this one brief hour of plenty. "In view of the abundance," writes one of the foot cavalry, "it was not an easy matter to determine what we should eat and drink and wherewithal we should be clothed; one was limited in his choice to only so much as he could personally trans- port, and the one thing needful in each individual case was not al- ways readily found. However, as the day wore on, an equitable dis- tribution of our wealth was effected by barter, upon a crude and irregular tarifT in which the rule of supply and demand was some- what complicated by fluctuating estimates of the imminence of march- ing orders. A mounted man would offer large odds in shirts or blankets for a pair of spurs or a bridle; and while in anxious quest of a pair of shoes I fell heir to a case of cavalry half-boots, which I would gladly have exchanged for the object of my search. For a change of underclothing and a pot of French mustard I owe grate- ful thanks to the major of the I2th Pennsylvania cavalry, with re- grets that I could not use his library. Whisky was, of course, at a high premium, but a keg of lager— a drink less popular then than now, went begging in our company." All too soon for the greedy soldiers the drums beat, and the order was given out to make a huge bonfire of all the stores that could not be carried away. Some idea of the extent of this task may be derived from an enumeration of the amount of arms and stores that were at Manassas when Jackson fell upon the place. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 21 Forty-eight pieces of artillery were there, two hundred and fifty horses with equipments; two hundred new tents; ten locomotives; two rail- way trains of enormous size loaded with millions of dollars' worth of stores; fifty thousand pounds of bacon; one thousand barrels of beef; twenty thousand barrels of pork; several thousand barrels of flour, and an immense amount of forage. Sorely did the Confederacy need this food for the supply of its armies. The pitiless blockade that shut out all communication with the outer world had begun to make itself felt, and that starving process which the South underwent for four years had already begun. But Jackson was within twenty miles of Washington, surrounded by hos- tile armies. He could not embarrass his movements with wagon trains, and so after setting the torch to the coveted treasure the Confederates took up their march again, rejoicing that they had en- joyed one "square meal," and wondering where and when they would get another. CHAPTER 11. Jackson's perilous predicament. — longstreet's march through thor- oughfare GAP. pope's chase AFTER THE CONFEDERATES. THE BAT- TLE OF GROVETON. — THE BATTLE OF MANASSAS, SOMETIMES CALLED THE SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN. — A BATTLE WITH STONES. — THE DEATH OF KEARNY. — BATTLE OF CHANTILLY. HOUGH Jackson had thus accomplished his purpose of de- stroying Pope's suppHes, thereby forcing that commander to fall back upon Washington for reenforcements, he had got himself and his own army into a most perilous position. Pope had by this time discovered the nature of the enemy in his rear, and was coming back horse, foot, and dragoons to fall upon the auda- cious pillagers and annihilate them before Lee and Longstreet could get to their aid. Hooker had come upon Early unexpectedly at Bristow, and had driven the Confederates from the field, Stuart's rangers had been out and brought in a captured dispatch which indi- cated that General Pope was using every effort to concentrate his army about Manassas, where Jackson then v/as. The roar of the Federal guns could be heard on every side, and the Confederate soldiers were be- ginning to wonder w^hether they had not, in their zest for plunder, got into a trap from which there was no escape. Perhaps some thought of this kind flitted through the mind of the leader too, but if so he showed no sign of trepidation. It was while the storehouses were blazing, and the Federal guns in the dis- • 23 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 23 tance roaring more and more loudly, that Major Roy Mason walked boldly up to Jackson and said : "General, we are all of us desperately uneasy about Longstreet and the situation, and I have come over on my own account to ask you the question: Has Longstreet passed Thoroughfare Gap success- fully?" It was a decided violation of all rules of military etiquette for a subordinate ofificer to put such a question to the commanding gen- eral. Jackson smiled indulgently and replied : "Go back to your command and say, 'Longstreet is through, and we are going to whip in the next battle.' " But Longstreet was not through at that moment, and it was a bit of bad luck or bad management on the part of the Union commander that enabled him to get through at all. General Pope himself has written the story of the second battle of Bull Run, (to which all these maneuvers led up), but nowhere therein does he speak of having taken any steps to close Thoroughfare Gap against the advance of Lee. To have done so would have been an easy task. The Gap is a veritable Thermopylae, capable of being held by a regiment and a battery against a whole army. At points it is scarce a hundred yards wide. Down the center rushes a turbid, tumultuous, mountain stream, and on either side the walls of the Gap rise steep and high. Huge bowlders and dense vines and undergrowth so cover the faces of the neighboring hillsides, that a battery or a regiment once posted could scarcely be dislodged. It was at nightfall of the 28th of August that the head of Longstreet's column reached this pass, and learned that a Federal bat- tery had just taken a position at the eastern end of the Gap. This was Ricketts's battery, which had been dispatched thither by Fitz John Porter. Had it remained there, the outcome of the second fight on the field of Bull Run might have been different, but Pope ordered it away; and so when dawn broke Longstreet, who had tried all night to find a trail over the mountains, found that the way through the 24 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. pass was opened to his army, and marched through in ample season to reach Jackson's side when his aid was most needed. While Longstreet was thus coming up to his aid behind the sheltering screen of the Bull Run mountains, Jackson had been seek- ing a spot whereon he might fight the battle which he knew Pope would force upon him. He sought a field which should afford him a strong defensive position, which was so situated as to enable him to escape with the remnant of his corps should the fight go against him, and which was so connected with Thoroughfare Gap as to make easy the junction of his force with that of Longstreet, should the latter arrive in time. All these characteristics he thought he saw in the country about Groveton, where the first battle of Bull Run had been fought. There he had won his title. He knew every fence and thicket and hillock on the field. Particularly he bethought him of a railroad embankment that crossed the field, and that would serve his troops in lieu of breastworks. So he sent his command by different roads to take a stand on the old field of Bull Run. General Pope followed fast behind the retreating Confederates. "If you will march promptly and rapidly at the earliest dawn upon Manassas Junction we shall bag the whole crowd," he wrote to McDowell on the 27th. The command was obeyed, but before the Federals had reached the Junction their bird had flown. "All that talk about bagging Jack- son was bosh," wrote General Porter the next day. "That enormous gap, Manassas, was left open and the enemy jumped through." But though balked of his prey at the Junction, Pope still pressed eag- erly on, feeling confident that he could yet catch and overwhelm the enemy. And indeed had he but blocked up Thoroughfare Gap with a proper force he might have done so. On the afternoon of the 28th of August, King's division of the Union army and Jackson's right wing under Taliaferro and Ewell clashed near Groveton. It was but an accidental meeting. General Jackson had been sleeping in a shady corner of a Virginia snake fence when there dashed up to him a courier bearing Federal dis- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 25 patches captured by a Confederate cavalry party. Rousing instantly from his slumber, Jackson seized the documents. They proved to be orders from General McDowell revealing Pope's intention of con- centrating at Manassas. From them Jackson learned that one division of the Union army would soon pass along the Warrenton turnpike, which stretched out before his lines. Here then was a chance to snap at least one link in the iron chain with which Pope was threaten- ing to bind him before his friends on the other side of Thoroughfare Gap could come to his aid. "Move your division and attack the enemy," he said to General Taliaferro, who stood near him. Then to Ewell, "Support the attack." The two ofificers saluted, and gave the necessary commands. Their soldiers sprang from the ground at the sound of the drum. Soon they had taken up their position in a grove that fringed a field near the turnpike, and there waited for the column of the enemy to appear. Soon King's column came plodding along toward Manassas Junc- tion, expecting to find Jackson there. Had they but known it, Jack- son was within a scant half-mile of them, but when an unseen bat- tery in the woods near Groveton opened upon the Federals, they thought that it was but some isolated division they had encountered and not the right wing of the army they were seeking. For an hour or two the Union forces abandoned their advance toward Manas- sas to grapple with this unexpected foe; across a field, up a gentle slope straight to the edge of a clump of woods from which the Con- federate batteries were spitefully playing, the blue-coated veterans charged. They had no plan of battle to carry out, no position to be held if they should be victorious in the fight. All they had to do was to drive the Confederates out of that neck of woods, and right pluckily they set about the task. Two brigades. Gibbon's and Doubleday's, made up the Union line of battle; the Confederates had seven. Twenty-nine Confederate 26 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. regiments with the advantage of position were about to be attacked by seven regiments of Yankees. If the Federals had but known it, they were about to stir up a hornet's nest. Wheehng from the road along which they had been tramping toward Manassas, the brigades of Doubleday and Gibbon started for the woods, whence came a galling fire. A fence that barred their pathway was down in an instant. With cheers the waving blue line swept forward. Back of it the Union batteries wheeled into position and searched with their shells the thickets which hid the enemy. For two hours and a half the fighting was stubborn and bloody. Neither side could make any headway. Standing up line against line, the hostile forces poured into each other bullet, shell and solid shot until darkness put an end to the fighting. It was a sanguinary en- counter. Gibbon's brigade lost in the two hours of fighting 751 men, or over one-third of its total roster. The Confederate loss too was heavy, and among those hit were General Ewell, whose leg was am- putated during the battle, and General Taliaferro. About midnight the Federals withdrew from the field and continued their march to Manassas, little thinking that the army they were leaving behind them was the very army for which they were seeking. All that