I n- * ^ = j^'^ ^:- W^fVEfiSfTY OF ' ' IU=mO\S LIBRARY At URBANA-CHAMPAIGN ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY PICTORIAL HISTORY WAR FOR THE MM. A COMPLfiTE AND EBLIABLB __^ Fr.OM ITS • COMMENCEMENT TO ITS CLOSE: SiVIKS A GRAPHIC PICTCRE OF ITS ENCOUNTERS, THRILLING INCIDENTS, FRIGHTFUL SCENES, HAIB* BREADTH ESCAPES, INDIVIDUAL DARING, DESPERATE CHARGES, PERSONAL ANECDOTES, ETC., GLEANED FROM El'E-WITXESSES OF, AND PARTICIPANTS IN, THE TERRIBLE y SCENES DESCRIBED — A TRUTHFUL LIVING REFLEX OP ALL MATTERa OF INTEREST CONNECTED WITH THIS THE MOST GIGANTIC OF HUMAN STRUGGLES. TOGETHER WITH A COMPLETE CHEONOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OP THE WAB. By MES. ANN S. STEPHENS. EMBELLISHED WITH OVER TWO HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS. TWO VOLUMES. VOL I. CINCINNATI: JAMES R. HAWLEY, 164 VINE STREET, PUBLISHER OF SUBSCRIPTION BOOKS. 18C3. Entered, according to A-A of Congress, In the year 196S, By J OHN 0. WELLS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern DlstrM «( New York. EDWARD 0. JENKINS, $r(nttr St iSttrtotupcT, No. SO North Wiixiam St. r ^Tff-f^ HE most difficult task, perhaps, known to literature, 13 to write a history of events as they transpire — to arrange facts before the hand of time has given them just posi- tion and importance. In writing a history of the Civil War which is now raging in the land — the most gigantic and stupendous rebellion yet known to the world — the magnitude of the task, and the difficulties that present themselves, challenge a degree of moral courage almost equal to that physical bravery which has been so con- spicuous in the war. But if an honest intention to be just — a thorough desire for truth, and a determination to discard all personal prejudices, can produce a faithful history, this work has a right to claim acceptance. The political history of a nation, when it merges into armed strife, is gen- erally a record of prejudices and of passion : civil war is the result. In this work the author deals not with causes, but with the terrible events that spring out of them ; avoiding so far as possible the threatening clouds of political dissension that preceded and still follow the tempest. Time, which will clear up obscurities and remove passion, and the intellect of a great statesman, are necessary, before the political and military history of this war can be fittingly united. In this book there is a positive rejection of those partizan dissensions which have burst asunder the sacred ties of the greatest nation on earth, and deluged the soil trodden by millions of happy men with the blood of as brave a sol- diery as ever drew breath. This history of the "War for the Union is written for no faction — no party — no combination of men, but for the people of every 8 , INTRODUCnON. portion of the Union. Political passions die — BUbtory lives ; and in an enlight- eneQ age like this, it must- be written in simple truth, or the clear-sighted generations that follow us will detect the sophistry and falsehood. Impartial history demands honest facts. The opinions of an historian are but the assumptions of one mind attempting to control multitudes. The author's duty is to give details, allowing the intelligent reader to draw his own conclu- sions unembarrassed by obtrusive opinions, which are in all cases liable to be influenced by prejudices. The History of the War for the Union is a record of stupendous Qvents which have given grandeur to the American arms and sorrow to every good American heart. Taking up the thread of events where the political history of the nation left them on the fourth of March, eighteen hundred and sixty- one, the author has followed the ensanguined track, giving to every battle-field its place, and every heroic act its record. The sources of information in which the work has found its existence, have been authentic reports from the War Department, the official statements of commandants on the battle-field, and the many thrilling and graphic descriptions furnished by eye-witnesses. In giving due credit to those persons who have aided her in the rapid com- pletion of her first volume, the author acknowledges her great obligation to Wm. Oland Bouene, Esq., who has devoted much time to the work, and whose ample collection of material for history has been freely used in its pre- paration ; and to J. J. Golder, Esq., whose research and clear judgment in sifting truth from error, arranging facts, and superintending the work in its progress through the press, has enabled her to place it before the public in less than three months from its commencement. To Mr. Golder's critical care the reader is indebted for the compact and excellent Chronology attached to this volume, in which all the historical events of the war are placed in their order of succession. In the mechanical and artistic execution of the work, the publisher has evinced an enthusiasm which corresponds nobly with the great subject of the history, and has been even lavish, in pictorial embellishments. These have been all drawn and engraved expressly for this work, at great cost; and in the truthfulness and beauty of their execution, add to the high reputation already attained by the artists, Messrs. Waters and Son. New York, October 1, 1862. AUN S. STEPHENa CONTENTS PACK Introduction 7 Inauguration of President Lincoln 17 Tbe coming tempest — The national forbearance — Mustering of rebel troops — Ettbrts for conciliation — The Border States — South Carolina — Investment of Fort Sumter— The Star of the West — Gen. Beauregard. Fortifications in Charleston Harbor, 25 The iron floating battery — Cummings Point battery — Castle Pinckney. Bombardment of Fort Sumter • 28 Storming of Fort Sumter, viewed frona the land — Naval expedition for the relief of Fort Sumter. Tbe Nation's Response : 40 Startling eflFect of the news of the attack on Sumter — The President's Proclama- tion — Departure of troops for Washington — Enthusiasm of the people — Their devotion to the national Union — Large contributions to aid the Government. Reinforcement of Fort Pickens 46 The harbor of Pensacola — Forts McRae and Barrancas — Description of Fort Pickens— Its investment by rebel troops under Gen. Bragg — The Federal fleet in the harbor — Successful landing of troops and supplies. Burning of Harper's Ferry Arsenal 49 Through Baltimore 5d Arrival of the Massachusetts Sixth, Col. Jones, in Baltimore — Blockade of the streets — Attack by the mob — Defence of the military — Terrible results— The regi- mental band — The city authorities— Intense excitement of the citizens — Penn- sylvania troops — Mayor Brown and Marshal Kane. Military Occupation of Annapolis, Md, 61 The Eighth Massachusetts and the Seventh New York — Gen. Butler — Gov. Hicks — the frigate Constitution — the Naval Academy — March to the Junction. Maryland. 66 Efforts of secessionists to involve the State in rebellion — Patriotic devotion of loyal citizens — Gov. Hicks — The State Legislature — Gen. Butler in Maryland — Gen. Cadwallader — The habeas corpus act — Chief-Justice Taney. Destruction of Gosport Navy Yard. 73 The State of the Nation before its Troops entered Virginia 76 Response of the Governors of Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Missouri, to the President's Proclamation — The position of Virginia — The' Con- federate Congress, at Montgomery — Jefierson Davis — The Confederate army— Let- ters of Marque — Postal communication — Tennessee and Arkansas — Border States Convention — Position of Missouri. Occupation of Alexandria, Va. 83 Assassination of Col. Ellsworth— The Marshall House — J. W. Jackson — Brownell Sketch of Ellsworth— Defection of Gen. Lee — Lieut. Tompkins' scout to- Fairfax Court House. ^. Battle of Great Bethel B8 Death of Major Winthrop and Lieut. Greble. The Ambuscade at Vienna, Va 01 10 CONTENTS. PASa Review at "Washington 93 Advance of the Grand Army 94 Position of the belligerent forces — Gen. McDowell— Gen. Patterson— Gen. Johnston — Gen. Beauregard — Advance to Fairfax and Geutreville — Battle of Ulackbnru's Ford. The Battle of Bull Run 98 The Federal Commanders and the movements of tbeir forces — The engagement — Arrival of rebel reinforcements— The climax and the retreat — Th« battle on the left wing— The battle-field at night. Western Virginia 12^ Battle of Pliillipi, Va ! 131 Destruction of Railroad Property. 133 Gen, McClellan in Western Virginia 133 Battle of Scareytown 134 Battle of Rich Mountain 135 Battle of Carrick's Ford. . . ; » 137 Gen. Rosecrans and Col. Lander — Gen. Morris— Capt. Benbam — Defeat of the rebel forces and death of Gen. Garnett. The West » 141 Missouri 143 Capture of Camp Jackson : 144 Decisive action of Capt. Lvon — Gen. Frost— The Missouri Legislature — Gov. Jack- son — Gen. Harney — Gen. Price — Gen. Lyon ai>pointed to command the Department. Cairo 150 Battle of Booneville 151 Battle of Carthage 153 Battle of Monroe, Mo 154 Guerrilla Bands in Missouri 155 Gen. Pope in Northern Missouri — State Convention at Jefl"erson Cit)' — Gen. Fre- mont at 8t. Louis— Invasion of the State by Gens. Pillow and Jeff. Thompsoa — Address of the State Convention. Battle of Dug Springs 156 Skirmish at Athens, Mo 157 Battle of Wilson's Creek 159 Gen. Lyon at Springfield— Gens. Price and McCuIloch— Critical position of the Federal army — The battle — The death of Gea Lyon— Retreat of the Union army. Kentucky 164 The neutrality of the State — Position of Gov. MagofBn — Gen, Buckner — Geo, Mc- Clellan— The State Legislature — Decisive Union measures. The Occupation of Paducah 168 Rebel troops ordered to withdraw from Kentucky — Attempt to form a revolution- ary government in the State— Military movements of the rebels in Kentucky— The loyal State government. Naval Operations 175 The Expedition to Cape Hatteras 177 Capture of Forts Ilatteras and ClarV ■. 180 Western Virginia 182 Surprise at Cross Lanes l83 Battle JF Camifex Ferry 183 Battle of Cheat itountain Pass 186 CONTENTS. 11 PAOB Engagement at Chapmansville 188 Reconnoissance at Green Brier, Western Virginia 180 Defence of Lexington, Mo 193 The Federal forces for the defence of the town — Col. Mulligan and the Chicago brigade — Cols. Marshall and Peabody — Advance of Gen. Price's army — The in- vestment — The attack — Bravery of the Federal garrison — Their endurance and privations — The surrender. Attack on Santa Rosa Island, Fla 199 Battle of Ball's Bluff, Va 200 Position of the Federal forces on the Potomac — Gen. Stone — Col. Baker — Thepro- j)osed reconnoissance — Transportation of the troops — The topography of the Vir- ginia shore — The engagement— Death of Col. Baker — Defeat of the Federal troops — Disastrous retreat — Gens. McClellan and Banks at Edwards Ferry — Sketch of Col. Baker. Battle at Camp Wild Cat, Ky 210 Battle of Romney, Va 212 Battle of Frederickton, Mo / 213 Charge of Fremont's Body-Guard at Springfield, Mo...- 217 The Department of Missouri 220 General review of the Department — Gen. Lyon — Gen. Fremont — His proclamation and its modification by the President — Organization of the Federal forces — Their advance — Negotiations with Gen. Price— Gen. Fremont removed — Appointment of Gen. Hunter — Retreat of the Federal army — The disloyal Legislature — Advanco of the rebel forces — Recruiting — Gen. Halleck. The Stone Fleet 225 Battle of Camp Alleghany, Western Virginia 228 Battle of Munfordsville, Ky 230 Capture of Rebel Recruits at Milford, Mo 232 Battle of Dranesville, Va 238 Expedition to Ship Island ' 241 Engagement at Mount Zion, Mo 242 Arkansas and the Indians 243 Bombardment at Fort Pickens 245 Rout of Gen. Marshall at Paintsville, Ky 247 Battle of Middle Creek, Ky 248 Battle of Silver Creek, Mo 251 Battle of Mill Spring, Ky 255 Investment of Fort Pulaski, Ga 263 New Mexico and Arizona . . .' 266 Battle of Valvende, KM 267 Battle of Apache Cafion ^ 270 Fight at Blooming Gap, Va 273 East Tennessee under Confederate rule 275 The loyalty and devotion of the people — Despotism of the rebel leaders— Parson Brovvnlow — Sufferings of the Unionists — General ZoUicoffer — Andrew Johnson — Horace Maynard — Bridge-burning. Capture of Fort Henry, Tenn 281 Gen. Grant'.s army— Gen. C. F. Smith — Com. Foote and the naval flotilla—Sailing of the expedition — Names of the vessels and officers — The attack and surrender — The rebel camp — Advance of the national gunboats up the Tennessee river. The Bumside Expedition -. 290 Sailing of the expedition from Hampton Roads— Com. Golidsborough- The naval forces — Gen. Bumside and the troops — Severe storm — The fleet at Uatteras Inlet. 13 CONTENTS. PAoa Capture of Roanoke Island 293 Evacuation of Bowling Green, Ky, 296 Capture of Fort Donelson 298 Advance of the Federal land and naval forces from Fort Henry and Cairo — Descrip- tion of Fort Donelson — The naval attack — Retreat of the gunboats— The array — The land attack — The severity of the engagement— Suflerinjjs of the Federal sol- diers — Their courage and endurance— Protracted defence — The surrender. The Occupation of Nashville , S17 Fort Clinch and Fernandina, Fla 321 The Merrimac and the Monitor 323 Capture of Jacksonville, Fla 330 Occupation of Columbus, Ky 332 Battle of Pea Ridge, Ark 834 Battle of Newbem, N. C 842 Capture of New Madrid, Mo 851 Island No. 10 356 Capture of Island No. 10 and the Rebel army 358 Battle of Winchester, Va '. 363 Position of Gen. Shield's command — The rebel force under Gen, Jackson — Plans of the Confederate leaders — Strategy of Gen. Shields — Attack by Gen. Jackson — The rebels reinforced — Bravery ot the Federal troops — Charge of Gen. Tyler's brigade — Defeat of the rebels. Battle of Pittsburg Landing 867 Topography of the country — Corinth — Pittsburg— Savannah — Position of the Fed- eral troops — The rebel army and its commanders — The battle of Sunday, March 8 — Hurlbut's division — McClernand's division — Desperate hand-to-hand fighting — Perilous position of the national troops — Wallace's division. Gen. Sherman''s Reconnoissance toward Corinth 403 Occupation of Huntsville, Ala 404 Capture of Fort Pulaski, Ga 4Q§ Battle of South Mills, N. C 414 Capture of Fort Macon 418 Siege of Yorktown, Va 424 Retreat of the rebel army from Centreville and Manassas, toward Richmond— Ad- . vance of Gen. McClellan s army- Events of March, 1862— The Federal army at Old Point— Advance toward Yorktown — The Investment — Offensive and defensive operations — Labors and sufferings of the Federal soldiers. Battla of Lee's Mills, Va 427 Capture of New Orleans * 429 Bombardment of Forts Jackson and St. Philip — The Federal fleet— The mortar boats— Coins. Farragut, Porter, and Bailey— Stupendous naval engagement — The surrender of the forts — The occupation of New Orleans— Capt. Bailey — Gen. Loy- ell— J. T. Monroe — Pierre Soul6— Gen. Butler. The Evacuation of Yorktown 448 The Battle of Williamsburg, Va. 450 Advance of Gen. Stoneman's cavalry from Yorktown— Gen. Hooker's division — Gen. Kearney— Gen. Sumner— Gens. Smith and Conch— Gen. Hooker's attack and protracted contest with superior numbers — Gen. Heintzelman — Gen. Hancock's brilliant charge — Arrival of Gen. McClellan— Retreat of the rebels. Battle of West Point, Va 463 Chronology 465 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. PA6I PRKsiDK>"r LrscoLx AND ms Cabinet * 2 Illusteated Title 3 Initial Letter, with Battie Illusteations 7 The Capitol, at Washinqton 17 Fort Sumter 21 BoSIBARDkENT OF FORT SuMTER 29 Attack on the Massachusetts Sixth in Baltimore 53 Assassination of Col. Ellsworth 86 Map of Virginia and Maryland, west of Washington 96 " " " EAST " 97 Brilliant Charge on a rebel Battert at Bull Run 108 Closing Engagement at Bull Run « 115 Battle of Rich Mountain 136 Map of the Mississippi Riyer, Section 5 148 " " " " " 6 149 Death of Gen. Lyon 162 Map of the Mississippi River, Section 2 166 " " " " " 8 167 Map of Atlantic Coast from Fortress Monroe to Fort Macon 178 .The Battle of Lejhngton, Mo 191 The Death of Col. Baker, at Ball's Bluff 206 Desperate Charge of Fremont's Body-Guard, at Springfield, Mo 219 Map of the Mississippi River, Section 1 221 Battle of Mill Spring 260 Bombardment of Fort Henry 279 Map of the Mississippi River, Section 4 289 Attack on Fort Donelson, bt the Gukboats 299 Surrender of Fort Donelson * 299 Map of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, \xt the THROUGH B.VLTIMOJBE. 