night there was marching and countermarching about the neighborhood of Groveton and Manassas. The lonely country roads were crowded with armed men, and resounded with the hoof-beats of galloping aides, or cantering troops of cavalry. Pope was making frantic efforts to find Jackson; the Confederate general in his turn was seeking an advantageous position, and far off to the westward the dusty columns of Lee and Longstreet were making all possible haste to reach Jackson in time to snatch him from the grasp of his intended destroyers. The thunder of the cannon in the battle of the afternoon had been heard in the Gap, and every report seemed like an appeal for aid. Morning came — the 29th of August. Jackson had found the posi- tion he sought for — a steep railway embankment, running from Bull I BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 27 Run to the Warrenton turnpike, along which Longstreet was to ad- vance. The latter commander had passed the Gap, and was coming down the pike with rapid strides. General Pope had found the enemy he had sought unsuccessfully at Manassas and at Centreville, and by ten o'clock opened his attack. A great battle does not often possess the spectacular features with which the fancy of the civilian is inclined to invest it. Occasionally some magnificent display of valor, some dashing charge in full view of both armies like the charge of the Guards at Waterloo or Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, decides by its success or failure the fortunes of the day. More often, though, a great battle is made up of a score of simultaneous movements, no two of which can be observed by the same spectator. Here a charging regiment ; there a division stub- bornly holding a critical position ; at another spot a battery fighting an artillery duel with another battery a mile away ; trees, hills or ravines hiding the supporting divisions one from the other; a hundred thousand men engaged and perhaps scarce a thousand visible at one time from one point of view. To direct such a contest demands the greatest genius on the part of the commanding general. The utmost he can hope for in the way of personal observation is a post on some eminence whence he can at least look down upon the woods and fields in which his men are fighting. Of the actual fighting he can see little or nothing. His ear must be tranied to catch the sound of cannon, that he may tell whether a battery at some decisive point is doing its duty. From the rattle of the musketry he must judge whether his lines are advancing or being driven back, and how fierce the fighting is at any point. A cloud of dust tells him of troops marching along a road, and he must have the topography of the battle- field and the positions of both armies well in mind, so that he may know whether the dust means reinforcements for the enemy or aid for himself. The battle of the 29th of August, known generally as the battle of Groveton, was pre-eminently a contest such as here described. The 28 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. field extended over a great expanse of wooded country, but little intersected by roads. Jackson's troops, as we have said, were posted along the line of an unfinished railroad that extended from the bank of Bull Run across the Warrenton turnpike. This roadbed was at some points an embankment, at others an excavation, — everywhere it was an admirable defensive work. Before it extended a dense strip of woods well filled with Jackson's skirmishers. General Pope still hoped to fall upon Jackson and tear him limb from limb before Longstreet could come to his aid. The Union gen- eral knew that Ricketts had been driven from Thoroughfare Gap, and that a few hours at most would see the Confederate army united, but he hoped that in those few hours he might compass Jackson's destruc- tion. All night he had been awake, sending dispatches to his divi- sion commanders and forming his lines, so that by daylight he had Jackson confronted by the greater part of the Union army. Sigel, who commanded on the Union right, had orders to open the attack at early dawn. His troops were wearied with hurrying to and fro in chase of Jackson. They had had scant rations for two days. Between hunger and fatigue they were in no fit condition to fight a great battle. Morning dawns. Such of the soldiers as have slept turn out shiv- ering from their damp beds. After a bit of hard tack and bacon the skirmishers start out rifle in hand to feel the enemy. The line of battle follows behind. The skirmishers reach the woods. The rifle shots begin to ring out. Men begin to fall here and there. Their comrades forget their hunger in the mad excitement of war and rush in to avenge them. The Union batteries in the rear drop their shells in the woods, preparing the way for the advance of the Union line. On the extreme left of the Union line the fighting lags. The artil- lery and the skirmishers have it all to themselves there. The com- batants seem to prefer long range. Further to the eastward, though, the too-extended line of Carl Schurz's division tempts the gray-backs from their vantage-point. They dash out, and for a time spread con- fusion in Schurz's ranks. Here there is no long-range fighting. Muz- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 29 zle to muzzle the muskets spit out their spiteful messages, and the bayonet searches out the vitals of its victims. Many of Schurz's men — most of them, indeed — are Germans, and they fight with despe- rate valor for their adopted country. Rallying, they beat back the Confederates. They follow them. Right up to the railway embank- ment the Germans swarm, and hold this point of vantage in the teeth of a furious Confederate fire until fresh troops come to relieve them. The fighting be- gun on the Confed- erate left soon ex- tended all along the line. Regiment after regiment of Union troops was brought up and plunged into the fight. The Con- federates too were re- enforced by the ajrival of Longstreet, who reached the field shortly before noon. His arrival was un- known to General Pope, however, and there is nothing to show that his troops took any part in the battle of that day. Mid-day brings a lull in the battle. Under the broiling Sep- tember sun in Virginia there could be no furious fighting. And so for four hours only the skirmishers and the artillery are engaged. Mean- time General Pope is getting ready for what he hope? will prove the VN/ON COHFEDIRATS. The Battle of Manassas. Positi'ns at Koon, A ug. 2qth. 30 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. finishing stroke of the day. lie means to hurl a huge force of in- fantry against Jackson's left and center, pierce his line, and drive him in hopeless rout from the position he had held so firmly. This is the plan, good enough in conception, but which did not stand the test of execution. It is against the center of Jackson's line that the storm breaks first. Hooker's division, made up of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania troops, are the assailants. Grover's brigade leads. "Load. Fix bayonets. Forward until you feel the enemy's fire, then halt, let them have it, and rush in with the bayonet!" Such are the Union orders. They are followed almost literally. With loaded muskets and fixed bayonets the gallant men of Grover's brigade step forward. The bullets from the enemy's skirmishers come singing about their ears. A few are struck down. No notice is taken of that; it is but the buzzing of bees. But now comes a sudden flash and roar from the whole of the hostile line. The bullets fly thicker, men fall by twos and threes. This is feeling the enemy's fire with a vengeance. The guns of the blue-coats are leveled and send back vicious rejoinders to the Confederates' harsh greeting. Then with a cheer they sweep forward to try to carry the day with the bayonet. Gregg's brigade of gray-backs sustains the shock of the assault. Grover's men soon find that they have before them antagonists worthy of their steel. They firmly await the stroke of the charging regi- ments. The bayonets clash. Men load and fire at each other at a distance of ten paces. Muskets are clubbed and blows dealt right and left. The first, line of battle of the Confederates is broken. The railway is reached and passed. A second line is met, and deliv- ers a terrible fire. Then it too is swept away. Were there but more troops in reserve to dash in after Grover's gallant lads, the gap thus made in Jackson's lines might be enlarged until his whole army is split in twain. Ihit no assistance comes, and a fresh body of Confederates, sweeping down upon the exhausted blue-coats, force BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 31 them back little by little until all they had won at the expense of so much blood is lost again. It has been hot work on both sides. Grover took about 1500 men into the fight, and after 20 minutes came out minus 486 of them. At roll-call that night Gregg finds 613 of his men killed, wounded, or missing, including all the field ofificers except two. Meantime on the extreme right of the Union line Kearny — gallant Phil Kearny, with a reputation as a fighter won on half a dozen hard- fought fields — is trying to turn the left flank of the enemy. For a time it seems as though the fierceness of his assault is going to turn the tide of battle. His first charge sweeps the Confederates from their point of vantage, the railway embankment, and rolls them back in confusion upon their line. But they rally, and with ranks strengthened by fresh troops from the brigades of Lawton and Early come doggedly back to regain the position from which Kearny had hurled them. For a time the center of the battle is shifted over there A\hcre Kearny and A. P. Hill are crossing swords. The woods resounded with the clash of musketry and were fairly choked with the smoke of gunpowder. The hills were flaming and smoking where the hostile batteries made deadly play. Up to the aid of Kearny comes Hatch, in command of King's division. He finds Hill re- arranging his lines, and takes this for a sign that the Confederates are retreating. With three brigades Hatch hastens into the fray, hoping that a sudden blow may convert the retreat into a rout. Never was general more deceived. So far from retreating the gray-coats are getting ready to charge, and Hood's division of Longstreet's corps, being hurried forward, meets Hatch midway. The contest is sharp and bloody. "At one period," says a contemporaneous Avriter, "Gen- eral Hatch sat complacently upon his horse, while every man who approached him pitched and fell headlong before he could deliver his message." For three-quarters of an hour this sharp work is kept up, then the Federals begin to withdraw. Their retreat is no less dogged than their advance. One cannon is so far to the front and 32 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. so difficult to move that they see little chance of taking it with them. But they do not hastily abandon it. According to the testimony of one who led the Confederate advance, "this gun con- tinued to fire, until my men were so near it as to have their faces burnt by its discharges." And when it became evident that the ad- vance of the Confederates was irresistible, and that the gun could in no way be saved, the plucky Union gunners chopped its carriage to pieces and left it lying on the ground, useless for that battle at least. With the withdrawal of Hatch and Kearny the fighting for that day ended. Night soon descended upon the field, and the hostile armies were glad enough to rest and reform their lines for the re- newal of the conflict on the morrow. Here again Pope blundered through over-confidence. He thought he had won a victory, and sent off an enthusiastic telegram to Washington announcing it. As a matter of fact he had suffered defeat. He had gone into the fight with the purpose of annihilating Jackson before Longstreet could come to his assistance. In this he had signally failed. He had not even ousted Jackson from his snug position which he had held all day. And yet at midnight Pope telegraphed to Washington that he had driven the enemy from the field ; and after sending the dispatch began to make his dispositions for renewing the attack on the mor- row. It is sometimes said that keen appreciation of the moment when a retreat becomes advisable is the test of good generalship. This quality General Pope did not possess. With Jackson and Long- street united in his front he still manfully held his ground. The next day's events showed the folly of this course. Besides re-forming their lines for tlie struggle of the ensuing day, another and a sadder duty occupied both Federals and Confeder- ates that night. Each side had come out of the battle with a loss of about 7CMDO men. Many of these were prisoners; many were dead. Still more perhaps lay on the battle-field, between the two armies, suffering from frightful wounds, racked with fever, groaning and crying BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. ^3 for help. To bring the wounded in was the first duty of the men of both armies. "So soon as the fighting ceased," writes Private Goss in the Century magazine, "many sought without orders to rescue comrades lying wounded between the opposing lines. There seemed to be an understanding between the men of both armies that such parties were not to be disturbed in their mission of mercy. When the fire had died away along the darkling woods, little groups of men from the Union lines went stealthily about, bringing in the wounded from the exposed positions. Blankets attached to poles or muskets often served as stretchers to bear the wounded to the ambu- lances and surgeons. There was a great lack here of organized effort to care for our wounded. Vehicles of various kinds were pressed into service. The removal went on during the entire night, and tired sol- diers were roused from their slumbers by the plaintive cries of suffer- ers passing in the comfortless vehicles. In one instance a Confederate and a Union soldier were found cheering each other on the field. They were put into the same Virginia farm-cart and sent to the rear, talking and groaning in fraternal sympathy." Morning found the Confederate army posted along peculiar but formidable lines. Jackson retained his position of the day before behind the railway embankment, his left resting on Bull Run and his right reaching almost to the Warrenton turnpike. Longstreet's left flank joined Jackson's right, but instead of the line being pro- longed in a line with Jackson's it stretched out at an angle, so that the lines of Jackson and Longstreet together formed a huge V; a sort of funnel into which the attacking army must charge. Pope in his turn had his army massed on the hills which in the first battle of Bull Run had been held by the Confederates. Appa- rently he ignored the Longstreet arm of the Confederate V, and de- termined to attack Jackson only. He writes himself that he had little hope of victory, and only fought to delay the Confederate ad- vance upon Washington. His troops "had had little to eat for two days, and artillery and cavalry horses had been in harness and under 34 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. the saddle for ten days, and had been ahnost out of forage for the last two days." It might be thought that under such circumstances Pope would have taken up a defensive position behind Bull Run and waited for the enemy to attack him. Instead of this, however, he got it into his head that the Confederates were retreating, and made all possible haste to attack them, suffering a severe defeat for his pains. Until near noon of that eventful Saturday, the 30th of August, silence reigned over the field on which the two great armies were to grapple once again. Not until twelve o 'clock did General Pope order his divisions to advance. It is worthy of note that this order was for a "pursuit," not for an attack. So firmly did Pope believe that army to be in retreat, which in point of fact was massed behind em- bankments, snugly sheltered in railroad cuts, or ambushed on wooded hills waiting to slaughter the assailants. Under the hot noonday sun the Federals advance to the assault. Heintzelman, Porter, Sigel, Reno and Reynolds are all in. the attack- ing column. They advance north of the turnpike, little suspecting that they are marching straight into the jaws of the Confederate lion. The lower jaw — Longstreet's corps — is south of the turnpike. We shall soon see it close in upon the upper jaw, crushing the Union army between. Over on the Henry hill and Chinn hill, about three- quarters of a mile from Jackson's line, the Union guns are booming away, throwing their shells over the charging lines of blue and drop- ping them where the ranks of tattered gray-coats are lying close to the railway embankment for shelter. Suddenly Reynolds, who of all the Union commanders is nearest Longstreet's lines, catches sight of a crowd of gray-backs in the woods on his left flank. He sends a courier to McDowell, who is com- manding this operation which Pope was pleased to term a pursuit. McDowell orders him to abandon the charge, and change front to meet this flank attack. This he does while the rest sweep on to over- whelm Jackson. '*-^o. ^ ... '^^fdt^ ¥ STARKE'S BRIGADE FIGHTING WITH STONES. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 37 Grandly and resistlessly the serried ranks of Porter's and Sigel's divisions sweep on toward the railway grade where the veterans of the Shenandoah valley wait to receive them. The Union cheer and the "rebel yell" voice the defiance of the foes. It is American against American, — a tug of war no less notable than that which comes "when Greek meets Greek." More than one of the men who weathered the leaden storm that day has left testimony to show the desperate bravery of the assailants and the dogged tenacity of the defenders of the railroad grade. General Bradley T. Johnson's bri- gade was posted in what was known as the "deep cut." Here the fighting was fiercest. "They stormed my position," he writes of the blue-coats under Porter, "deploying in the woods in brigade and then charging in a run, line after line, brigade after brigade, up the hill, on the thicket held by the 48th, and the railroad cut occupied by the 42d. . . . Before the railroad cut the fight was most obsti- nate. I saw a Federal flag hold its position for an hour within ten yards of a flag of one of the regiments in the cut, and go down six or eight times; and after the fight one hundred dead men were lying twenty yards from the cut, some of them within two feet of it. The men fought until their ammunition was exhausted, and then threw stones. Lieutenant of the battalion killed one with a stone, and I saw him after the fight with his skull fractured. Dr. Richard P. Johnson, on my volunteer staff, having no arms of any kind, was obliged to have recourse to this means of offense from the begin- ning. As line after line surged up the hill, time after time, led up by their officers, they were dashed back on one another, until the whole field was covered with a confused mass of struggling, running, routed Yankees." We shall see later that General Johnson is in error in giving Jackson's men the sole credit for hurling back those charging pla- toons of blue-coats, and we shall find Jackson himself calling for as- sistance lest he should be overwhelmed by those same "running, routed Yankees." But so far as the reported use of stones as missiles by 38 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. the Confederates is concerned, there seems to be corroboration of the story. Lieutenant Healy of Brockenburgh's brigade writes: "Saturday we received urgent orders to reenforce a portion of our line in the center, which was about to give way. The troops occupying this posi- tion had expended their ammunition, and were defending themselves with rocks which seemed to have been picked or blasted out of the bed of the railroad, chips and slivers of stone which many were collecting and others were throw- ing." Of course a de- fense of this kind cannot long be main- tained, and Jackson sends to Lee for re- . enforcements. Lee sends the courier on to Longstreet. That general is found sit- ting on his horse on the knob of the hill, whence he can watch the progress of the attack upon his col- league. The whole Union army, he says, "seemed to surge up against Jackson as if to crush him with an overwhelming mass." "General Jackson is hard pressed, and General Lee directs that you send recnforcements to his aid," said the courier to Longstreet. The general nods, but sends no troops to Jackson's aid. He can do better than that. The spot on which he stands commands a mag- The Battle of Manassas. (Positions Au^. ^ot/t, 6 P.M.) BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 39 nificent view of the Union charge, and a battery posted there will sweep the ground over which Porter's men are charging. Three bat- teries are called up, twelve guns in all. The gunners bend to their deadly work with a will. Soon all twelve cannon are flaming and smoking and booming. The effect of this flanking fire upon the Fed- eral forces is immediate. Thrice they are thrown into confusion, and thrice they reform their shattered ranks. Then while the guns are still hurling an iron storm against Porter's lines, Longstreet calls up nis infantry, orders a charge, and this whole body of fresh Confeder- ate troops goes sweeping down upon the wearied Union army. Nothing is now left for Pope but to save what he can from the wreck ; to get his army off the field and out of danger with the least possible loss. This he does with marked ability. The hill on which stands the Henry house — the very spot where the fighting was most vicious on the day of the first Bull Run — proves the key to the situ- ation now. There Pope stations a regiment of regulars, against whose inflexible front the enemy beats in vain. Meantime the remainder of the Union army marches sullenly and sadly from the field, and wends its way through the smoky, rainy night, over rough and crowded roads, toward Centerville. It has been Bull Run repeated, save that in this second battle the retreat of the Union army was orderly, and not a rout. There is some variety of usage among historians as to the names of these battles fought on the 28th, 29th and 30th of August, 1862. The last of the three is called uniformly by the Confederates the bat- tle of Manassas, and more than one writer has suggested that the vic- tors should at least have the right of naming the battle. Many Union historians, however, dub it the second battle of Bull Run. The battles fought on the 28th and 29th are most commonly classed as one contest and called the battle of Groveton. Sometimes, however, the second is spoken of as the battle of Gainesville. The loss in these three battles was heavy, being about 14,800 for the Union army and 10,700 for the Confederates. 