55 woTiian who had welcomed them, immediately caught up their fallen comrade, and carried him in her arms up the stairs. " You are perfectly safe here, boys," said the brave woman, who directly proceeded to wash and bind up their wounds. After having done this, she procured them food, and then told them to strip off their uniforms and put on the clothes she had brought them, a motley assortment of baize jackets, ragged coats, and old trowsers. Thus equipped, they were enabled to go out in search of their com- panions, without danger of attack from the mob, which had given them so rough a reception. They then learned the particulars of the attack upon the soldiers, and of their escape, and saw lying at the station the two men who had been killed, and the others who had been wounded. On going back to the house where they had been so humanely treated, they found that their clothes had been carefully tied up, and with their battered instruments, had been sent to the depot of the Philadelphia railroad, where they were advised to go themselves. They did not long hesi- tate, but started in the next train, and arrived at Philadelphia just in time to meet the Eighth regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers. Contrast this generous act with that of an old gray-haired man, aged more than sixty-five years, who saw one of the Massachusetts soldiers in the act of levelling his musket, when he rushed in his shirt sleeves from his shop, disarmed the man by main force, and killed him with the bayonet— and you have some idea of the conflicting elements which composed the Baltimore riot. Increasing by what it had fed on, the lawless spirit ran still more high ; its black waves rolled and surged, and no ^ower could be found strong enough to control them. The demon spirit that ran riot during the days of Robespierre, and the fiendish hours of the " Reign of Terror," appeared m the streets of Baltimore, and foul lips sang re- bellious songs. Secession and murder minglmg together in rude discord. The rulers were impotent to check the storm, or control the whirl- wind. The people were for the time masters— the authorities helpless. On this memorable 19th of April, the writer of these pages was on her way from Wushington to New York. The train in which she travelled was loaded down with persons going northward, for Wash- ington was not considered a safe place to sojourn in that week, espe- cially for ladies. About ten miles from Baltimore we met the train which bore the Sixth •Massachusetts regiment from the scene of its late encounter. Both trains slackened speed, and instantly it flew like wildfire along the cars that there had been riot and bloodshed in Baltimore, and the brave fel- 56 TUB WAR FOR THE UNION. lows we had passed had been attacked in their passage through the town. The news was received with great excitement, that grew more and more intense until our engine thundered into the depot. The fight- ing was over, but a mob of morose and cruel-looking men, with a few black women and children, still hung around the building, and we passed out through a lane of scowling faces. The horse railroad had been torn up and so blockaded that there was no hopes of reaching the Philadelphia cars by that way. With difii, culty we procured a carriage and were drawn over the scene of con- flict. The railroad was almost obliterated; piles of lumber, fifteen feet high, were heaped upon it. Immense anchors lay across it, forming an iron barricade. Every window along the line was crowded with eager, scared faces, mostly black, and those that were white, evidently of the lowest order. It became impossible to pass along the railroad, for it was completely blocked up. We turned into a side street, and at last took our places in the Philadelphia train. Here two or three men in unifo^:m entered the cars, and after the train started they were seen talking earnestly with the conductor near our seat. It seemed that the Pennsylvania regiment had been scattered, and while a train had returned toward Philadelphia with the larger portion of the men, some twenty-five or thirty were grouped on the wayside, some miles from the city, hoping that our train would take them in. The conductor Tvas inexorable. His orders were to proceed direct — besides, he had no room, every seat was crowded. This was true ; but all the gentlemen, among whom was Senator Wilkinson, of Minnesota, and several ladies that sat within hearing, pleaded that the men should be taken in, and all offered to surrender their own seats. But it was of no avail — the conductor had his orders. A few minutes after the officers had retreated we passed a platform on the Avayside on which these unlucky soldiers were grouped, in anxious expectation that the train would stop, but it went steadily by, leaving the most disappointed and gloomy faces behind that oneoft'i^i looks" upon. We afterwards learned that these poor Yellows wandered* around the country for three days, and many of them came back to .Phijidelphia on foot. If they were sad at being left, those in the cars were both sorrowful and indignant that they had not been taken up. It seemed to them an act of wanton cruelty ; and one of the company, at least, has not yet been able to change her opinion on the subject. At Wilmington we passed the town in which were the companions of these deserted men. Their train had paused in the town, which we found one blaze of excitement. As the news spretid, cheer after cheer arose for I THROUGH BALTIMOllE. 67 the stars and stripes, the soldiers, the government, and everything else around which a patriotic cry could centre, rang up from the streets. The people ■Nvere fairly wild when they saw that the soldiers were driven back. • In every town and at every depot this wild spirit of indignation in- creased as we advanced. Philadelphia was full of armed men ; regi- ments were rushing to the arsenals, groups of me"h talked eagerly in the streets — martial music sounded near the Continental Hotel at inter^^als all night. The city was one scene of wild commotion. In the morning the Seventh New York regiment came in. The day before they had left the Empire City one blaze of star-spangled flags and in a tumult of patri- otic enthusiasm. That morning they were hailed in Philadelphia with like spirit. Expecting to march through Baltimore, they panted for an opportunity of avenging the noble men who had fallen there. The citi- zens met them with generous hospitality, and their passage through Philadelphia was an ovation. But their indignation towards the Baltimorians was not to be appeased by fighting their own way through that city. Orders reached them to advance toward Washington through Annapolis, and they obeyed, much against J,he general inclination of the regiment. I have said that the authorities in Baltimore were powerless ; they had no means of learning how far the secession spirit had spread through the city. It is true the riot of the 19th had been ostensibly the action of a low mob, but how far the same spirit extended among the people no one could guess. On the 20th the mob became more and more belligerent. It assem- bled at Canton, fired a pistol at the engineer of the Philadelphia train when it came in, and forcing the passengers to leave the cars, rushed in themselves and compelled the engineer to take them back to Gun- powder bridge. There the train Avas stopped while the mob set fire to the draw-bridge, then returned to Bush river bridge, burned the draw there, and finished their raid by burning Canton bridge. While this ^Was- going on outside the city, materials for fresh commo- tion "were' gathering in the streets. All throiigh the day the accessions from the country were coming in. Sometimes a squad of infantry, sometimes a troop of horse, and once a sniall park of artillery. It was nothing extraordinary to see a *' solitary horseman " riding in from the country, with shot-gun, powder- horn and flask. Some came with provender lashed to the saddle, pre- pared to' picket off for the night. ' Boys accompanied their fathers, accoutred apparently with the sword and holster-pistols that had done service a century ago. There appeared strange contrasts between the stem, solemn bearing of the father, and the buoyant, excited, enthu- 68 THE WAR FOB THK UNION. siastic expressions of the boy's face, eloquent with devotion and patri- otism ; for mistaken and wrong, they were not the less actuated by the most unselfish spirit of loyally. They hardly knew, any of them, for what they had so suddenly came to Baltimore. They had a vague idea, only, that INIaryland had been invaded, and that it was the solemn duty of her sons to protect their soil from the encroachments of a hostile force. In the streets of the lower part of the city, were gathered immense crowds among whom discussions and the high pitch of excitement which discussion engenders, grew clamorous. The mob — for Baltimore street was one vast mob — was surging to and fro, uncertain in what direction to move, and apparently without any special purpose. Many had^raall secession cards .pinned on their coat collars, and not a few were armed with guns, pistols and knives, of which they made the most display. Thus the day ended and the night came on. During the darkness the whole city seemed lying in wait for the foe. Every moment the mob expected the descent of some Federal regiment upon them, and the thirst for strife had grown so fierce that terrible bloodshed must have followed if the troops from Philadelphia or Harrisburg had at- tempted to pass through Baltimore then. On Sunday, April 21, the city was in a state of unparalleled excitement. Private citizens openly carried arms in the streets. Along the line of the railroad almost every house was supplied with muskets or revolvers and missiles, in some instances even with small cannon. Volunteers were enlisting rapidly, and the streets became more and more crowded. Abundance of arms had sprung to light, as if by magic, in rebellious hands. Troops were continually arriving and placing themselves in readiness for action. A great crowd was constantly surging around the telegraph office, waiting anxiously for news. The earnest inquiry was as to the Avhere- abouts of the New York troops — the most frequent topic, the probable results of an attempt on the part of the Seventh regiment to force a pas- sage through Baltimore. All agreed that the force could never go through — all agreed that it would make the attempt if ordered to do so, and no one seemed to entertain a doubt that it would leave a winrow of dead bodies from the ranks of those who assailed it in the streets through which it might attempt to pass. As the wires of the telegraph leading to New York had been cut, there was no news to be had for the crowd from that direction. The police force were entirely in sympathy with the secessionists, and indisposed to act against the mob. Marshal Kane and the Commission- ers made no concealment of theii proclivities for the secession movement. Amid this tumult the Mavor of Baltimore and a committee of citizens TUKOUGU BALTIMORE. 69 started for Washington. Their object was to influence the President against forwarding troops through the city in its present agitated state. But the knowledge of his departure did nothing toward allaying the excitement. About eight o'clock, the streets began again to be crowded. The bar- rooms and public resorts were closed, that the incentive to precipitate action might not be too readily accessible. Nevertheless there was much excitement, and among the crowd were many men from the countxy, who carried shot and duck guns, and old-fashioned horse- pistols, such as the "Maryland line " might have carried from the first to the present war. The best weapons appeared to' be in the hands of young men — boys of eighteen — with the physique, dress and style of deportment cultivated by the " Dead Rabbits " of New York. About ten o'clock, a cry was raised that 3,000 Pennsylvania troops were at the Calvert street depot of the Pennsylvania railroad, and were about to take up their line of march "through the city. It was said that the 3,000 were at Pikesville, about fifteen miles from the city, and were going to fight their way around the city. The crowd were not disposed to interfere Avith a movement that required a preliminary tramp of fifteen miles through a heavy sand. But the city authorities, however, rapidly organized and armed some three or four companies and sent them towards Pikesville. Ten of the Adams' Express wagons passed up Baltimore street, loaded with armed men. In one or two there were a number of mattresses, as if wounded men were anticipated. A com- pany of cavalry also started for Pikesville to sustain the infantry that had been expressed. Almost before the last of the expedition had left the city limits, word was telegraphed to Marshal Kane by Mayor Brown from Washington, that the government had ordered the Pennsylvania troops back to Harrisburgh, from the point they had been expected to move on to Baltimore. It seemed incredible, but, of course, satis- factory to the belligerents. The moment it was known that the government had abandoned the intention of forcing troops through Baltimore, this intense commotion settled into comparative calm, but the city was forced to feel the effect of its own folly. The regular passenger trains north had been stopped. Many business men have been utterly ruined by the extraordinary po» sition into which the city was plunged through the action of the mob. Capital has been swept away, and commercial advantages sacrificed, that no time or enterprise can rejilace. Those engaged in trade, have no part in these troubles except to suffer. The mob had them in complete subjection, and a stain has been cast on the city which no time can efface. Yet the whole of this attack was doubtless the work of those classes who form the bane and dregs of society, in every great city ; 60 TlIK WAR FOR THE UNION. after events have proved that it was the uprisinc^ of a lawless mob, not the expression of a people. But the Mayor of the city and the Gover- nor of the State were for a few days in which these revolters triumphed alike powerless. In this strait they notified the authorities in Washing- ton that troops could not be passed through that city without bloodshed. The difficulties and dangers of the 19th of April were speedily re- moved by President Lincoln's determination to march troops intended for Washington by another route, backed by the determination and efficiency of the government and by the supplies which were sent to the aid of loyal men of the city and State, and thereby Maryland has been saved from anarchy, desolation and ruin. The work of impious hands was stayed — a star preserved to our banner, and t,he right vindi- cated without unnecessary loss of life! But nothing save great caution and forbearance almost unparalleled in civil wars, rescued Baltimore from destruction. When the news of the disaster to the brave Massachusetts regiment reached the old Bay State, a feeUng of profound sorrow and deep indig- nation seized upon the people. Troops gathered to the rescue in bat- talions, armed men arose at every point, and every railroad verging toward Washington became a great military highway. Not only M.as- sachusetts, but all New England looked upon' the outrage with generous indignation, as if each State had seen its own sons stricken down. It seemed to be a strife of patriotism which should get its men first to the field. Directly after the Massachusetts troops, the first regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers passed through New York, on their way to the South. Governor Sprague, who had magnanimously contributed one hundred thousand dollars to the cause, accompanied these troops, as commander-in-chief of the Rhode Island forces. His staff" consisted of Colonels Frieze, Goddard, Arnold, and Captain A. W. Chapin, Assistant Adjutant-General. And this was followed by a continued rush of armed men till all the great thoroughfares leading to the capital bristled with steel, and reverberated with the tramp of soldiery. Governor Andrews sent to Maryland requesting that the martyred soldiers should be reverently sent back to Massachusetts,. that the State might give them honored burial. This request was complied with. Gov- ernor Hicks responding in a delicate and sympathetic manner, and not only Massachusetts but a whole nation awarded them the glory of first dying for a country that will never forget them. The names of these men were, Sumner II. Needham, of Lawrence ; Addison O. Whit- ney, of Lowell City Guaids ; and Luther C. Ladd, Lowell City Guards. OCCUPATION OF ANNAPOLIS. 