40 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. Few battles of the civil war have been so persistently fought over in time of peace as those of Groveton and Manassas. Smarting un- der the complete defeat inflicted upon him, General Pope sought for a scapegoat upon whom to lay the blame, and found one in the person of General Fitz-John Porter. It will be remembered that dur- ing the fighting of the 29th Porter with his division of 9000 men lay quiet, and took no part in the action. Pope declared that he had ordered General Porter to attack Jackson, and that by his disobedi- ence in not responding to this order the opportunity to crush Jack- son before Longstreet's arrival was lost. Upon this charge General Porter was brought before a drumhead court-martial, tried, found guilty, and dismissed the service in disgrace. But the matter did not rest here. General Porter devoted his life to clearing up the charges brought against him. He declared that Pope's order only directed him to attack in case Longstreet should not oppose him. That in point of fact Longstreet arrived almost as soon as the order did, and with 30,000 men blocked his way. That to attack Longstreet's overwhelming force with his own 9000 men would have been folly, and that he acted for the very best when he con- fined his operations to so maneuvering his men as to keep Long- street constantly on the alert for an attack, and thereby kept him from giving any aid to Jackson. Many years afterward General Grant thus summed up in two dia- grams this historic controversy. The first diagram depicts the situ- ation as General Pope conceived it. '^-^^^ JACKSOH POPE. Clearly if this had been the way the armies stood it would have been Porter's duty to attack. But Grant's second diagram showed the situation as Porter saw it, and as it really was. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 41 ^/ACKSOH POPE. And this put a very different face on the matter. After more than twenty-five years of constant effort General Por- ter convinced the United States Congress of the justice of his cause, and the rank and honors of which he had been deprived by drum- head court-martial in 1862 were restored to him by act of Congress in 1887. Once again Pope and Jackson measured swords before the great army led by the former reached a haven of refuge at Washington. It was on the second day after the fighting at Manassas that the redoubtable foot cavalry came crowding down upon the Union right flank by the Little River turnpike from the northwe^^t. Jackson had tried again his favorite tactics of making a long detour and falling upon his enemy's rear. But on this occasion his usual good fortune deserted him. His men, wearied with long marches and nearly a week of continuous and stubborn fighting, could no longer get over the ground with that celerity which had earned for them the title of the "foot cavalry." Ever since the day of fighting at Manassas, too, a cold, drenching rain had been falling, making the roads heavy with mud and breaking down the spirits even of Jackson's hardy veterans. So it happened that the march of the Confederate column was so delib- erate that Pope was able to keep himself well posted as to its pro- gress, and when Jackson seemed to threaten his rear he sent the fresh troops of Sumner to meet him at Chantilly, and ordered Reno, Hooker, and Kearny to support him. It was near five o'clock of the afternoon of September ist that Jackson's skirmishers encountered those of Reno, and a pitched battle soon began. The rain was still falling heavily, and the air soon became murky with the smoke of countless guns. The Confederates 42 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. took the offensive, but were repulsed at all points with seeming ease Then the Union troops rushed forward in their turn, but were dashed back, while Isaac J. Stevens, who was leading the charge in person, was shot dead. It was while the fighting was at its fiercest that an officer commanding one of Jackson's brigades sent word to the commander that his men must retire, because the drenching rain was making their ammunition useless. "Tell him to hold his ground," responded Jackson. "If his guns will not go off neither will the enemy's." It was nearly nightfall when the battle began, and the armies had not been fighting long when it grew so dark that none could tell friend from foe. The darkness cost one brave Union soldier his life. General Philip Kearny, having in some way become separated from his command, set out to look for it, and rode straight into the skirmish line of the' enemy. "What troops are these?" he shouted as he saw a group of soldiers rise up out of the fog and smoke before him. Then without awaiting an answer he wheeled his horse and started to escape. But the Confederates were as quick as he, and their bullets were speedier than his charger. A dozen musket- shots rang out, and brave Kearny fell dead from his horse. General Jackson sent his body into the Union lines next day with a military escort. When the darkness at last put an end to the fighting the Fed- erals had lost 1300 men, the Confederates 800. Neither side had gained any marked advantage, but as Jackson had tried to turn the Union flank and failed, the battle of Chantilly must be regarded as a defeat for him. The next day the Union army withdrew within the cordon of forts surrounding Washington, and the career of the army under Pope was ended. The Army of Virginia which he had commanded was made part of the Army of the Potomac under McClellan, and Gen- eral Pope returned to the west, where, as he said in his grandiloquent address, he had seen only the backs of his enemies. DEATH OF GENERAL KEARNEY. CHAPTER III. THE INVASION OF MARYLAND. HIGH HOPES OF THE CONFEDERATES. — THEY MEET A COLD RECEPTION. THE LOST ORDER. JACKSON'S CAPTURE OF harper's ferry. MCCLELLAN IN CHASE. BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUN- TAIN. BATTLE OF SHARPSBURG OR ANTIETAM. LEE ABANDONS MARY- LAND. 1 JF course while these stirring events were occurring in Vir- ginia, there was fighting, and plenty of it, in the west. But for the sake of making our narrative continuous we will de- fer telHng of the operations of the armies west of the Alleghanies until we have finished with the story of the moves made on the great checker-board about Washington, by the armies under McClellan and Lee in the fall and winter of 1862. In Virginia the military prospects of the South were never so bright as in the pleasant autumn days of September, 1862. After long months of fighting the armies of the Union had been beaten away from the Confederate capital. For the first time in more than six months no hostile force threatened Richmond. McClellan first, and Pope after him, had been met and defeated. Now, instead of Richmond being surrounded by the muzzles of hostile cannon, it was Washington that was beleaguered, and the streets of the Federal capi- tal were crowded with the stragglers and unattached soldiers who had lost their commands in the confusion attendant upon defeat. 45 46 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. But General Lee could not hope to take Washington by attacking it from Virginia. Not only the Potomac was between him and the capital city, but a cordon of forts on the Virginia side of the river made the approach of a hostile force impossible. Yet the Confeder- ate general knew that it was his time to assume the offensive. His successes must be followed up. And so he determined to take his army over into Maryland, whence he might either proceed into Penn- sylvania, or swing round and fall upon Washington in the rear. This was a project full of importance for the Confederacy. For the first time the southern armies were to become armies of invasion. Hitherto the fighting had been confined almost exclusively to the soil of the seceded States. The policy of a defensive war outlined when the Confederacy was formed had been scrupulously adhered to. But Lee now determined to let the heavy burden of war fall upon other people than Virginians. Ever since Sumter fell the hos- tile armies had been tramping back and forth through the Old Do- minion, trampling down crops, burning fences, pillaging farm-houses. It was now harvest-time too, and if the theater of war could be shited to some northern State until Virginia had garnered her plen- teous crops, all that store of corn and wheat would be saved for the granary of the Confederacy. It is of course true that in entering Maryland General Lee did not consider that he was invading a hostile State. Maryland was southern in traditions and custom. Slaves were bought and sold within its borders. Though it had never seceded, it was generally reckoned as being one at heart with the Confederacy. The assault of the Baltimore mob on the Massachusetts troops early in the war, had been accepted as indicative of the temper of all the people of Maryland. It was a mistaken conclusion. On the 5th of September the Confederate army waded through the cool waters of the Potomac at Noland's ford. General Jackson led the way, his head bare, his face grave and thoughtful, as though asking the blessing of Providence upon this expedition so fraught with BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 47 importance to the southern cause. Some one started the southern army song, "Maryland, My Maryland," and the whole army caught it up and shouted out the melody until the woods on the banks re- sounded. Dear mother ! burst the tyrant's chain, Maryland ! Virghiia should not call in vain, Maryland ! She meets her sisters on th'e plain, " Sic semper," 'tis the proud refrain, That baffles minions back again, Maryland ! Arise in majesty again, Maryland ! My Maryland. But the army had not proceeded far toward the interior of the State before General Lee found that the people of Maryland either had no liking for the Confederacy, or dared not show it. The re- cruits whom he expected would flock to his standard by hundreds came only by twos and threes. He reached the little village of Fred- erick, where he had hoped to find an ovation awaiting him and his army. . Instead he found closed shops, locked doors, drawn shutters and empty streets. This quiet hostility where he expected warm greeting must have hurt the Confederate chieftain as much as the loss of a battle. And although he issued a dignified and eloquent ad- dress to the people of. Maryland, only a few were stimulated by it to join the Confederate arms. It was in Frederick, by the way, that the incident upon which is founded Whittier's poem of "Barbara Frietchie" is said to have occurred. The genius of the poet has made the name of the patriotic old woman immortal, but there is reason to believe that she earned her immortality cheaply. The men who marched through Frederick that day have no recollection of how " All day long that free flag tossed. Over the heads of the rebel host." 48 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. Col. Douglass, who was in Maryland with Jackson, writes: "In Middletown two very pretty girls with ribbons of red, white and blue floating from their hair, and small Union flags in their hands, rushed out of a house as we passed, came to the curbstone, and with much laughter waved their flags defiantly in the face of the general. He bowed and raised his hat, and turning with his quiet smile to his staff, said : 'We evidently have no friends in this town.' And this is about the way he would have treated Barbara Frietchie." Frederick sheltered the Confederate forces only a few days. The isolated garrison of Harper's Ferry, amounting to about 11,000 Union troops, tempted Lee sorely, and he determined to send Jackson off to capture that stronghold. Accordingly on September 9th the whole Confederate force