61 MttlTAEY OOOUPATION OP AUNAPOLIS, Md. April 21, 1861. On the 1 8th of April, the Eighfh Massachusetts regiment, nnder the command of General Butler, left Boston for Washington. On arriving at Philadelphia, he ascertained that all communication with "Washington by the ordinary line of travel through Baltimore had been cut off, and telegraphic operations suspended. He proceeded to the Susquehanna river, and at Perryville seized the immense ferry-boa't " Maryland," be- longing to the railroad company, and steamed with liis regiment for Annapolis. Through the supposed treachery of the pilot, the boat was grounded on the bar before that place, and they were detained over night. The arrival of troops at this point proved of vital importance. A conspiracy had been formed by a band of secessionists to seize the old frigate Constitution, which lay moored at the wharf of the Naval Acad- emy at that place, being in service as a school for the cadets. Captain Devereux, with his company, was ordered to take possession of the noble old craft, which was promptly done, and the vessel towed to a safe distance from the landing. Governor Hicks, of Maryland, hearing of their arrival, sent a protest against troops being landed at that place. On Monday, the 22d, the troops landed at the ISTaval Academy, fol- lowed by the New York Seventh regiment, which had just arrived on board the steamer Boston, from Philadelphia, by the help of which vessel the Maryland was enabled to get off the bar. In order to insure the ready transportation of troops and provisions which were to follow him by the same route. General Butler seized sev- eral vessels in the neighborhood, and promptly entered them into the United States service. Meantime a Pennsylvania regiment had arrived at Havre de Grace, and, anticipating the speedy accession of reinforce- ments from New York by water, three companies of the Eighth Massa- chusetts were detached as an engineer corps to repair the road to the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad, of which General Butler had taken military possession. The Seventy-first New York and other regiments having arrived during the night of April 23d, early on the following morning the Seventh regiment, from New York, took up its line of march on th6 track to Washington Junction. A member of this regiment, young O'Brien the poet, pays a merited tribute to the brave men who preceded them : On the morning of the 22d we were in sight of Annapolis, off which the Constitution was lying, and there found the Eighth regiment of Massachusetts volunteers on board the Maryland. They were aground, 62 THE -WAR FOE THE UNION. owing, it is supposed, to the treachery of the captain, whom they put in irons and wanted to hang. I regret to say that they did not do it. During the greater portion of that forenoon we were occupied in trying to get the Maryland off the sand-bar on which she was grounded. From our decks we could see the men in file trying to rock her, so as to facilitate our tugging. These men were without water and without food, were well-conducted and uncomplaining, and behaved in all respects like heroes. They were under the command of Colonel Butler, and I regret that that gentleman did not care more for the comforts of men whose subsequent pluck proved that nothing was too good for them. On the afternoon of the 2 2d we landed at the Annapolis dock, after having spent hours in trying to relieve the Maryland. For the first time in his life your correspondent was put to work to roll flour-barrels. He was entrusted with the honorable and onerous duty of transporting stores from the steamer to the dock. Later still he descended to the position of mess servant, when, in company with gentlemen well known in Broadway for immaculate kids, he had the honor of attending on his company with buckets of cooked meat and crackers — the only differ- ence between him and Co. and the ordinary waiter being, that the for- mer were civil. We were quartered in the buildings belonging to the Naval School at Annapolis. I had a bunking-place in what is there called a fort, which is a rickety structure that a lucifer match would set on fire, but furnished with imposing guns. I suppose it was merely built to practice the cadets, because as a defence it is worthless. The same evening boats were sent off from the yard, and towards nightfall the Massachusetts men landed, fagged, hungry, thirsty, but indomitable. The two days that we remained at Annapolis were welcome. We had been without a fair night's sleep since we left New York, and even the hard quarters we had there were a luxury compared to the dirty decks of the Boston. Besides, there were natural attractions. The grounds are very prettily laid out, and in the course of my experience I never saw a handsomer or better bred set of young men than the cadets. Twenty had left the school owing to political con\'ictions. The remain- der are sound Union fellows, eager to prove their devotion to the flag- After spending a delightful time in the Navy School, resting and amus- ing ourselves, our repose was disturbed at 9 p. m., April 23, by rockets being thrown up in the bay. The men were scattered all over the grounds ; some in bed, others walking or smoking, all more or less undressed. The rockets being of a suspicious character, it was conjec- tured that a Southern fleet was outside, and our drummer beat the roll- call to arms. From the stroke of the drum until the time that every MARCH TO ANNAPOLIS JUNCTION. 68 man, fully equipped and in fighting order, was in the ranks, was exactly, by watch, seven minutes. The alarm, however, proved to be false, the ves- sels in the offing proving to be laden with the Seventy-first and other New York regiments ; so that, after an unpremeditated trial of our readiness for action, we were permitted to retire to our couches, which means, permit me to say, a blanket on the floor, with a military overcoat over you, and a nasal concert all around you, that, in noise and number, out- vies Musard's concerts monstres. On the morning of the 24th of April we started on what afterwards proved to be one of the hardest marches on record. The secessionists of Annapolis and the surrounding districts had threatened to cut us off in our march, and even went so far as to say that they would attack our quarters. The dawn saw us up. Knapsacks, with our blankets and overcoats strapped on them, were piled on the green. A brief and insufficient breakfast was taken, our canteens filled with vinegar and water, cartridges distributed to each man, and after mustering and loading, Ave started on our first march through a hostile country. General Scott has stated, as I have been informed, that the march that we performed from Annapolis to the Junction is one of the most remarkable on record. I know that I felt it the most fatiguing, and some of our officers have told me that it was the most perilous. We marched the first eight miles under a burning sun, in heavy marching order, in less than three hours ; and it is well known that, placing all elementary considerations out of the way, marching on a railroad track is the most harassing. We started at about 8 o'clock, a. m., and for the first time saw the town of Annapolis, which, without any disrespect to that place, I may say looked very much as if some celestial schoolboy, with a box of toys under his arm, had dropped a few houses and men as he was going home from school, and that the accidental settlement was called Annapolis. Through the town we marched, the people unsympathizing, but afraid. They saw the Seventh for the first time, and for the first time they realized the men that they had threatened. The tracks had been torn up between Annapolis and the Junction, and here it was that the wonderful qualities of the Massachusetts Eighth regiment came out. The locomotives had been taken to pieces by the inhabitants, in onier to prevent our travel. In steps a Massachusetts volunteer, looks at the piece-meal engine, takes up a flange, and says coolly, *' I made this engine, and I can put it together again." Engineers were wanted when the engine was ready. Nineteen stepped out of the ranks. The rails were torn up. Practical railroad makers out of the regiment laid them again, and all this, mind you, without care or food. These brave boys, I say, were starving while they were doing this good work. As we marched along the track that they had laid, t hey greeted 64 THE WAE FOR TUE UNION". ns ■with ranks of smiling but hungry faces. One boy told me, with a laugh on his young lips, that he had not eaten anything for thirty hours. There was not, thank God, a haversack in our regiment that was not emptied into the hands of these ill-treated heroes, nor a flask that was not at their disposal. Our march lay through an arid, sandy, tobacco-growing country. The sun poured on our heads like hot lava. The Sixth and Second companies were sent on for skirmishing duty, under the command of Captains Clarke and Nevers, the latter commanding as senior officer. A car, on which was placed a howitzer, loaded with grape and canister, .headed the column, manned by the engineer and artillery corj)S, com- manded by Lieutenant Bunting. ,This was the rallying point of the skirmishing party, on which, in case of difficulty, they could fall back. In the centre of the column came the cars, laden with medical stores, and bearing our sick and wounded, while the extreme rear Avas brought up with a second howitzer, loaded also with grape and canister. The engineer corps, of course, had to do the forwarding work. Xew York dandies, sir — but they built bridges, laid rails, and headed the regiment through. After marching about eight miles, during which time several men caved in from exhaustion, and one young gentleman was sunstruck, and sent back to New York, we halted, and instantly, with the divine instinct which characterizes the hungry soldier, proceeded to forage. The worst of it was, there was no foraging to be done. The only house within reach was inhabited by a lethargic person, who, like^niost Southern men, had no idea of gaining money by labor. We offered him extravagant prices to get us fresh water, and it was with the ut- most reluctance that we could get him to obtain us a few pailfuls. Over the mantel-piece of his miserable shanty I saw — a curious coin- cidence — the portrait of Colonel Duryea, of our regiment. After a brief rest of about an hour, we again commenced our march ; a march which lasted until the next morning — a march than which in history, nothing but those marches in which defeated troops have fled from the enemy, can equal. Our Colonel, it seems, determined to march by railroad, in preference to the common road, inasmuch as he had obtained such secret information as led him to suppose that we were waited for on the latter route. Events justifjed his judgment. There were cavalry troops posted in defiles to cut tis oflT. They could not have done it, of course, but they could have harassed us severely. As we went along the railroad we threw out skirmishing parties from the Second and Sixth companies, to keep the road clear. I know not if I can describe that night's march. I have dim recollections of deep cuts through which we passed, gloomy and treacherous-looking, with the moon shining full on our muskets, while the banks were wrapped in MARCH TO AKNAPOLIS JUNCTlOIf. 65 ehade, and each moment expecting to see the flash and hear the crack of the rifle of the Southern guerilla. The tree frogs and lizards made a mournful music as we passed. The soil on which we travelled was soft and heavy. The sleepers, lying at intervals across the track, made the march terribly fatiguing. On all sides dark, lonely pine woods stretch- ed away, and high over the hooting of owls, or the plaintive petition of the whip-poor-will, rose the bass commands of " Halt ! Forward, march !" — and when we came to any ticklish spot, the word would run from the head of the column along the lines, " Holes," " Bridge — pass it along," &c. As the night wore on, the monotony of the march became oppres- sive. Owing to our having to explore every inch of the way, we did ' not make more than a mile or a mile and a half an hour. We ran out of stimulants, and almost out of water. Most of us had not slept for fbur nights, and as the night advanced our march was almost a stagger. This Avas not so much fatigue as want of excitement. Our fellows were spoiling for a hght, and when a dropping shot was heard in the distance, it was wonderful to see how the languid legs straight- ened, and the column braced itself for action. If Ave had had even the smallest kind of a skirmish, the men would have been able to walk to Washington. As it was, we went sleepily on. I myself fell asleep, walking in the ranks. Numbers, I find, followed my example ; but never before was there shown such indomitable pluck and perseverance as the Seventh shoAved in that march of twenty miles. The country that we passed through seemed to have been entirely deserted. The inhabitants, who were going to kill us when they thought we daren't come through, now vamosed their respective ranches, and we saw them not. Houses were empty. The population retired into the in- terior, burying their money, and carrying their families along with them. They, it seems, were under the impression that we came to ravage and pillage, and they fled, as- the Gauls must have fled, Avhen Attila and his Huns came down on them from the North, As we did at Annapolis, we did in Maryland State. We left an impression that cannot be forgotten. Everything was paid for. No discourtesy was oflTered to any inhabitant, and the sobriety of the regiment should be an example to others. Nothing could have been more effective or ener- getic than the movements of the Engineer Corps, to whom we were * indebted for the rebuilding of a bridge in an incredibly short space of time. The secret of this forced march, as well as our unexpected descent on Annapolis, was the result of Colonel Lefferts' judgment, which has since been sustained by events. Finding that the line along the Poto- mac was closed, and the route to Washington, by Baltimore, equally 5 ■% 66 TDK WAR rOU TIIK UNION. impracticable, he came to the conclu-.ion that Annapolis, commanding, as it did, the route to the Capital, must of necessity be made the basis of military operations. It was important to the government to have a free channel through which to transport troops, and this post pre- sented the readiest means. The fact that sinc6 then all the»Northern troops have passed through the line that we thus opened, is a sufficient comment on the admirable judgment that decided on the movement. It secured the integrity of the regiment, and saved lives, the loss of which would have plunged New York into mourning. Too much im- portance cannot be attached to this strategy. To it the Seventh regi- ment is indebted for being here at present, intact and sound. On Thursday, April 24, this regiment reached "Washington, having taken the cars at the junction. They were followed directly by their noble comrades of the march, the Massachusetts Eighth, and imme- diately moved into quarters. While the troops under Butler and Lefferts were lying at Anna- polis, great anxiety was' felt regarding them at Washington. The lamented Lander was then at the capital, pleading for the privilege of raising a regiment for the defence of the government, but, for some in- explicable cause. General Scott had not yet accepted his services. With Baltimore in open revolt, and Annapolis doubtful in its loyalty, this anxiety about the troops become so urgent, that Lander was sent forward to Annapolis, with general directions to aid the troops with all his ability, and to direct Colonel Butler not to land his men until the kindly feeling of the citizens of Annapolis was ascertained. Lander started on the mission, as he undertook everything, with heart and soul. lie rode from Washington to Annapolis on horseback, without stopping for darkness, or any other cause save the necessary care of his horse, and reached Annapolis an hour after the troops had landed. Bringing his experience, as a frontiersman, who had seen hard service against hostile Indians on the plains, to bear on the position. Lander gave Colonel Butler such aid and advice as assisted greatly in bringing the soldiers forward with less danger and suffering than might otherwise have arisen during their march to the junction. MAEYLAND. Tlie attack by an armed mob upon the Massachusetts regiment had called the attention of the entire country to the State of Maryland, and her future course was the subject of deep feeling. Indirectly, Wash- ington was, of course, menaced by her movements, and it became a matter of vital importance that she should be retained hi the Union and MARYLAND. 