except the rear-guard left Frederick and proceeded westward, Jackson making direct for Harper's Ferry and the rest of the division commanders proceeding at a more leisurely pace in the same direction. McClellan meantime had pulled his army together and had left Washington, marching down to meet his enemy at Frederick. He reached the little town just in time to exchange a few shots with Lee's rear-guard, which w^as about to leave. "From all I can gather," wrote McClellan when he had * taken possession of Frederick, "Secesh is skedaddling, and I don't think I can catch him unless he is really moving into Pennsylvania." It seemed to be one of the failings of the Union generals of that day, that when they failed to comprehend the purpose of a movement on the part of the Confederate forces they immediately declared that the enemy was running away. However, General McClellan was not suf- fered to remain long in ignorance of the plans of the Confederates, for soon after his arrival in Frederick there came to him two sol- diers bearing a bit of paper which they had found wrapped around three cigars in the house occupied by the Confederate General D. H. Hill. This paper proved to be a copy of General Lee's general order detailing the order of march and point of concentration of the Confcd- BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 49 erate army. McClcllan was thus, furnished with exact information as to the whereabouts and intentions of his foes. He learned that, m- stead of "skedaddHng," Jackson had gone off to capture Harper's Ferry and the eleven or twelve thousand Union troops there stationed, and that when this was accomplished the Confederates were to rendezvous at Sharpsburg, and thence march into Pennsylvania. Scene of Lee's Operations in Maryland. All this was made clear to General McClellan. who until the find- ing of this order had been completely in the dark as to his adver- sary's intentions. Now he had seen the hand of his antagonist, and could make his game accordingly. He saw at once that the Confeder- ate army was split into two sections, separated by more than a days march. Jackson, Walker and McLaws had gone to capture Har. 50 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. per's Ferry, while Longstreet had gqne on to Hagerstown, and D. H. Hill was guarding the narrow and precipitous passes of Turner's Gap. General McClellan determined to follow Longstreet with the main body of his army, forcing his way through Turner's Gap. Meanwhile Franklin was to go to the southwest, drive McLaws away from the slope of Maryland Heights, raise the siege of Harper's Ferry, and with the garrison hasten to join McClellan and complete the demolition of Longstreet. The best military authorities agree that the Union com- mander 'made a fatal mistake in determining, to follow the enemy through Turner's Gap. There he found the enemy in force, with a well-disciplined rear-guard strongly posted to dispute his advance. Had he on the contrary led his army through Crampton's Gap and taken the enemy in flank, he would have cut Lee's army in two and been able to demolish either part of it at his pleasure. It was this course indeed that the shrewder commanders among the Confederates feared. Col. Ruffin records that when the battle at South Mountain was at its fiercest, General Hill declared that he was highly pleased to know that McClellan's whole army was in his front. Knowing that Hill had but a few men to withstand the assault, Rufifin asked his reason. "I had feared," said Hill, "that this attack was but a feint, and that the Union army at this very moment might be passing the mountains at some lower gap and thus cut in between Jackson's forces and the division under Longstreet." That McClellan failed to crush the Confederate army is probably due to this mistaken choice of a line of attack. That he failed to save Harper's Ferry seems to have been due to the lack of pluck of the officer who commanded that post. Let us first consider the movements which led to the downfall of this historic Union strong- hold. Harper's Ferry lies on the low lands at the juncture of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. On every side the hills tower, offer- ing scores and hundreds of places whence a hostile battery can pour BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 51 its missiles down upon the town and its defenders. The spot is one incapable of protracted defense. On the morning of the 13th of September, the Union pickets in the woods upon the hillsides about the town reported the appearance of the Confederates in force. All three divisions arrived at about the same time, and soon the signal flags were waving from Loudon Moun- tain and Maryland Heights. By the next morning the batteries were in position. The small Union force which held Maryland Heights on the north side of the Potomac was driven away by McLaws with but little trouble. And so, penned in by a cordon of Confederate cannon, the 12,000 boys in blue awaited the attack. It w-as at two o'clock on the afternoon of the 14th of Septem- ber that the guns of Walker's division opened fire from Loudon Heights. Soon their deepened thunder was echoed from Maryland Heights and the Bolivar hills, and the whole circle of batteries was in full play. At their elevated positions the southern soldiers could hear the booming of cannon over toward South Mountain and Cramp- ton's Gap. They knew that in some way McClellan had divined their purpose, and was fighting his way through the mountain passes, and bringing help to Harper's Ferry. Every hour counted then, and the southern artillerymen worked their pieces with a will, creeping nearer and nearer to the enemy's stronghold as the Federals were driven from their outposts. Against a superior force which possesed an enormous advantage in the way of commanding positions, the Fed- erals struggled manfully but hopelessly. They knew that help was coming, but how soon it would arrive no man could tell. When the sun went down that night only two or three Union cannon were answering the hoarse challenge of the Confederate batteries. The rest were silenced. By this time General Franklin, who led the Union relief force, had broken his way through Crampton's Gap and was firing signal guns to let the beleaguered blue-coats know that they might expect him early the next day. But the Confederate batteries on the hills kept up so constant a din that the signal guns were 52 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. unheard. Jackson alone heard them, and he sent orders to his division commanders to carry Harper's Ferry by assault early in the morning. That night the Confederates pushed their batteries still farther to the front, and massed their troops ready for the next day's assault. At dawn the cannonade was begun. The troops of A. P. Hill who were to make the assault began to deploy on Bolivar Heights. They thought they had hot work before them. A young lieutenant had been reconnoitering early in the morning, and brought back a dis- quieting report. "A few strides brought me to the edge of an abattis which extended solidly for two hundred yards," he wrote in telling the story afterward, "a narrow bare field being between the abattis and the foot of the fort, which was garnished with thirty guns. They were searching the abattis lazily with grape-shot, which flew uncomfortably near at times. I thought I had never seen a more dangerous trap in my life. I went back and Austin Brockenbrough asked, 'How is it?' 'Well,' said I, 'we'll say our prayers and go in like men.' 'Not as bad as that?' 'Every bit: see for yourself.' He went, and came back looking very grave. Meanwhile from the east, northwest and northeast our cannon opened, and were answered by the Federal guns from Bolivar Heights. We were down in a ravine, we could see nothing, we could only hear. Presently along came the words, 'Pre- pare to charge!' We moved steadily up the hill; the sun had just risen; some one said: 'Colonel, what is that on the fort?' 'Halt,' cried the colonel, 'they have surrendered.' A glad shout burst from ten thousand men." The Confederates had good reason to shout. With the relieving force scarce four miles away, Harper's Ferry had surrendered, and ii,ooo men. "jt, cannon, and an immense number of small arms and munitions of war had fallen into their hands. Almost the last shot fired slew the Federal commander. Col. Miles, as he stood on the ramparts waving the white flag that the fog hid from the distant Confederate batteries. One Union officer alone won honor at Har- per's Ferry. This was Col. Davis of the cavalry, who, learning that BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 53 the place was to be surrendered, quietly led his command, numbering some two thousand men, out of the camp, across the Potomac river, and away to freedom under the very nose of the Confederate general, McLaws. More than this, on his way to join McClellan he captured a Confederate baggage train of 173 wagons, and with his troops and booty reached Sharpsburg in safety. The rest of the Harper's Ferry garrison was surrendered unconditionally to the enemy. Jackson's bio- grapher, John Esten Cooke, thus tells the story of the surrender: "Jackson had been up for the greater part of the night, and for many preceding nights had scarcely slept an hour, although he re- quired more rest than any general in the army. He was now ex- hausted, and had no sooner satisfied himself that the place had fallen than he sat down on the ground, leaned his elbow on a log, and was asleep in a moment. Meantime General Hill had communicated with the Federal General White, who had succeeded to the command in consequence of a mortal wound received by Colonel Miles, and now came in company with that officer to arrange with Jackson the terms of the surrender. The contrast between General White's neat uni- form and Jackson's dingy coat is represented as having been very striking; and the Confederate commander wore an old hat less impos- ing even than his yellow cap, of which some lady in Martinsburg had robbed him. General White probably regarded with some curiosity this singular specimen of a southern general, and allowed Hill to open the interview. The latter said to Jackson : " 'General, this is General White of the United States army.' Jackson made a courteous movement, but seemed ready to fall asleep again, when Hill added : " 'He has come to arrange the terms of surrender.* "Jackson made no reply, and looking under his slouch hat. Hill found that he was asleep. He was again roused, and at last raising his head with difficulty said to the Federal commander: " 'The surrender must be unconditional, General. Every indulgence can be granted afterwards.' 