69 restored to her fidelity. Not here alone were keen eyes watching her future. England and France, in their eager thirst for dominion and their jealousy of America and her liberal institutions, scrutinized every action, with reference to their own future course. Second only to Washington, therefore, for the time, became the " Monumental City." From the 19th of April, the day when the banner of the Massachu- setts Sixth was baptized in blood, until the 14th of June, all was suspense, and those who still retained their fealty were reluctant to express their loyalty from fear of personal violence. Then an election was held for members of Congress, and every district, save one, returned decisive majorities for unconditional Union men. The majority of the Legisla- ture were unreserved in their expressions of disunion, and were se- cretly, if not openly, urging on the State to revolt. As early as De- cember, 1860, Governor Hicks had been solicited to call a Convention for that purpose, and emissaries of the rebel government had labored with untiring zeal to spread secession sentiments among the people. The Governor, knowing the heart of the masses to be true, refused, and his decision came like a thunder-clap upon the Southern partizans who hoped to find him a pliant tool in their hands. The proclamation of the President, of the 15th April, was tortured into a means of exciting popular clamor, and every effort was made to fan the fires of secession, until they should burst forth in fierce flame. Meetings were held for that purpose, and every possible means re- sorted to for its accomplishment. While very many of the wealthy and commercial classes of Maryland, and particularly of Baltimore, were in favor of disunion, eminent and influential citizens, some of whom were among the most distinguished public men of the State, and whose names are inseparably connected with its civil and political history, were committed irrevocably, to the support of the government. In this cause the industrial classes — the working-men and the farmers — were true to the principles they had always professed. Whatever political parties they had sympathized with, it had been ever on the broad basis of the Union and the Constitution. An illustration of this was given on the 18th of April, the day previous to the attack on the Massachusetts regiment. A party of secessionists had raised a rebel flag in the suburbs of Baltimore, and had a cannon with which they saluted it, but a vast crowd of working- men from the neighboring foundries assembled, tore down the flag, and threw the cannon into the river. His Excellency, Thomas II. Hicks, Governor ; John P. Kennedy, Secretary of State under President Fill- more ; Ileverdy Johnson, John R. Kenley, ex - Governor Francis Thomas, Hon. Henry Winter Davis, Edwin II. Webster, Alexander Evans, and many others boldly stepped forward, and planted them- 10 THE. WAR FOR THE TTNIOIT. selves in the foreground, to resist the tide of dishonesty, passion, and frenzy, into -which the State was plunged by the conspirators. Five thousand citizens of Baltimore addressed a letter to Governor Ilicks, on January 2d, approving his course in refusing to call the Legislature together to authorize a Convention, and public meetings were held throughout the State for the same purpose. Notwithstanding this great demonstration of popular opinion, the secessionists were re- solved upon making the attempt; and, though foiled in thpir measures, seized the opportunity afforded by the ])assage of Northern troops through Baltimore, to enkindle the flames of civil war, hoping, in the confusion, to urge their schemes to a fulfilment. The pressure upon the Governor after this event became almost insupportable. All the combined influences of political, social and com- mercial classes were brought to bear upon him, and the wild denuncia- tions and contemptuous and bitter invective and threats hurled inces- santly upon Baltimore and Maryland by a large portion of the northern press were persistently used to press the Executive to the commission of the fatal act. Thus urged on all sides, he was compelled, in deference to the sudden and violent appeals of the people, to request the govern- ment to send no more troops through Maryland. The proclamation of the President of the 15th of April, and the call for troops, was repre- sented by the secessionists of Maryland, as in other States, as an attempt to "coerce," "invade" and "subjugate" the Southern States. They used this appeal with great effect on the popular mind, and the passions of the people were so inflammable, that many whose convictions were utterly opposed to the disunion measures were determined to resent this attempt to "subdue" them. On the 17th of April an excited dis- union meeting had been held in Baltimore, and great efforts were made to commit the citizens to the secession movement. On the following day Governor Ilicks and his Honor George Wm. Brown, Mayor of Baltimore, issued proclamations calling upon all citizens to keep the peace. The Governor assured the people that no troops should be sent from Maryland, except to defend the national capital. The arrival of Massachusetts troops and the fatal occurrences of the 19th, caused an almost entire cessation of business, and all commerce was suddenly prostrated. The secessionists were determined to render it impracticable for any more troops to reach Washington, and for this purpose destroyed the bridges and a considerable portion of the tracks of several railroads both north and south of Baltimore. The Pennsylvania Northern, Philadelphia, Annapolis Junction, and Baltimore and Ohio roads suffered extensively ; and in consequence of these lawless proceedings, the greatest difficulty was apprehended in get- MARYLAND. 71 ting troops 1 1 Washington in time to protect the capital from the threatened attack. On the 21st the government announced that it took possession of the Philadelphia and Baltimore railway as a military road. During the temporary delay and obstruction to the ti'avel, it was almost impossible for travellers to pass either way. Many were molested in Baltimore ; some were placed in confinement under false charges by the secession- ists, and all were compelled to pay exorbitant prices and resort to the rudest means of conveyance to pursue their journeys, when permitted so to do. On the 22d the Mayor and Police Board of Baltimore laid an embargo on provisions and necessary supplies, as the interruption to transportation threatened a deficiency of food. The Governor, under these extraordinary circumstances, called a special session of the Legislature, Avhich assembled at Frederick, on the 2Gth of the month, the capital, Annapolis, being then in possession of General Butler, who threatened to arrest the whole body if an ordinance ' of secession were passed. The secession members of the Legislature then attempted to procure the organization of a Board of Safety, which should have discretionary power during the crisis, but public meetings were immediately called, which Avereloud in their denunciations of this covert transfer of the State to its enemies, and it was abandoned. Resolutions protesting against the war, and recommending the President to desist, and resort to arbitration, Avere adopted, and a committee appointed to visit the President and induce him to promise that no more troops should be passed through Maryland. The President replied that the public necessity must govern him, and that he would consult the wishes of the people to the utmost extent that the national welfare would permit. v The Legislature, after the report of the Committee had been submit- ted, on May 6, discussed the questions at issue, and on the 10th adopt- ed a preamble and resolution, declaring Maryland sympathized " with the South in the struggle for their rights, solemnly protests against this action, and will take no part in it, denouncing the military dccupancy of the State, and transportation of troops, and imploring the President, in the name of God, to cease this unholy war." The re-organization of the military departments for the war was pro- gressing with all possible dispatch. The Department of Washington was assigned to Colonel Joseph K. F. Mansfield, the Department of Annapolis to Major General Butler, and that of Pennsylvania to M.ijor General Robert Patterson. On the 5th of May, General Butler took possession of the junction of the Baltimore and Washington and Baltimore and Ohio railroads, at the Relay House, nine miles south of Baltimore. Four days afterwards 72 THB WAE FOE THK UiaOW. a body of United States troops landed at Locust Point in that city, and were conveyed by the cars through it without interruption. The Mar- shal of the city, John K. Kane, was known to be deeply implicated in the work of rebellion, and he was arrested and search was made at the police headquarters for concealed arms and supplies. The people of Maryland held views which her disloyal legislators had misrepresented. On the 14th of May, a meeting was held at East Bal- timore, at which strong Union resolutions were adopted, pledging " lives, fortunes, and sacred honor," to its defenqe, declaring the right of the government to convey troops through the State, and their own right and duty to aid them in the work. General Butler the same day occupied Federal Hill, at Baltimore, and issued a proclamation which was scattered in immense numbers among the people, and contributed in a high degree to the restoration of con- fidence and harmony among all classes. An important step was also taken by Governor Hicks, who, on the same day issued a proclamation calling for the Stat& quota of four regiments of volunteers for three months, to sustain the government and to protect the capital. General Butler had seized various military stores intended for the rebels, and also took possession of arms and powder belonging to loyal parties, to prevent their being removed by enemies to the government. Brigadier-General Butler, having been appointed Major-General, and placed in command of the military Department of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, a most important position, was transferred to Fortress Monroe, and was succeeded by General Cadwallader on the . 20th. Fort McHenry was reinforced, and put into the most effective condition for immediate service, and the conspirators of Baltimore were restrained from further disorders by the apprehension that any attempt at insurrection would be the signal for a bombardment of the city. After Cadwallader came into command, several arrests of prominent per. sons had been made. Among these was Mr. John Merrjnnan, who applied to Chief Justice Taney for a writ of haheax corpus. This was granted; and General Cadwallader, in answer, said that the prisoner had been arrested on charge of various acts of treason — of holding a command in a company having in possession arms belonging to the United States, and of avowing his purpose of armed hostility to the Government of the United Stales. In such cases General Cadwallader said he was authorized by the President to suspend the habeas corpus act ; he therefore requested Judge Taney to suspend further action until in- structions could be had from the President. Judge Taney thereupon issued a writ of attachment against General Cadwallader for contempt of court. The Marshal proceeded to Fort McIIenry to execute the writ, but was refused admission. Judge DESTRUCTION OF GOSPOET NAVY YAKD. 73 Taney urged that the President had no authority to suspend the act of habeas corpus, or to authorize others to do so. An elaborate opinion to that effect was prepared by the Judge and has since been published. A sufficient number of troops were also at this time stationied in Baltimore, and the loyal citizens were assured that they would be protected in all their rights and privileges, at every hazard. Thus for- tified, protected and encouraged, the loyalty of the people was fully displayed, while the disloyal Avere held in check. Maryland, glorious in her past history, and her devotion to the Constitution, was saved from destruction, and her loyal citizens will in generations to come re- ceive the plaudits of millions whose gratitude will be deep enough to overwhelm her few days of revolt. DE3TEU0TI0N OF THE GOSPOET NAVY YAED. Apbil 21, 1861. The splendid naval and military establishment at Gosport, Virginia, belonging to the Federal Government, was, at the time Virginia seceded, in the possession of the United States. It was supplied with immense quantities of military and naval stores ; and several old vessels which had been withdrawn from service, and others of great value, were either waiting orders to sail or undergoing repairs. The entire establishment, whether on land or water, was indispensable to the conspirators, for the possession of the Navy Yard would give them immediate control of ordnance stores and property worth $30,000,000. The seizure of this vast establishment having been determined upon, five or six vessels had been sunk by the rebels in the channel of the EUzabeth river, below the Navy Yard, thus effectually preventing the passage of larger vessels. General Taliaferro was placed in command of the insurgent forces then rapidly concentrating at Norfolk. Commodore McCauley, who com- manded at the Navy Yard, had been reluctant to adopt any measures which would bring him into hostility with the State troops, and thus inaugurate the war. The rebels took advantage of this leniency, but for once they were disappointed in their expectations of success. The Commodore determined to destroy the immediate agencies of the wary leaving the armories, ship wood, docks and dwellings unharmed, hop- ing that, although they might for a time be occupied by the insurgents, the stars and stripes would eventually float over them in triumph. At 8^ o'clock on Saturday evening, the 20^h April, .the Pawnee, con- taining 600 Massachusetts troops from Fortress Monroe, arrived at Gosport harbor, the Commodore's flag at its mast-head the white sails, ^4 THB WAR FOE THE UNIOK. relieved by the . 1837, he, after passing ELLSWORTH. 