54 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. "As he finished speaking Jackson's head fell, and unable to con- tend against his drowsiness he again fell asleep and the interview ter- minated." So much for the success of Jackson's descent upon Harper's Ferry. Let us now return to the Union camp and see what McClellan has been doing while the Confederate guns have been thundering from the heights of Loudon, Maryland and Bolivar. It is early dawn of Sunday, the 14th of September. In the Union camps about Middletown all is life and bustle. The men have had their early breakfast of bread and bacon and coffee, have struck their shelter tents, rolled up their few belongings, and are ready to take the road in pursuit of the Confederates. And now the long lines of blue-clad soldiers begin to move out slowly along the roads, looking like veritable torrents of men where the roads are in plain sight, and their course where the road passed through the woods marked by huge clouds of yellow dust rising high above the trees. Before the marching columns the hills rise by gentle slopes until at points they tower mountain high. It is the northern spur of the Blue Ridge, known thereabouts as South Mountain. Its highest crest is about 1000 feet in alt'tude, but at two points are depressions called gaps through which wind the rugged mountain roads that lead over the hills into Pennsylvania. The more northern of these gaps is called Turn- er's, the southern Crampton's Gap. A sharp-eyed spectator standing on the summit of the Catoctin mountain, east of Middletown, and pro- vided with a good field-glass, might have seen this spectacle unfolded before him : Directly beneath him, Middletown ; nestling in the midst of a fer- tile valley, a clump of roofs and spires surrounded on all sides by fields of golden grain, green orchards, pastures covered with waving grass or dotted with grazing cattle. Clustered about Middletown, the white- topped wagons and ambulances of a great army. Everywhere beyond the village marching troops, on different roads, but all evidently going in one of two directions, cither southwest or northwest. The former BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 55 are Franklin's troops on their way to relieve Harper's Ferry ; the lat- ter form the major portion of the Union army, and are going to force their way through Turner's Gap. No foe at this hour seems to be op- posing Franklin, who is plodding away in column of fours, but the van of the other division under Burnside is deployed in line of battle, and clouds of smoke and jets of spurting flame along the front would tell the observer that there was fighting there, even did not the rumble of the cannonade. And now if the field-glass is turned searchingly upon the rugged, wooded hills in front of the ever-advancing line of blue, there may be seen gray-clad regiments deployed among the trees, lurking behind stone walls, posted upon precipitous crags, and doing their best to beat back with leaden whips the onpouring flood of blue- coats. So much for the scene in the forenoon as seen by an observer on a mountain top and out of range. Let us now go into the thick of the fighting with one of Burnside's soldiers. A brigade of the Kanawha division of General Burnside's army is marching out of Middletown on its way to Turner's Gap. It is to support Pleasonton's cavalry, which is already on the way, and this small force is expected to sweep the Gap clear of all defenders. General McClellan knows that at Boonsboro' or beyond he will find the forces of Hill and Longstreet, but he has no idea that anything but a simple rear-guard will contest his advance through the Gap. As the brigade is crossing Catoctin creek it comes upon a Union offi- cer, solitary and travel-stained, coming from the direction of the ene- my's lines. He is at once recognized as Col. Moore, who had been captured by the enemy some days before. "Where in the world did you come from. Colonel?" sings out an officer as he is recognized. "Captured by the enemy three days ago. Paroled and sent back to-day," is the answer. "But where are you going?" "Oh, up into Turner's Gap on a reconnoissance." "My God! be careful," is Moore's exclamation as he sees the 56 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. slender force before him; then suddenly recollecting himself. "But I am paroled. I can say nothing." He has just come from the Gap. He knows that instead of a puny rear-guard, it is defended by more than 12,000 men under Long- street and D. H. Hill. Honor will not permit him to warn his com- rades of the trap into which they are marching. He is on parole, and can neither fight nor give advice, but his hasty exclamation has aroused the suspicion of the Federals, and they take along another brigade of troops and advance warily. The battle that follows is sharply fought. The Confederates are fighting for time. To hold the Union army in check twelve hours is victory for them. Though they are outnumbered — for when the battle has fairly begun the greater part of Burnside's division is engaged — the Confederates have the advantage of position. A battle such as this at Turner's Gap does not admit of detailed description. The rugged ground, and the scarcity of roads, make any concerted plan of attack impossible. The affair is rather a series of disconnected skirmishes than a general engagement. Cox's Kanawha division which we saw fording Catoctin creek goes into battle on the Federal right. It scales the rugged hillsides man- fully in the face of the foe. About nine o'clock the bullets begin to fly, and the boys on both sides know that they are in for a hard day's fighting. As the blue-coats climb the mountain-sides their batteries, which cannot climb, throw shells into the woods ahead of the advancing line, — a sort of artillery service mightily affected in the early days of the war, and which was seldom of much aid to the friends or injury to the foes of the artillerymen. The bullets begin to hum as soon as the blue-coats begin the ascent. Pickets and sharpshooters, dodging behind trees and crouched behind stone walls, make the climb very unhealthy for the men of the Kanawha division. But it is not until the summit is nearly reached that the fight becomes obstinate. There about a thousand Confeder- ates — men from North Carolina — have taken up a position behind a HOLDING TURNER'S GAP. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 59 stone wall and are evidently ready to sell their lives dearly. Against this force Cox's Ohioans dash forward pluckily, but are beaten back more than once. Sheltered behind their stone breastwork the Confed- erates can take the situation coolly, aim well, and hold their fire until it can be delivered with telling effect. Cheering on the assailants is a young Ohio officer, the lieutenant-colonel of the 23d Ohio, one Ruth- erford B. Hayes, who in later years rose to be President of the United States. Just as he has led his regiment forward to the final charge which sweeps over the stone wall and breaks the enemy's center, a bullet strikes him down. But his men sweep on past him, cheering^ breasting the storm of bullets, scaling the wall, clubbing their muskets and fighting hand to hand with the gray-coats they find there. Gen- eral Garland, the Confederate commander, falls mortally wounded. His staff officers had repeatedly urged him not to expose himself, but he insisted upon sharing the perils of his men, and so met his fate. With his fall his line goes to pieces, and soon the victorious Federals are in possession of the crest at that part of Turner's Gap. It is now near noon. For a few hours the fighting lags. The Confederates come back in force under Anderson to drive Cox away from the position he won in the morning, but Cox will not be driven. Meantime Federal reenforce- ments under Hooker are coming up the east slope of the mountain, while Confederate regiments under Longstreet have just reached the foot of the western slope. In the race Hooker is far ahead, but he little knows how slender a force is before him. Did he but press for- ward boldly, pushing his advance with the dash shown by Cox's brigade in the battle of the forenoon, he could sw°ep the Gap clear of its defenders before sundown. But instead he waits for reports from the engineers and for more troops. It is four o'clock before the Union attack is made in earnest, and by that time the head of Longstreet's column has arrived and the Confederate line is strengthened. And now the watchers in the valley, or on the distant range of Catoctin hills, can see the crest of Turner's gap wreathed in smoke, while kind 0(» BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. gashes show where the cannon arc doing their deadly work. There are cleared spots, of course, where the hostile lines of battle stand boldly before each other, but much of the fighting is in the forests, where the cautious tactics of the Indian are brought into play. Bat- teries posted on commanding knolls sweep the roads, or search with shells the woods which are thought to be sheltering the enemy. A great battle, made up of countless petty skirmishes, is raging. Through it all the Union lines are advancing steadily. The most casual observer can see that. There are long halts, men are falling thick and fast, but when any ground is lost it is the Confederates who have given way. A few more hours of daylight and the Pass will be fairly won. But the sun has gone down. Longstreet's troops are on the ground, and as if aware that darkness will bring them a respite, redouble their efforts. At no time is the defense so stubborn, the rattle of the musketry so constant, and the thunder of the cannon so heavy as at the moment when the twilight begins to deepen into night. Now the Union advance is checked. Despite the best efforts of the officers, seconded by the ready courage of the men, not a foot of ground can be gained. General Reno, in command on the Union left, determines to go forward among the skirmishers, and view the Confed- erate position for himself. A sharpshooter picks him off, and his dead body is carried from the field. Then the battle ' dies away, though from time to time through the night a sudden crash of musketry tells that some incautious movement on the part of Federal or Confederate has brought on a skirmish along the picket line. Late at night the wearied Confederate soldiers are roused from their slumbers. Silently they "fall in." Whispered commands are given. While the Union army sleeps its foes are retreating to Sharps- burg. Over two thousand southern soldiers were left behind, by far the greater part of them being prisoners. So wearied were the men of Lee's army that scores had crawled away into the woods to sleep, and when the time to fall back came they could not be found. The BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 61 Union loss in prisoners was but slight, only 22 men, according to McClellan's report. But in killed and wounded the Federal army has lost 1546 men. Victory rests with the Federals, who hold the Gap, from which they have driven the enemy. But in checking the Union advance for a day and a night the defenders of the Gap have given Jackson time to swoop down on Harper's Ferry, and to get back to Lee in season to give battle to McClellan's army. So much for the fighting at Turner's Gap. On the same day another Union column pushed its way through the Confederate lines at Crampton's Gap, six miles to the southward. The two battles, though separated by six miles of rugged and impassable mountain peaks, are generally classed together and called the battle of South Mountain. The sharp-eyed man with a field-glass whom we left gazing from the towering crest of Catoctin Mountain saw one division of the Union army leave the main body and turn away toward the southwest. This was Franklin's force on its way to relieve Harper's Ferry. At the Gap Franklin encountered much such a reception as Burnside met at Turner's Gap. Stone walls, thick woods, steep declivities, all protected the enemy and made his 2200 men almost a match for General Frank- lin's 6500. Here again the Confederates were fighting for time, and though defeated and driven from their positions, they held Franklin in check long enough to enable Jackson to force the surrender of Har- per's Ferry. Once the white flag was displayed from the defenses of that place, the Confederates spent no more time in fighting in that region, but marched away with all possible speed to join Lee at Sharpsburg before General McClellan could descend from the summit of South Mountain and crush him. It was about 8 o'clock of the morning of Sept. 15 when Harper's Ferry surrendered. By sunset not a gray uniform or a flag with the "stars and bars" was to be seen. All were off to Lee's assistance, with the exception of the ofificer left at the Ferry to parole the captured blue-coats. 