87 thrDUgh trials that would have utterly discouraged a less ambitious and sanguine man, rendered himself famous by the inauguration, drill, and marcke de triomphe of the Chicago Zouaves. All the country remembers the bloodless march of those young men — the " crimson phantoms " that blazed comet-like before their eyes and secured the championship, with- out a struggle. When the war broke out, when the knell of Sumter's fall ^hook the very comer-stone of the nation, Ellsworth sought a place in the army. Jealousy and fear of the youthful aspirant impeded him, and turning his back upon Washington, he hastened to New York, organized the Fire Zouaves, and rushed to his fate. One who knew him well, and has written a glorious prose-poem to his memory, thus briefly described him. " His person was strikingly pre- possessing. Ilis form, though slight, exactly the Napoleonic size, was very compact and commanding : the head statuesquely poised and crowned with a luxuriance of curling black hair ; a hazel eye, bright though serene, the eye of a gentleman as well as a soldier ; a nose such as you see on Roman medals ; a light moustache, just shading the lips, that were continually curving into the sunniest smiles. His voice, deep and musical, instantly attracted attention, and his address, though not without soldierly brusqueness, was sincere and courteous." And thus, in the very prime of manhood and vigor, with one of the military insignia he sometimes wore — a golden circle, inscribed with the legend " NoN nobis, sed peg patria," driven into his heart by the bullet of his assassin, perished a brave spirit — an ambitious follower after the " pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war" — a soul de- voted to his country and his country's honor — an eagle struck in its high soaring, down — a spirit of fire, fretting at causeless delay, bui-ning against useless restraints, and rushing on to snatch success even from the cannon's mouth. ' A nation mourned him long — ^has not yet forgotten him, and green will ever be the laurel she entwines around the name of the boy-martyr of Alexandria ! " Remember Ellsworth " became a watchword with the volunteers, who pledged thetnselves to avenge his death, and well they redeemed it. His life was stainless and loyal — his death, sealed with his blood the holy bond of his noble faith. When Lincoln saw this young man lying in his coffin, it is said that he wept over him. It was the first shock and horror of war brought home to the chief magistrate. Alas ! if he has wept for all the brave tliat have since fallen, his days and oigjits must have been given up to tears. Alexandria and its neighborhood were occupied by the Federal troops, and acompany of Virginia cavalry were captured ; after a detention of some days they were released upon taking the oath of allegiance to the 88 THE WAB FOB THE UNION. United States. Intrenchments were thrown up around Alexandria, and upon Arlington Heights, which commanded a portion of the capital. Bodies of troops were pushed forward toward Manassas Junction, with the object of interrupting the communication between Richmond and Harper's Ferry. A detachment took possession of Arlington, the old Curtis Mansion, which had been deserted by its owner. General Lee, when he gave up his flag and took sides with its enemies. It is said that General Scott held this officer in such high appreciation that he offered him the chance of any position under himself in the Union army. When the letter reached Lee, containing this noble pro- position, he Avas sitting with his family at Arlington. He read the letter in silence, and laying it on the table, covered his face with one hand. When he looked up traces of tears were in his eyes, and he said in a broken voice, " What am I to do ? If I take up arras for the Union it must be to turn them on my native State, my own neighbors, dear relations. If I do not, they will brand me as a traitor !" Again he fell into thought. The result was that he abandoned the home consecrated by Washington, and turned upon the flag that great man had planted. On the 1st of June, a company of cavalry set out on a scouting ex- pedition to Fairfax Court House, about twenty miles beyond the out- posts. Some hundreds of Virginia troops were stationed here, and a sharp skirmish ensued. Several of the Virginians were reported to have been killed; one of the United States troops was killed, and four or five wounded, among whom was the commander. Lieutenant Tomp- kins. The cavalry withdrew, having made five prisoners, and leaving two of their own number as captives. On the following day the same cavalry company made another dash to Fairfax, and rescued their com- rades who had been left behind. BATTLE OF GEEAT BETHEL. Junk 10, 1861, The first engagement on the field occurred at Great Bethel, about ten miles north of Newport News, on the road from Hampton to York- town, Virginia, the place having derived its name from a large church, near which the rebels had an entrenched camp. 'Under cover of night, the forces, who were under the command of General B. F. Butler, had been repeatedly annoyed by the secession forces, whose rendezvous was Little Bethel, distant about eight miles BATTLE OF GREAT BETHEL. 89 from Newport News, and the same distance from Hampton, where, also, a church was used as the headquarters of their cavalry, thus literally putting " holy things to an unholy use." The Union-loving, or, at least. Union-respecting citizens, were continually robbed — slaves were im- pressed to work upon their fortifications, and all that forethought, could suggest was recklessly accomplished. Determined to put a stop to these foraySj^ General Butler organ- ized an expedition for the purpose of surprising the rebels at Little Bethel, giving to the officers commanding discretionary powers, as no positive inforr^;it;on could be obtained with regard to their defences or forces. General Pierce, of Massachusetts, who had the command at Hamp- ton, was instructed to detach Colonels Duryea and Townsend's New York regiments, and Colonel Phelps, commanding at Newport News, was also commanded to start an equal force, about an hour later, to make a demonstration in front. One regiment from each command was di- rected to repair to a point about one mile from Little Bethel, and there await further orders. Should the design prove successful, they were, when directed, to follow close upon the enemy, drive them into their entrenchments at Big Bethel and attack them. A naval brigade — a new volunteer organization, stationed at Hamp- ton Roads, had been exercisea in the management of scows, with capacity for carrying about one hundred and thirty men, besides those at the oars, and when the night came settling down in darkness, they set out, with mnfiied oars, passed the mouth of Hampton river, and silently proceeded up the stream. Moored at the hither shore of Hampton, at midnight they awaited the time when the blow was to be struck. Three companies of Duryea's New York Fifth, under the command of Captain Kilpatrick, crossed and went forward on the Bethel road, followed soon after by the remainder of the regiment, and Colonel Townsend's New itork Third. One hour later, five companies, each of the Vermont First and Massachusetts Fourth, under Lieutenant-Colonel Washburne ; six companies of the New Yor^ Seventh, Colonel Bendix, and a squad of regulars, with three small field pieces under Lieutenant Greble, moved forward from Newport News. At about one o'clock, a. m., the three companies under Captain Kil- patrick reached New Market Bridge — at about three o'clock they were joined by the main body and started for Little Bethel. The pickets of the enemy were surprised, the officer in command captured, and the Union forces, flushed with success, were pushing forward, when the sound of heavy firing in their rear checked them. Meantime, the force from Newport News came up the road from that 90 THB WAB FOR THE UNION. place, and took the road from Hampton to Bethel, not far behind the Fifth ; but they left at the junction of the roads, under Colonel Bendix, a rear guard of one hundred and seventy men and one field-piece, with the order to hold this position at all hazards, where they were to be joined by Colonel Townsend's regiment from Hampton. Almost imme- diately after, the Third New York regiment came up the Hampton road. It was still dark, and their colors could not be seen. Their approach also was over a ridge, and as General Pierce and staff, and Colonel Townsend and staff, in a body, rode in front of their troops, and without any advance guard thrown out, as customary, to reconnoitre, they appeared from Colonel Bendix's position to be a troop of cavalry. It was knowii that the Federal force had no cavalry, and the fire of this rear guard was poured into the advancing body, at the distance of a quarter of a mile. But the road in which the Third was marching was a little below the level of the land along the edge, and was bordered on either side by fences, forming a partial cover, and rendering the fire comparatively harmless. Fifteen men, however, were- wounded and two killed. The Third then fell back and formed upon a hill, and the force again moved in the following order: Colonel Duryea with the New York Fifth ; Lieutenant-Colonel Washburne with the companies from Newport News, and Greble's battery ; Colonel Toumsend, with the New York Third ; Colonel Allen,''with the New York First ; and Colonel Carr, with the New York Second. The advance was made with great rapidity and fearlessness, and soon the lurid flames of Little Bethel shot upwards in the murky air, and lighted up the country far and wide. Great Bethel was reached next, and our troops received their first intimation of the location of the enemy that was pouring hissing shot upon them from a masked battery. But they were not to be stayed by the iron rain. Steadily, unflinch- ingly, though death was threatening them every instant, they marched on and gained a position within two hundred yards of the enemy's works. For two hours the whirl and clash and rq^r of the battle was terrific. Every soldier fought as if upon his individual efforts rested the chances of the day. Charge after charge of the greatest gallantry was made by the infantry against their invisible foemen, and though suffering terribly from the deadly fire, still pouring fiercely upon them, no one thought of retreat. At length, however, General Pierce deemed the exposure too great, and the chances of success too small to warraift a more persistent struggle, and the troops were Avithdrawn in good order. Where all fought so nobly, it would be simply invidious to particu- larize. But one brave heart there was called home from "amid the smoke and tumult of battle that cannot be forgotten. Theodore "VVi>throp, Major, and formerly of the New York Seventh, there gave his life for THE AMBUSCADE AT VIENNA. 91 his country — his blood as an offqjring of sacrifice. A gentleman and scholiir as well as a soldier — rich in the rare gifts of genius, he had earned fixme in literature before he found that glorious death upon the battle field. He had been one ot the foremost to press forward in the hour of his country's need, aua breathed his last, nobly struggling for her honor, with wild battle notes ringing in his ear, and the starry flag \vaving unconquered above him. Lieutenant Greble, also, an officer of great promise — of coolness, energy and discretion, won for himself a deathless name and a soldier's grave in this battle. Many others, too, of whom fame will not always be silent, men of noble hearts and fearless courage, hallowed the cause with their blood, and when the records of a nation's jewels shall have been perfected, will be found side by side with the hero-author of Great Bethel. THE AMBUSCADE AT VIENNA, Va. June 17, 1861. Information that an attempt would be made to destroy the bridges on the Loudon and Hampshire railway, between Alexandria and Vienna, having been conveyed to General McDowell, he dispatched the First Ohio regiment. Colonel McCook, under the direction of Brigadier-Gen- eral Schenck, to guard the road. The train of seven cars, backed out by a locomotive, left Alexandria about noon, and proceeded .on its way, dropj^ing detachments all along- the road, and meeting with no interruptions until entering a straight line near Vienna. Then a man stepped out upon the road and waved his hand, beckoning the train to stop, and warned them " for God's sake not to go on," as they were dead men if they proceeded ; that there was a battery and strong force of the enemy ahead. The officer in front of the Federal troops paused a moment with his hand on his forehead, as if turning the matter over in his mind, and then beckoned to the engineer to go on. • They proceeded a short distance, when a battery on the high ground, to the right of the road leading to Vienna, opened fire upon the train, and poured well-aimed and rapid discharges into the compact body of Federal soldiery. Some four hundred passengers, troops and laborers, were on the train, and many of them were necessarily on the platforms and the tender. The fire of the enemy, which seemed to be more especially directed in the start to disabling the engine, was particu- larly destructive amongst the men huddled upon the tender. A number were killed and wounded here upon the first discharge. 92 THB WAB FOR THE UNION. A destructive fire was also poured upon the troops as they leaped from the cars. The engine was struck by a six-pound shot upon a wheel-box, and next upon the cylinder of the engine, which it fractured. The engineer, finding that his engine was in danger, detached it (with • one car) from the train, and started back tr Alexandiia. Fearful, indeed, was the eifect of this deadly storm of fire and iron hail upon the soldiers, helplessly confined, closely packed in the cars. The slaughter intended for them was a species of murder, for, like sheep in the shambles, they were completely in the power of their enemies. Vain was the strong arm, vain was courage and heroism then. Vain the good cause and the longing for victory, or, at least, a soldier's death. Confined within narrow limits, and crowded upon each other, the deadly shot was poured in upon them. It was an hour in which the stoutest heart might have trembled, and yet the men of the North met the iron death manfully. Taken completely by surprise, sufiering under every disadvantage, they yet made a good stand. With desperate cour- age they leaped from the riddled cars and coolly formed into line. Finding the enemy's batteries strongly posted and supported by cav- alry and infantry, they could not hope to carry them until reinforced, and withdrew to the cover of a neighboring wood, carrying with them, however, their dead and wounded. The enemy's force, estimated at 1,000 to 1,200 strong, had evidently moved down from Fairfax Court-IIouse the preceding night. Ayre Hill, where the batteries were stationed, is a very commanding point, and is, perhaps, the highest ground in Fairfax County. The purpose of the enemy was evidently to get the cars with the Federal troops on the straight line of the road before opening their murderous fire. There were three six-pound guns in the battery. The Ohio companies behaved with much credit in their unpleasant position, and General Schenck, particularly, displayed perfect coolness and self possession. There had been undoubtedly a lack of forethought in neglecting to send scouts in advance, as the country is favorable to Buch reconnoitering ; but when oilce in the difficulty, both men and officers acted bravely. They kept undisputed possession of the point where they had posted themselves, the enemy not deeming it prudent to follow up the attack, but contented themselves with burning the cars, although, with greatly supe- rior numbers, they might easily have captured the entire Federal force. A loss of eight killed and twelve wounded on the part of the Federal- ists was the sequel to the sad and disastrous transaction, and when the Sixty-ninth New York advanced to Vienna the next day, no trace could be found of the enemy. The place was deserted, and silence reigned where the little band of men had been so nearly sacrificed. KEVIEW AT WASHINGTON". 93 EEVIEW AT WASHINGTOF. A few days before the army of the Potomac was to make its advance, thirty thousand new troops passed through Washington, and were re- viewed by the President and his Cabinet. A stand had been erected in front of the "White House, in full view of Jackson's monument, on which Lincoln, Seward, Chase, and other members of the Cabinet sat while these troops passed them in review. Eloquent speeches were made, and the most unbounded confidence expressed in the soldiers' ability to win a glorious victory over the enemy whenever they should meet him in the open field. The troops listened with interest, and answered these glowing pre- dictions with enthusiastic shouts, as they passed away from the parade ground and marched in solid columns across the Long Bridge that spans the Potomac, there to share a destiny far diiferent to the promised glory, on the battle field of Manassas. Another imposing ceremony was witnessed in Washington on the afternoon of the review. A flag was to be raised on a staff near the Treasury Department, and this was a kind of work that Lincoln loved to accomplish with his own hands ; so he moved with his Cabinet down to the point of operation. A platform had been ei'ected at the foot of the flag-staiF, and when the President took his place upon it, thousands and tho^isands of loyal citi- zens gathered around to see the glorious bunting hoisted in mid air. It was an imposing sight when the President's tall figure appeared standing in the midst of his councilors, with the halyards in his hands, ready to send the stars and stripes aloft. With his hand uplifted and his face raised toward the sky, he ran the flag up, and saw it catch the wind and float slowly out between him and the blue sky. He stood looking at it a moment, then turned his bright, earnest eyes upon the uplifted faces of the crowd. " My friends," he said, in a clear, full voice, " it h an easy thing for me to run this flag up to the top of the stafi*, but it will take the whole nation to keep it there." A shout rang up from the multitude, one of those wild, impulsive echoes of a thousand hearts, which bespeak the enthusiasm of untried strength. It seemed an easy thing to the people, with the tramp of those twenty thousand new troops in their ears, to keep thousands of star-spangled banners skyward ; but before many days had passed, the rush of fugitive feet, as they fled along those very pavements, proved how prophetic that simple speech of President Lincoln's was. But even then the armies on the opposite banks of the Potomac wero mustering in force, for it had been decided that an advance should bo made and a battle fought, which it was hoped would decide a war 94 THE WAR FOB THE UinOK. whifth no one expected to be of long duration. Many of these new troops passed from that Washington review, and were swallowed up by the grand army without having been inspected by the commanding General, who afterward considered this fact one cause of his defeat. But the nation was eager for action ; a portion of the press fiercely ur- gent for a forward movement ; the two houses of Congress impatient of delay; so, all unprepared, General Scott ordered the advance, against his own judgment, to appease the general clamor. ADVANCE OP THE GEAND AEMY. From the time of the President's proclamation calling for troops until the 12th of July, immediately preceding the advance of the Grand Army under General McDowell, to attack the rebel forces at Bull Run, the time had been industriously employed in preparation. Fortifications had been erected on the north side of the Potomac, at eight or ten points within a radius of three miles from Washington and Georgetown. No military force of the rebels was then known to exist on the Mary- land shore ; but from Mount Yernon to the mouth of the Chesapeake on the south, and from the Chain Bridge to the junction of the Shenandoah at Harpers Ferry on the north, they held imdisputed possession. * General Patterson had crossed the Potomac early, in July, with a force of thirty thousand men, and was encamped at Martinsburgh, on the 12th, having instructions from the Commander-in-chief to hold the rebel army under General Johnston in check, should he attempt to move forward to Manassas for the purpose of reinforcing Beauregard's com- mand at that point. Johnston was at Winchester, on the direct route to Manassas Gap, twenty-five miles from Mai-tinsburgh, and it was a matter of vital importance that he should be prevented from making a further advance. The entire marching force of General McDowell was but about fifty- five thousand, while twenty thousand were lefk as a reserve at Wash- ington and vicinity, under the command of General Mansfield. And thus the combatants stood, Avhen a day of fearful, bloody ending dawned upon them — a day almost without a parallel in the world's history for deeds of daring and stubborn endurance, imflinching bravery, and wild panic. Manassas was selected by the 'Confederates on account of its control- ling position. Nature had done very much towards rendering it a second Gibraltar, and art had completed the work. The country around was wild and broken, with but few roads fit for the movements of an ADVANCE OP THE GRAND ARMT. 95 army, and those easily guarded. Centreville was twenty-two miles dis- tant from Washington, and Manassas Junction six or seven more. About midway between the two flowed the little rivulet of Bull llun, in a general direction from north-west to" south-east. A road led from Centreville to the Junction, crossing the Run three miles from that j place, at " Blackburn's Ford," while a turnpike running towards War- renton, also crossed Bull Run at Stone Bridge, four miles distant. Some- what east of south, a country road from Centreville crossed Bull Run, and the railroad at " Union Mills." The Confederate force was distributed along the Run from Union Mills to the Stone Bridge, Avith reserves and a strongly fortified position near the junction. The army of General McDowell, when it marched to attack that position, numbered about 30,000 men, consisting, with the exception of 70.0 or 800 regular troops, of raw volunteers, none of whom had been under mihtary discipline more than two or three months. Added to this mu§t be remembered the fact that, within three days, ten thousand • of the number would have a right to claim their dismissal, as their term of enlistment (three months) would then expire. An army, conse- quently, less prepared to march to the attack of a strongly fortified position it would have been difficult to assemble ; and this was rendered more fatal in its effects from the fact that the officers, with the exception of a few who had fought in the Mexican war, were unused to actual fighting, and almost totally unacquainted with their different commands. Under these unpromising auspices, the army marched from the banks of the Potomac on the afternoon of July 16th. It advanced in four col- umns, toiling along under the burning sun and over the hot ground. One by the turnpike, one on the right, and one on the left of the railroad, and another between the turnpike and railroad. Expecting to encoun- ter the enemy at Fairfax Court-House, seven miles this side of Centre- ville, where they had thrown up intrenchments, the three columns were directed to cooperate at that point. But the place was entered about noon on the 17th, only' to find the intrenchments abandoned and signs of a hasty retreat visible. On the morning of trie 18th, the different columns commenced their march from Fairfax to Centreville. While General McDowell made a personal reconnoissance to the left, making the forward movement a mere demonstration. Major J. G. Barnard, chief-engineer of the staff", proceeded to examine the enemy's position in front. In this, however, he had been anticipated by General Tyler, who had pushed a brigade on towards Blackburn's Ford. Troops were in motion on $he plateau of Manassas, moving up to reinforce the enemy's lines, and though no attack had been intended by the commanding general at that particular MIT^ ChaTlcslowih iiteJiall Wmcliestei^ BerruVo ^ "'•^'^^ GEORSETlryi ^ >^^H6IGHTS 'leas(vnt 'airfnx :♦• N '■ V ^ *■ ' £r ivAsmivcTaM ntsV: ' ~ 08 THK WAR TOn THE tTNIOIT. point, they opened upon them with two tweoty-poiinder gnnn in hope of ascertaining the position of these batteries. A reply was soon ob- tained — a battery, invisible except by the stnoke, poured forth rapid discharges, and it required the assistance of a battery of rifled six- pounders to enable the Union troops to silence it. The brigade was then filed down to the stream and skirmishing maintained for some time. This battle, though apparently of small importance, was disas- trous, inasmuch as it disorganized the arrangements of the commander- in-chief, and was accompanied by great loss of life, when compared with the magnitude of the undertaking and any beneficial result that could have sprung from it. The possibility of charging into Manas- sas, even under the most fortunate circumstances, was so remote, that the wisdom of an action at that point and at that time has been gravely questioned by the best military authorities. That night the columns of the army united, and encamped about a mile in the rear of Fairfax Court House, upon a broad hill side, and on the extended plain at its base. A stream of water which crossed the grounds rendered the spot peculiarly important to the soldiers. The next day was spent in reconnoitering, and in determining how and wher0 an attack should be made. The Stone Bridge was guarded by batteries, and the ground beyond obstructed by formidable abattis. The roads leading to fords between Blackburn's and the Stone Bridpre were mere by-paths, and the opposite bank of the stream steep, tangled, and obstructed. Two miles above, however, there was a good ford, but slightly guarded, at Sudley's Spring. On these data the plan of attack was based, as follows : One division, under Colonel Miles, to make, with one of its brigades, a false attack on Blackburn's Ford ; another division (Tyler's) to move up the turn- pike to the Stone Bridge and threaten that point, and at the proper time carry it, and unite with the principal column, which consisted of Hun- ter's and Heintzelman's divisions ; then by a flank movement reach the Sudley Ford, and descending the right bank of the stream, take the defences in the rear of Stone Bridge, and give battle with the united force, strike at the enemy's raikoad communication, or otherwise, as circumstances should dictate. THE BATTLE OF BULL BUN. Bull Run, that once unknown name, is marked with great crimson letters upon the scroll of time ! Tears wrung from the anguished soul, tears hot and blinding, still fall at the mere mention of its ill omened name. A nation's miserere has been tolled from uncounted steeples over THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 90 its dead, and a whole nation put on weeds of mourning when its battle cloud spread slowly over the land, filling it with gloom. "With bayonets for pens, and precious human blood for ink, the record of this first great battle of the Union War should be Avritten in the his- tory of the world ; — the ensanguined page illuminated with iron hail and leaden sleet — with hissing shot — whirlwinds of death-rnissiles, and the fire-belching portals of masked batteries. O, day of doom, day of sad errors and illustrious deeds, when blood was poured • forth like water, until the reeking earth shuddered as it drank in the crimson del- uge ! Generations shall hereafter look back on thee with painful won- der, for they will remember that the first pitched battle in which Ameri- cans met Americans in mortal strife, was fought on thy soil, beneath " the bloody sun at noon." On the morning of the 21st, McDowell's forces were encamped in and around Centreville. The divisions were under orders to march at half past two o'clock, that they might reach the groimd early and avoid the heat. Before this time the encampments were in motion ; but the troops were not yet sufiiciently disciplined for the exigencies of a prompt march, and some delay arose with the first division in getting out of camp. Thus the road was obstructed, and other divisions thrown two hours out of time. But there was no lack of energy or zeal ; the very want of discipline which caused delay rendered the scenes in the various encampments more grand and imposing. It was indeed a beautiful spectacle. A lovely moonlight flooded the whole country. Soft mists lay in the valleys — the hill-tops were studded for miles around by the camp fires which thirty regiments had left, kindling the landscape with their star-like gleams. In the hollows, along the level grounds, and among the trees, thousands on thousands of armed men moved athwart the fires, harnessing horses to artillery, getting out army wagons, preparing ambulances and filling haversacks with the three days' rations ordered for their subsistence. No man of all that vast host was idle — want of order there might have been, but no lack of energy. Now, thirty thousand men, horses, ordnance and wagons, were all in place, ready for a march through the beautiful night, and under that serene moon, which many of them would never look upon again. McDowell and his stafi" moved with the first — Tyler's — central col- umn, and the advance commenced. The picturesque encampments were soon left behind ; the fires grew paler and twinkled out in a glow of mist ; the tents dwindled into littleness, till they seemed more like great flocks of white-plumaged birds, nestled in the foliage, than the paraphernalia of war. Nothing could be more quiet and peaceful than the country the troops had left — nothing more solemnly grand than the advance. It was aa army of Americans, marching through the still 100 THE WAE FOE THE UNION. night to meet Americans for the first time in a great pitched battle Nothing but holy patriotism and a stem sense of duty could have led these men into the field. They marched on, with thousands of bayonets gleaming in the moonlight, and casting long-pointed shadows over the path ; staff officers formed imposing groups as they moved forward in the moonlight, casting pictures upon the earth that were like broken battle scenes. In the ranks there was something more than stern courage ; generous enthusiasm and honest emulation were eloquent there. Comrade greeted comrade, for the coming danger made friends brothers ; and common acquaintances fell into affectionate intimacy. Many a touching message was exchanged between men who had never met out of the ranks, for while they panted for victory, each man prepared to earn it with his life. These men knew that a terrible day's fighting lay before them ; but the previous defeat of Thursday rankled in their proud hearts, and each man felt it as an individual reproach which must be swept away. From the central column to the rear, this feeling prevailed among the men.' The troops of the old Bay State, of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York, entered into a spirit of generous rivalry. Ohio, Michigan, "Wisconsin and Minnesota entered the lisi with true Western fervor, while the rich Celtic humor rose in fun and pathos from the Irish troops. The officers shared this enthusiasm with their men. Tyler moved on, burning to atone for his noble rashness at Blackburn's Ford — Burn- side, Corcoran, Keyes, Spidel, Meagher, and many another noble fellow, thought exultingly of the laurels to be gathered on the morrow. Gen- eral McDowell's carriage halted at the two roads, a spot that he deemed most convenient for receiving despatches from the various points of the battle-field. Here the column of General Hunter diverged from the main body and went away thro'ugh the moonlit country on its assigned duty, which led him around the enemy's flank by a long and harassing route. With him went Ileintzelman, Porter, Burnside and Sprague with their valiant Rhode Islanders, and "Wilcox, that bravest of young men and most brilliant author, who met a fate almost worse than death in the hottest of the coming battle. There, too, was Slocura, Ilaggerty, and many another valiant fellow, marching forward to a glorious death. Each and all of these, with their regiments or brigades, swept to the right, to meet their comrades again in the hottest of the battle. A mile from the Cross Roads, and the dawn of a bright July day broke pleasantly 'on the moving troops — a morning cool with dew, fresh with verdure, and tranquil and peaceful, save for the armed men that made the earth tremble under their solid tread as they moved THE BATTLK OF BULL RUN. 101 ( over it. The mists of a dewy night were slowly uplifted, and beauti- ful reaches of the country were revealed. On the left was the station assigned to Richardson and Davies ; beyond it, the valley which one unfortunate conflict had so lately stained with blood. When Tyler's division came to the edge of a wooded hill