62 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. Tuesday, the i6th of September, saw the two armies again con- fronting each other. McClellan had brought his legions over the mountains. Lee had seen Jackson and Walker return from the Har- per's Ferry expedition, and needed only McLaws to reunite his army. Continued delays had defeated McClellan's plan of crushing Lee while the Confederate army was dismembered, and the Union commander was now about to give battle to the whole Confederate army on grounds of the enemy's own choosing. A retreat across the Potomac would have enabled Lee to escape without a fight, but he doubtless felt that such a course would cost him all the prestige won by his daring expedition into Maryland. So relying upon the advantageous position he had chosen to make up for the disproportion between his force and that of McClellan, Lee rested quietly and waited for the Federals to open that historic conflict known in the North as the battle of the Antietam, and in the South as the battle of Sharpsburg. To the eastward of the little town of Sharpsburg, the Antietam creek flows through a devious channel, with many a bend but main- taining the general direction of north and south. The creek is slug- gish and deep. The few fords by which it may be crossed were, at the time the hostile armies were arrayed along the banks, waist deep in water. Three bridges cross the stream near Sharpsburg. The Confederate line was formed along a bold crest from which the fields and woods sloped away to the bank of the Antietam, a quar- ter of a mile to the eastward. The left flank of the line rested on the Potomac river, and that stream swept in a series of vast curves back of Lee's army and around until it almost touched his right flank. So with a deep creek covering his front, the Potomac protecting both flanks, a level turnpike and a good ford in his rear should a retreat be necessary, General Lee awaited the beginning of a battle which he had hoped to escape, but of which he was prepared to make the best. For nearly a day the blue-clad regiments of the L^nion army came pouring down over the summit of South Mountain, and settling like a swarm of bees along the eastern shore of the Antietam creek. BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 63 All along the line of the creek they were massed, not far from 86,000 men in all. On every high hill the batteries were posted. By every bridge and ford were vigilant pickets to give prompt notice of any threatened crossing by the enemy, and determined detachments of infantry and artillery ready to beat him back. It was about noon of the i6th that the cannon began to sing along both lines. A long ridge sheltered the Federals from the enemy's fire, and so long as they were content to rest quiet in their places no harm could come to them. But curiosity to see what was going on across the creek was strong, and reconnoitering parties even scaled the ridge and drew the enemy's fire. But though the can- noneers worked manfully away with their great guns, and the pickets kept up a constant exchange of bullets, most of the fighting on that day was in pursuance of no plan and amounted to but little. Late in the afternoon, however, McClellan played his first card. Hooker crossed the creek by the bridge and ford on the extreme right of the Union line, and turning southward, moved down upon the Con- federate left flank. Then for a time the pulse of battle quickened. Hood's Confederate division was opposed to Hooker, and held its ground obstinately, fighting from behind stone walls and fences. But before either side could win the mastery darkness fell upon the scene and the fighting was ended. There was little activity that night on the Confederate side. Lee had chosen his line of defense; his men were in position, and there was little for them to do save to rest while the pickets kept watch upon the enemy. But along the Union lines there was marching and countermarching. Through the black night columns of armed men were stealthily moving over to the right of the line, where the main attack was to be made on the morrow. General Mansfield with the Twelfth Corps crossed the river by the ford that Hooker had passed, and took up a position about a mile in Hooker's rear. Still remam- ing on the east bank of the Antietam within supporting distance was Sumner, the grizzled veteran whose march through the Chickahominy ()4 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. swamp saved the day at Seven Pines. There were no fires allowed along the Union lines that night, and one of the soldiers of Burn- side's division tells how the soldiers mixed their ground coffee Avith sugar in their hands, and devoured the choking, powdery stuff. "I think we were the more easily inclined to this crude disposal of our rations," he writes, "from a feeling that for many of us the need of drawing them would cease forever on the following day." Let us look more closely at that portion of the battle-field which lies in front of Hooker's men, as they bi\'ouacked that chill Septem- ber night. It was there that the most bitter fighting of one of the most desperate battles of the war took place. Scarce a hundred yards in front of Hooker's pickets, who were facing south, was the picket line of the enemy. Back of this line and to the east was a clump of trees called the East woods, which shel- tered a Confederate battery. A line of gray-clad soldiers, crouching behind roughly built breast works of fence-rails, extended from the East wood across the turnpike to the point where a spot of gleaming white, almost hidden in the trees, indicated the position of a little Dunker church, destined to gain a fame as permanent as that of another little county chapel that gave its name to the battle of Shiloh. Back of the Dunker church were the shady recesses of the West woods. Be- tween the two woods was a rolling stretch of land cut up into corn- fields. Right in front of Doubleday's division, which formed Hooker's right wing, was the roomy farmhouse of Mr. Miller. West of I\Iil- ler's house was the cabin of farmer Nicodemus, and on a smooth hill near it a Confederate battery that could sweep the country in every direction with its shells. The morning of the 17th was chill and damp. A dense fog hung over the hostile armies. The summits of the neighboring mountains were lost in the clouds. Cold and cramped with their bivouac, the soldiers of both armies unrolled themselves from their blankets and gulped down their coffee and bread. While they were eating the fir- ing along the picket line began, then the Confederate battery near the BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 65 East wood began to boom out defiance to Hooker and his men. The challenge was promptly accepted, and Hooker pushed forward into the corn-fields between the East and West woods. Meantime scores of Union cannon on the east side of the creek nearly a mile away had caught up the chorus of death, and were throw- ing solid shot into the woods that hid the Confederate lines. The enemy's guns replied stoutly, but were no match for McClellan's artil- lery. And on the hill about the Miller house the guns of the U. S. 4th artillery were banging away and throwing their shells over the heads of Hooker's advancing regiments and into the faces of the foe. It was hot fighting all along the line. With bull-dog tenacity the gray-coats held on to their position in the East woods, contesting bit- terly the advance of Ricketts. It was there, on the Union left, that the only decided advantage won by any of Hooker's three divisions was gained, for Ricketts, aided by the Union artillery at the Miller house, and beyond the creek, succeeded in gaining the edge of the woods, and held that position even when he saw the right of Hook- er's line driven back mangled and bleeding. For it w^as on the right of Hooker's line that the carnage proved too great for veterans who had passed through the baptism of fire half a score of times to bear. Gibbon's brigade of Doubleday's divi- sion fell into a trap, and was suddenly taken in flank by a terrific fire from the Confederates in the West wood. Before the leaden storm men fell like grass before the scythe of the mower. A Wisconsin regiment upon which fell the full force of the withering storm made for the turnpike, where, lying down behind a fence of posts and rails, they strove their best to hold the enemy in check. The main body ♦ of Gibbon's brigade, however, leaped the fence and charged gallantly forward into the teeth of the storm. But brave though they were they could make no headway against the tempest. IMen looked dazed as suddenly they found themselves standing alone, with their comrades shot down by scores right and left of them. Broken to pieces by the fire, the brigade broke and the survivors fled through the corn-field ()(j BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. seeking shelter. Then the Confederates in their turn swarmed out of the woods and swooped down upon Gibbon's shattered ranks scream- ing the historic "rebel yell" that signalized so many gallant charges. But though sorely broken, Gibbon's lines still had fight in them. His cannon, double-shotted with canister, roared. His shattered lines closed up and met the enemy's assault with dogged determination. As the gray-backs recoiled, Patrick's brigade came up to Gibbon's assistance, and the Federals again swept forward to the very edge of the West wood, when another murderous volley beat them back. And so back and forth in that deadly triangle of plowed ground and standing corn the hostile armies swayed, cheering, yelling, cursing, screaming with pain, or shouting with exultation ; every man daring death a dozen times a minute and death coming to one man out of every five, until by half-past seven through very exhaustion and loss of life each side is ready enough to cease its attacks, reform its shattered ranks and wait for recnforcements before trying once again to win that victory which neither was ready to relinquish. And so gradually something of a hush falls upon the bloody field, the rattle of the musketry dies away, and only the sullen booming of the artillery from every hill tells that the battle is not ended, but only lags for a time. In his report General Hooker thus tells of one incident in the battle: "We had not proceeded far before I discovered that a heavy force of the enemy had taken possession of a corn-field (I have since learned, about a thirty-acre field) on my immediate front, and from the sun's rays falling on their bayonets projecting above the corn I could see that the field was filled with the enemy with arms in their ♦ hands, standing apparently at 'support arms.' Instructions were imme- diately given for the assemblage of all my spare batteries near at hand, of which I think there were five or six, to spring into battery on the right of this field and to open with canister at once. In the time I am writing every stalk of corn in the northern and greater part of the field was cut as closely as could have been done with a knife, and the slain lay in rows, precisely as they had