overlooking these scenes, the sun arose, flooding them with rosy splendor. The soldiers knew, but could not realize that this scene, so beautiful and tranquil, had been a field of carnage, and would, before that sun went down, be red with the blood of many a brave heart beating among them then. They knew well that in a brief time the pure atmosphere, which it was now a joy to breathe, would be heavy with stifling smoke ; that the noble forests whose leaves trembled so pleasantly in the new- born sunshine, were but a concealment for masked batteries — fearful engines of destruction, and men more ravenous for their lives than the wild animals that civilization had driven away from them. From the point of view just described, where the road falls gently down to a ravine, the enemy first appeared. A line of infantry was drawn up in a distant meadow, close upon a back-ground of woods. The second and third regiments of Tyler's brigade, under Schenck, was at once formed into line in the woods on either side, the First Ohio, Second Wisconsin, Seventy-ninth, Thirteenth, and Sixty-ninth New York regiments succeeding each other on the right, and the Second Ohio and Second New York being similarly placed on the left, while the artillery came down the road between. A great 32-pound rifled Parrott gun — the only one of its calibre in the' field service— -was brought forward, and made to bear on the point where the bayonets of the enemy had suddenly disappeared in the woods, and a shell was fired at fifteen minutes past six, a. m., which burst in the air ; but the report of the piece awoke the country for leagues around to a sense of what that awful day would prove. The reverberation was tremendous, and the roar of the revolving shell indescribable. Throughout the battle that gun, whenever it was fired, seemed to hush and overpower everything else. No answering salute came back, so the 32-pounder sent a second shell at a hill-top, two miles off, where it was suspected that a battery had been planted by the rebels. The bomb burst close at the intended point, but no answer came. General Tyler ordered Carlisle to cease firing, and bring the rest of bis battery to the front of the woods and get the column ready for instant action. Tyler's position-was before the valley of Bull Run, but the descent •was gradual, and surrounded by thick woods down almost to the ravine through which the stream flows. The enemy, on the contrary, had cleared away all the obstructing foliage, and bared the earth in everj' 102 ^ TIIK \VAR FOR THE UNIOX. direction over which they could bring their artillery upon the Union forces. Clumps of trees and bushes remained wherever their earth- works and other concealed defences could be advantageously planted among them. The ground on their side was vastly superior to that of the assailants. It rose in gradual slopes to great heights, but was broken into hills and terraces in many places, upon which strong earthworks were planted, some openly, but the greater portion concealed. Nature had supplied positions of defence which needed but little labor to render them 'desperately formidable. IIow thoroughly these advantages had been improved was established by the almost superhuman efforts which were required to dislodge their troops, and by the obstinate opposition which they displayed before retiring from one strong point to another. It was now about seven o'clock — for an hour everything was silent. At eight, the deep sullen boom of Richardsons and Davies' batteries at Blackburn's Ford broke the stillness, and from that quarter constant can- nonading was kept up for some time. By this time scouts reported the enemy in some force on the left. Two or three Ohio skirmishers had been killed. Carlisle's battery was sent to the front of the woods on the right, where it could be brought to play when needed. A few shells were thrown into the opposite thicket, and then the Second Ohio and Second New York marched down to rout the enemy from their hiding places. As they rushed to- ward a thickly-covered abatis on the banks of the Run, the rebels came swarming out like bees, and fled to the next fortification beyond. General Schenck's brigade was moved forward to the left, but half- way to the Run met the full fire of a masked battery effectually con- qealed by the bushes. A few dead and wounded began to be brought in, and the battle of Manassas had commenced. Carlisle's howitzers and the great rifled gun were opened in the direction of the battery, which answered promptly, and a brief but terrific cannonading ensued. In less than half an hour the enemy's guns were silenced, two of Carlisle's howitzers advancing through the woods to gain a closer position, and Schenck's brigade retired to its first lines. At eleven o'clock, the artillery, which resounded from every portion of the field, extending from Davies and Richardson's position on the extreme left, to the right near Sudley, gave startling evidence that Hunter Avas making his way around the enemy. The roll and thunder was incessant — great volumes of smoke surged over the vast field, impalling it in the distance, and making the air around the near batteries thick with smoke. It Avas true, Hunter's and Heintzelman's columns had taken the field on the extreme right. McDowell in his plan of battle had calculated that the marching col- THE BATTLE OF BULL RUK. 108 umn should diverge from the turnpike by early daylight (a night march being deemed imprudent), and reach Sudley Ford by six or seven, a. m. The Stone Bridge division did not clear the road over which both, for a certain distance, had to pass, so that the column could take up its march, until after the time. The route to Sudley proved far longer and more difficult than was anticipated. The column did not reach the Sudley Ford till near half-past nine, three or four hours " behind time." When it reached the ford, the heads of the enemy's columns were visible on the march to meet it. The gro'\nd between the stream and the road, leading from Sudley south, wat for about a mile thickly wooded ; on the right, for the same distance, divided between fields and timber. A mile from the ford the country on both sides of the road is open, and for a mile further large, irregular fields extend to the turnpike, which, after crossing Bull Run at the " Stone Bridge," passes what became the field of battle, through the valley of a small tributary of the Run. But, notwithstanding a fearful march over broken grounds in the hot sun, with his men suffering from heat and thirst. Hunter had reached his point of operation, late it is true, but from no fault of his. The weary soldiers uttered exclamations of joy when they saw the limpid waters of the Run, and plunging into its current bathed their hot hands and burning faces as they Avaded through, and came out on the other side greatly invigorated. While his thirsty men were refreshing them- selves with cool draughts of water. Hunter sent a courier to General McDowell, reporting that he had safely crossed the Run. The General was lying on the ground, having been ill during the night, but at once mounted his horse and rode on to join the column on* which so much depended. The halt had not lasted two minutes when Col. Burnside led his dif- ferent regiments into their position on the field. The Second Rhode Island entered first to the extreme right; then the Rhode Island battery of six pieces, and two howitzers of the Seventy-first, and after it on the left, the First Rhode Island and the Second New Hampshire, all formed in line of battle on the top of the hill. Shortly after the leading regiment of the first brigade reached the open space, and whilst others and the second brigade were crossing to the front and right, the enemy opened his fire, beginning Avith artillery, and following it up with infantry. The leading brigade (Burnside's) had to sustain this shock for a short time withf»ut support, and met i% bravely. Gov. Sprague himself directed the movements of the Rhode Island brigade, and was conspicuous through the day for gallantry. The enemy were found in heavy numbers opposite this nol le brigade, of our army, and greeted it with shell and long volleys of battalion 104 THE WAB FOB THB UNIOlf. firing as it advanced. But on it went, and a fierce conflict now com menced. The eneniy clung to the protecting wood with tenacity, and the Rhode Island battery became so much endangered as to impel the commander of the second brigade to call for the assistance of the battalion of reg- ulars. At this time news ran through the lines that Colonel Hunter was seriously wounded. Porter took command of his division ; and, in reply to the urgent request of Colonel Bumside, detached the battalion of regulars to his assistance, followed shortly afterwards by the New Hampshire regiments. Shortly afterward the other corps of Porter's brigade, and a regiment detached from Heintzelman's division to the left, emerged from the timber, where some hasty disposition of skir- mishers had been made at the head of the column, in which Colonel Slocum, of the Second Rhode Island regiment, distinguished himself for great activity. The rattle of musketry and crash of round shot through the leaves and branches, had warned them when the action commenced, and the column moved forward before these preliminaries were completed, eager for a share in the fight. The head of Porter's brigade was immediately turned a little to the right, in order to gain time and room for deployment on the right of the second bi'igade. Griffin's battery found its way through the timber to the fields beyond, followed promptly by the marines, while the Twenty-Seventh took direction more to the left, and the Fourteenth followed upon the trail of the battery — all moving up at a double-quick step. At this time General McDowell with his statf rode through the lines and was loudly cheered as they passed within six hundred feet of the enemy's line. The enemy appeared drawn up in a long Ijne, extending along the Warrenton turnpike, from a house and haystack upon their extreme right, to a house beyond the left of the division. Behind that house there was a heavy masked battery, which, with three others along his line, on the heights beyond, covered the ground through which the troops were advancing with all sorts of projectiles. A grove, in front of Porter's right wing, aftbrded it shelter and protection, while the under- brush along the road in the fences, screened to some extent his left wing. Griffin advanced to within one thousand yards, and opened a deadly fire upon these batteries, which were soon silenced or driven away. The right was rapidly developed by the marines, Twenty-Seventh, Fourteenth, and Eighth, with the cavalry in rear of the right ; the enemy retreating in more precipitation than order as the line advanced. The second brigade (Burnside's) was at this time attacking the enemy's right with great vigor. THE BATTLK OF BULL RUN. 105 The rebels soon came flpng fi-om the woods toward the right, and the Twenty-Seventh completed their rout by charging directly upon their centre in face of a scorching fire, while the Fourteenth and Eighth moved down the turnpike to cut off the retiring foe, and to support the Twenty-Seventh, which had lost its gallant Colonel, but was standing the brunt of the action, though its ranks were terribly thinned in the dreadful fire. Now the resistance of the enemy's left was so obstinate that the beaten right retired in safety. The head of Heintzelman's column at this moment appeared upon the field, and the Eleventh and Fifth Massachusetts regiments moved forward to support the centre, while staff officers could be seen gallop- ing rapidly in every direction, endeavoi'ing to rally the broken Eighth, but with little success. The Fourteenth, though it had broken, was soon rallied in rear of Griffin's battery, which took up a position further, to the front and right, from which his fire was delivered with such precision and rapid- ity as to compel the batteries of the enemy to retire in consternation far behind the brow of the hill in front. At this time Porter^s brigade occupied a line considerably in advance of that first occupied by the left wing of the rebels. The battery was pouring its withering fire into the batteries and columns of the enemy wherever they exposed themselves. The cavalry were engaged in feeling the left flank of the enemy's position, in doing which some im- portant captures were made, one by Sergeant Socks, of the Second Dragoons, of a Genei'al George Stewart, of Baltimore. The cavalry also did brave service. General Tyler's division was engaged with the enemy's right. The Twenty-Seventh was resting on the edge of the woods in the centre, covered by a hill upon which lay the Eleventh and Fifth, Massachusetts, occasionally delivering a scattering fire. The Fourteenth was moving to the right flank, the Eighth had lost its organization, the marines were moving up in fine style in the rear of the Fourteenth, and Cap- tain Arnold was occupying a height in the middle ground with hia battery. At this juncture there was a temporary lull in the firing from the rebels, who appeared only now and then on the heights in irregular tnasses, but to serve as marks for Griffin's guns. The prestige of suc- cess had thus far attended the efforts of the inexperienced but gallant Union troops. The lines of the enemy had been forcibly shifted nearly a mile to their left and rear. The flags of eight regiments, though borne somewhat wearily, now pointed toward the hill from which dis- ordered masses of the rebels had been seen hastily retiring. Rickett's battery, together with Griffith's battery, on the side of the hill, had been objects of the special attention of the encny, who had 106 THE WAR FOB THE UNION. succeeded in disabling Rickett's battery, and then attempted to take it. Three times was he repulsed by different corps in succession, and driven back, and the guns taken by hand, the horses being killed, and pulled away. The third time the repulse seemed to be final, for he was driven entirely from the hill, and so far beyond it as not to be in sight. He had before this been driven nearly a mile and a half, and was beyond the Warrenton road, which was entirely in Feder.al pos- session, from the Stone Bridge westward. The engineers Avere just completing the removal of the abatis across the road, to allow rein- forcements (Schenck's brigade and Ayers' battery) to join m. The enemy was evidently disheartened and broken. But at this moment, when everything pointed to a speedy victory, orders came through Major Barry of the Fifih artillery, for Griffin's battery to move from the hill upon which the house stood, to the top of a hill on the right, with the " Fire Zouaves" and marines, while the Fourteenth entered the skirt of wood on their right, to protect that flank, and a column, composed of the Twenty-seventh New York, Eleventh and Fifth Massachusetts, Second Minnesota, and Sixty-Ninth New York, moved up toward the left batteries. It had taken position, but before the flanking supports had reached theirs, a murderous fire of musketry and rifles opened at pistol range, cutting down every cannonier, and a large number of horses. The fire came from some infantry of the enenly, which had been mistaken for Union forces ; an officer in the field having stated that it Avas a regiment sent by Colonel Heintzelmau to support the batteries. As soon as the Zouaves came up, they were led forward against an Alabama regiment, partly concealed in a clump of small pines in an old field. After a severe fire they broke, and the greatest portion of them fell to the rear, keeping up a desultory firing over the heads of their com- rades in front ; at the same moment they were charged by a company of rebel cavalry on their rear, who came by a road through two strips of woods on the extreme right. The fire of the Zouaves dis- persed them. The discomfiture of this cavalry was completed by a fire from Captain Colburn's company of United States cavalry, which killed and wounded several men. Colonel Farnham, with some of his officers and men, behaved gallantly, and many of his men did good service as skirmishers later in the