stood in their ranks a few BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 67 moments before. It was never my fortune to witness a more bloody, dismal battle-field. Those that escaped fled in the opposite direction from our advance, and sought refuge behind the trees, fences and stone ledges, nearly on a line with the Dunker church." But though Hooker thus tells of the fearful carnage wrought by his guns in the ranks of the enemy, it was little greater than that which the Confederates in their turn meted out to the assailants. There was no monopoly of courage on either side that morning, nor could cither one claim to have inflicted upon the other a much greater loss than it itself had suffered. And so the first act in the monstrous tragedy of the Antietam ends. Two hours of desperate fighting had ushered in a day of blood. Hooker had won but little; he had beaten back the Con- federate line a little space, and had won the East woods, but all the strong positions, all the commanding points were still held by the men in gray. On both sides, though, the loss had been heavy, the Federals suffering most in point of numbers, the Confederates having to mourn the fall of many of their general ofificers. More than a third of the men whom Ricketts led fell on the field of battle, — 898 being wounded and 153 killed. Of the gallant soldiers under Gib- bon, 380 were hit. Of Phelps's brigade nearly one half were shot down. In the ranks of the South there was mourning. General Starke, who commanded the "old Stonewall" brigade, was killed. General Lawton, who commanded Ewell's division, was seriously wounded, and Col. Douglas, who commanded Lawton's brigade, was killed. In the bri- gades of Lawton and Hayes every second man was either killed or wounded, and in Trumble's brigade every third man. And when these sorely shattered commands were reformed, after falling to the rear, it was found that in all three brigades there were but two regi- mental officers uninjured. Had there been no fresh troops to take the places of the sorely shattered regiments of Hooker and of Jackson, the battle would 68 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. have ended then. But at this juncture Hood, whose line had been formed in Jackson's rear, came forward and took up his position in the edge of the West woods and about the Dunker church. On the Union side Mansfield, who had passed the night about a mile in Hooker's rear, pushed to the front, passing the bleeding remnants of Hooker's corps as it was slowly retiring from the field upon which it had fought so gallantly. The conflicting reports of the "commanding generals make it impos- sible to state at what time the Twelfth Corps under Mansfield went into action. But it was probably about 7:30 A.M., and Hooker had been fighting about two hours. Seven thousand men were in the corps, in two divisions commanded by Williams and Greene. Many of the regiments were new, untried and ill-drilled. There was delay therefore, in getting them deployed in order of battle, and their offi- cers had some fears as to how the new recruits would stand their first experience under fire. In the woods by the Dunker church, crouched behind ledges of rock, stone walls and fences, lying flat on their faces in gullies, or perched in the boughs of trees, were the men of Hood's Confederate division, far less in number than those who were coming to assail them, but possessing an inestimable advantage in position. The Twelfth Corps goes into action on almost the same lines as those followed by the First Corps. The direction of the attack is a little more to the westward, because Ricketts has driven most of the Confederates out of the East woods, and the points of attack are now the corn-field, the West woods, and the Dunker church. In the corn-field the gray coats are swarming again, and their bullets come with angry hiss and an occasional spiteful spat among the Union sol- diers who are forming their lines by Miller's house, ready to march into the valley of the shadow of death. There are plenty of brave men in Mansfield's corps, — they are going to show their bravery when they get down into that corn-field, — but this business of standing still and forming lines while an unseen enemy is peppering away only a few BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 69 yards in your front is trying to recruits. Still they hold their ground gallantly, and are giving back to the Confederates as good as they send, when General Mansfield rides up. He sees his men firing into the corn-field where he had not expected to find any of the enemy. No colors are flying there. The uniforms of the men among the corn cannot be plainly seen. May they not be friends? He orders his men to cease firing, and himself rides forward to reconnoitre. Straight to the front he rides, a conspicuous object with his white hair streaming in the wind. An old Indian fighter, he knows no fear^ As he comes to the front rank of a Maine regiment which leads the van, a captain and a sergeant beg him to go no further. "See, general," they cry. "Those are the enemy. See their gray coats. They are aiming at you and at us now." "Yes, yes, you are right," responds Mansfield, but before he can say more he is hit. He tries to turn his horse, but the animal too has been struck and will not obey the rein. Then the men lift the gen- eral from his steed and carry him tenderly to the rear, where it is discovered that his wound is mortal. General Williams now succeeds to Mansfield's command. As he is about to order the advance General Hooker comes up to tell him what he learned during the fight of the morning, and to offer some suggestions. While they are talking Hooker suddenly faints. He had been wounded an hour before, but in the excitement of the battle had known nothing of it until weakened by loss of blood. Williams led the Twelfth Corps over the same route that the sol- diers of Hooker's corps had already marked out with their blood. Down the slope before Miller's house, through the corn-field, plodding along over the plowed ground, driving out of the East woods the few Confederates who still remained there, trying to drive out of the West wood the thousands of gray-coats who stubbornly refused to be driven, — act second in the tragedy of the Antietam was a mere repetition of act first, with a brand new set of characters to be slain. Had Hooker and Mansfield grone into the fitrht at dawn tosjether their 70 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. combined force would probably have swept Jackson out of their path. Had there been any reserves now to come to Williams's aid the victory might have been won for the Union. But as it was, a few minutes saw the Twelfth Corps mowed down by the pitiless fire of the enemy, particularly by that of a battery which the redoubtable Stuart had posted on a hill whence it took the Union column in the rear. And so, after a bare half-hour of plucky but profitless fighting the Twelfth Corps melted away, and its shattered fragments drifted back behind the Miller house, where Hooker's regiments were resting after the bloody doings of the early dawn, leaving a few tenacious regiments, together with some fragments of Ricketts's command, gallantly holding a position they had won in the corner of the woods not far from the Dunker church. It was then about nine o'clock. Sumner came next to play the leading part in the third act of the tragedy of the Antictam. All the morning he has been resting quietly on the cast bank of the creek, near enough to hear the sounds of bat- tle ; near enough to find the half-spent shot dropping among his men ; near enough to sec the wounded and stragglers from the Union forces going to the rear; plenty near enough to know that Hooker and Mans- field were being beaten. Why he was not ordered to cross the creek at daybreak and go into battle with Hooker has never been explained. But it was not until nearly nine o'clock that orders came to him to attack, and when he had crossed the stream he found that the enemy had beaten Hooker and Mansfield one after the other, and were ready to give him the same sort of a reception. Sumner's line of attack wms at right angles to that of the two corps that had preceded him. Instead of coming down from the north, he appeared on the field from the east, marching straight through the East wood, across the famous corn-field, where this time no Confederates were lurking, and on up to the West wood, where the enemy was supposed to be. In this advance but one division — Sedgwick's — of Sumner's corps was concerned. Richardson's division was kept on the eastern bank BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. 71 of the creek waiting for ]\IcClellan to send other troops to take its phice, and French's division had not yet come up. But Sedgwick's division was a division of veterans. Its commander had a well-earned reputation for gallantry, and he led his troops stoutly forward into battle. General Sumner, a gray-haired campaigner who had served against the Indians, rode into battle with the division. As the Union troops move forward across the open space be- tween the corn-field and the West woods a kind of lull falls upon the battle-field. Except for the artillery fire from Stuart's guns the Union advance is unimpeded until the edge of the woods is reached. But all this time they were marching blindly into an ambush. On the left flank was a country road, worn deep with ruts, and washed by the rain until it had become a gully. The ground rose sharply before it, and men could stand upright in the narrow lane and still be hidden from the sight of those in the Union lines. As Sedg- wick's division, in three parallel lines, is moving steadily forward toward the West wood, the Confederates are stealthily sending regiment after regiment down into this sunken road to take Sedgwick in the flank and rear. He wonders that no hostile fire comes from the woods in his front. Just then an of^cer on the left of the Union lines catches a sight of the troops in the sunken road. "General. Look. We are surrounded!" he shouts. The alarm comes too late. Already the Confederate fire is de- livered. Before the withering storm of lead, coming from so unsus- pected a quarter, the blue-coats fall in heaps. Their lines are thrown into disorder. "My God !" shouts Sumner, "we must get out of this," and he gallops up and down the lines seeking to form them anew. But it is too late. Little by little, the lines crumble away. The bravest sol- diers in the army would be unnerved to find themselves suddenly in an ambush. The bravest in the world could not stand against that mur- derous fire. The Confederates advance. They press upon the Union flank . They swing around and take Sedgwick's men in the rear. 72 BATTLE FIELDS AND CAMP FIRES. Sci1l;\\ ick is struck by a bullet .nul falls tioin his horse. Sumner sees how the battle is i;o,ini;' aiul L;allops away to the nearest signal station. "Reentoieenients are badly needeil. Our troops are i;ivins^ wa}-," he signals io IMcClellan. I^\en while the flags that earr\- tiie nies- saiic are wavinn" the one-sided contest ends, and Setlgwick's di\ision is practically wiped out. Over 2000 men have been killed or wounded without innicting upon tlie enenu' an\- material loss. l"'rom the time the (.\>nfederates sprang from their ambush antl poured in their first \()lle\-. until the bruised and bleeding remnants of Sedgwick's division left the field, was scarce Tifteen minutes. General Mood himself cleclaretl that the short .md blootly combat was "the most terrible clash of