day. General Ileintzelman then led up the Minnesota regiment, which was also repulsed, but retired in tolerably good order. It did good service in the woods on the right flank, and was among the last to retire, moving off the field with the Third United States infantry. Next was led forward the First Michigan, "which was also repulsed, and retired in considerable confusion. The* TIIE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 107 were rallied, and helped to hold the Avoods on the right. Tlie Brooklyn Fourteenth then appeared on the ground, coming forward in gallant style. They were led forward to the left, where the Alabama regiment had been posted in the early part of the action, but had now disap- peared, and soon came in sight of the line of the enemy drawn up be- yond the clump of trees. Soon after the firing commenced, the regi- ment broke and retired. It was useless to attempt a rally. The want of discipline in these regiments was so great that the most of the men would run from fifty to several hundred yards in the rear, and continue to fire, compelling those in front to retreat. During this time Rickett's battery had been captured and retaken three times by Ileintzelraan's forces, but was finally lost, most of the horses having been killed — Captain Ricketts being wounded, and First Lieutenant D. Ramsay killed. Lieutenant Kirby behaved gallantly, and succeeded in carrying off one caisson. Before this time, heavy rein- forcements of the enemy were distinctly seen approaching by two roads, extending and outflanking Heintzelman on the right. General Howard's brigade came on the field at this time, having been detained by the General as a reserve. It took post on a hill on Heintzelman's right and rear, and for some time gallantly held the enemy in check. One company of cavalry attached to Heintzelman's division, was joined, during the engagement, by the cavalry of Colonel Hunter's division, under the command of Major Palmer. Colonel W. B. Franklin commanded the first brigade of Heintzelman's division. Aportion of that brigade rendered distinguished service, and received official commendation from the commanding general. General Tyler, who kept his position at the Stone Bridge, to menace that point, and at the proper moment to carry it and unite with the turning column, had sent forward the right wmg of his command to co-operate with Hvmter as soon as he was discovered making his way on the flank. Two brigades (Sherman's and Keyes') of that division had passed the Run. Colonel Sherman joined himself to the divisions of Hunter and Heintzelman, and was soon engaged in the hottest part of the action. The famous Irish regiment, 1,600 strong, who have had so much of the hard digging to perform, claimed the honor of a share in the hard fighting, and led the van of Tyler's attack, followed by the Seventy- ninth (Highlanders), and Thirteenth New York, and the Second Wis- consin. It was a brave sight — that rush of the Sixty-ninth into the death- struggle — with such cheers as proved a hearty love of the work before them ! With a quick step at first, and then a double-quick, and at last a run, they dashed forward and along the edge of the extended forest. 108 TUB WAR FOB THE JNION. Coats and knapsacks were thrown to either side, that nothing might impede their work. It was certain that no guns would slip from the hands of those determined fellows, even if dying agonies, were needed to close them with a firmer grasp. As the line swept along, Meagher galloped toward the head, crying, " Come on, boys ! you've got your chance at last ! " BULUANT CHARGE ON A EEBEL BATTERY. Sherman's brigade thus moved forward for half a mile, describing quite one-fourth of a circle on the right, Colonel Quimby's reghnent in front, the other regiments following in line of battle — the Wisconsin Second, New York Seventy-ninth, and New York Sixty-ninth in succes- sion. Quimby's regiment advanced steadily up the hill and opened fire on the enemy, who had made a stand. The regiment continued advancing as the enemy gave way, till the head of his colunm reached the point where Rickett's battery had been cut up. The other regi- ments followed under a fearful cannonading. At the point where the road crossed the ridge to the left, the ground was swept by a fire of artillery, rifles, and musketry. Regiment after regiment were driven from it, following the Zouaves and a battalion of marines. When the Wisconsin Second was abreast of the enemy, it av^s or- dered to leave the roadway and attack him. This regiment ascended THE BATTLE OF BULL KUN. 109 the hill, vras met with a sharp fire, returned it gallantly, and advanced, delivering its fire. But the response was terrific, and the regiment fled in confusion toAvard the road. It rallied again, passed the brow of the hill a second time, and was again repulsed in disorder. By this time the New York Seventy-ninth had closed up. It was' impossible to get a good view of the ground. In it there was one battery of artillery, which poured an incessant fire upon the advancing column, and the ground was irregular, with small clusters of pines, which afforded shelter to the enemy. The fire of rifles and musketry grew hotter and hotter. The Seventy-ninth, headed by Colonel Cameron, charged across the hill, and for a short time the contest was terrible. They rallied several times under fire, but finally broke and gained the cover of the hill. This left the field open to the Xew York Sixty-ninth, Colonel Corco- ran, who, in his turn, led his regiment over the crest, and had in full open view the ground so severely contested. The firing was terrific, the roar of cannon, musketry, and rifles, incessant. The enemy was here in immense force. The Sixty-ninth held the ground for some time with desperate courage, but finally fell back in disorder. At this time Quimby's regiment occupied another ridge to the left, overlooking the same field, fiercely engaged. Colonel Keyes, from Ty- ler's division,'had formed in line with Sherman's brigade, and came into conflict on its right with the enemy's cavalry and infantry, which he drove back. The further march of the brigade was arrested by a severe fire of artillery and infantry, sheltered by Robinson's house, standing on tke heights above the road leading to Bull Run. The charge was here ordered, and the Second Maine and Third Connecticut regiments pressed forward to the top of the hill, reached the buildings which were held by the enemy, drove them out, and for a moment had them in possession. At this point, finding the brigade under the fire of a strong force behind breastworks, the order was given to march by the left flank, with a view to turn the battery which the enemy had placed on the hill below the point at which the Warrenton turnpike crosses- Bull Run. The march was conducted for a considerable dis- tance below the Stone Bridge, Causing the enemy to retire, and giving Captain Alexander an opportunity to pass the bridge, cut out the abatis which had been placed there, and prepare the way for Schenck's brigade and the two 'batteries to pass over. Before this movement could be made on the enemy's battery, it was placed in a new position ; but Colonel Keyes carried his brigade, by a flank movement, around the base of the hill, and was on the point of ascending it in time to get at the battery, when he discovered that the troops were on the retreat, and that, unless a rapid movement to the rear was made, he would be cut off. At this moment, the abatis near the Stone Bridge had been 110 THE WAR FOB THE UNION. cleared away by Captain Alexander, of the engineers, and Schenck's brigade (the third of Tyler's division) was about to pass over and join Keyes. But one rash movement liad decided tlie day — that movement the last change of position given to Grillin's battery, throwing it help- less into a murderous fire, which no protecting force could encounter. When the Zouaves broke on that fatal hill, the Union cause for that day wavered. When hordes of fresh troops poured in upon the Union battalions, beating back as brave regiments as ever trod the battle-field, one after another, overwhelming them with numbers, and driving them headlong into utter confusion, the battle was lost ; and after this any description of it must be wild and turbulent as the scene itself — in no other way can a true picture of the tumultuous fighting and more tumultuous retreat be truly given. THE CLl^SIAX AND THE RETREAT. We have described the battle of Manassas, Stone Bridge, or Bull Run, as it is variously called, in its plain details, giving each regiment, 80 far as possible, its share in the glorious fight ; for up to mid-day and after, no braver fighting was ever done than the Union troops per- * fbrmed on that 2l8t of July. Now a wilder, more difficult, and very pain- Jiil effort taxes the pen. The heat, turmoil and terrible storm of death rolls up in a tumultuous picture — troops in masses — stormy action — the confused rush of men — all these things have no detail, but hurl the writer forward, excited and unrestrained as the spene to be de- scribed. At high noon the battle raged in its widest circumference. The bat- teries on the distant hills began to pour their volleys on the Union troops with terrible efiect. Carlisle's and Sherman's batteries answered with tremendous emphasis, while the great 32-pounder hurled its iron thunderbolts first into one of the enemy's defences, then into another, tearing up everything as they Avent. The noise of the can- nonading grew deafening, and kept up one incessant roll. Compared to it the sharp volleys of riflemen were like the rattle of hail amid the loud bursts of a thunder tempest. The people of Centreville, Fairfax, Alexandria, and even Washington, heard the fearful reverberations, and trembled at the sound. Five powerful batteries were in operation at once, joined to the hiss and hurtle of twenty thousand small arms ! No wonder the sky turned black, impalled with death-smoke — no wonder the sun shone fierce and red upon the pools of warm human blood that began to gather around those batteries, where the slain were lying in heaps and winrows I Still amid this roar and carnage, the Federal forces were making TITE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. Ill irJ^lieacIwnT, and driving the enemy before them. Except one bri- mde of Tyler's division, the entire force of eighteen thousand men was in fierce action. As the Union forces pressed upon the enemy, approach- in^T each moment to the completion of their plan of battle, the rebels grew desperate. The batteries on the western hills poured forth their iron tempest with accumulated fury. The Union guns answered them with fiercer thunder. The roar of the cannonading was deafening, drowning the volleys of riflemen, and sweeping off in one overpower- ing sound the rattle and crash of musketry. The clamor of the guns was appalling — the rush and tumult of action more appalling still. The whole valley was like a vast volcano, boiling over with dust and smoke. Through this turbid atmosphere battalions charged each other and batteries poured their hot breath on the air, making it denser than before. Now and then the dust would roll away from the plain, and the smoke float off from the hills, revealing a dash of cavalry across some open space, or a charge of infantry up to a fortified point where the struggle, success, or repulse, was lost or vaguely seen through vol- umes of rolling smoke — columns of ruddy dust trailed after the infan- try, broken now and then by the fiery track of a battery masked in foliage. A sullen report, and horrid gaps appeared in what a moment before was a living wall of men. A curl of blue vapor rose gracefAlly from the trees, and it was only the dead bodies blackening the gromid that made the sight so awful. But the fight gathered fiercest on the westward hill, from Avhich the booming thunder rolled in long incessant peals. Its sides swarmed with armed men, changing positions, charging and retreating. Curtains of smoke, swayed by the wind, revealed the horses around a battery, rearing, plunging and falling headlong, dozens together, in one hideous death. Then in mercy the snxoke drifted over the hill again. The enemy were giving ground at every point. The Mississippians had fled in dismay from the batteries, and desperately taken to the field in wavering columns. Other regiments were actually fleeing before the Union troops, but they were generally moving with sullen steadiness to the rear. The entire line which arrayed itself against Tyler in the morning had been relinquished, except one fortified elevation. Still their peculiar mode of warfore was kept up. Masked batteries were constantly opening in unexpected places, leaving heaps of slain in the track of their fiery hail. On the uplands whole regiments, seen from the distance, seemed to drive against or drift by each other, leaving beautiful curls and clouds of smoke behind ; but under this smoke lay so many dead bodies that the soul grew faint in counting them. Through all this the Federal troops progressed toward a union of 112 THE WAR FOR TUE UNION. 4 their attacking columns. Tyler had already spoken to McDowell, and the two forces were drawing nearer and nearer together. Victory appeared so certain that nothing but a junction of the two columns was wanting to a glorious result, and this now seemed inevitable. The clamor of the artillery was checked for a little time on both Bides. Red-handed death cannot rush panting on the track forever. Black-mouthed guns will get too foul for belching fire, and the swarthy men who feed them must have breathing time. As the fight flagged, and the men paused to draw breath, their terrible suffering was appa- rent in the parched lips that had tasted water but once through all that hot day, and the bloodshot eyes Avith which each man seemed to be- seech his comrade for drink which no one had to give. Still, with dry lips and throats full of dust, they talked over a thousand details of valor performed on the field. They .spoke sadly of the loss of brave Cameron, the wounding of Hunter, the fall of Ilaggerty and Slocum, the doubtful fate of noble young Wilcox. They discussed the impe- tuous dash and resolute stand of 'the Irishmen, the murderous shock sustained by the Rhode Island regiments, how the Highlanders had done justice to their own Avarlike traditions, and the Connecticut Third had crowned its State with honors. They told how Heintzelman had stooped down from his war-horse to have his wounded wrist boimd up, refusing to dismount — of the intrepid Burnside, and of Sprague, the patriotic young Governor, who led on the forces his generosity had raised, to one victorious charge after another, till with his own hands he spiked the Rhode Island guns when compelled to leave them to the enemy. So tranquil was the field during this short period of rest, that the soldiers who had foreborne to throw their rations away in the march, imslung their haversacks and sat down upon the grass to share the contents with their less prudent companions ; those who had been for- tunate enough to pick up the enemy's haversacks, cast off in retreat, added their contents to the scanty store. While a few thus snatched a mouthful of food, others climbed np the tall trees and took a triumphant view of the vast battle-field their valor had conquered. The scene of carnage which it presented was awful. Dead and dying men heaped together on the red earth,- crip- pled horses struggling desperately in their death-throes, wounded men lying helplessly on the grass to which they had been dragged from under the hoofs of the war-chargers — all this groujied where the angry waves of battle had rolled down the beautiful valley, with its back-ground of mountains, looking immovable and grandly tranquil against the sky, was a picture which no man who saw it will ever forget. The army, far advanced within the enemy's defensive lines, believ- THE BATTLE OP BULL RUN. 118 ing itself victorious, was thus falling into quiet. The great struggle of the contending forces, each to outflank the other, had ceased. The prestige of success belonged to the Union, whose stars and stripea shone out triumphantly as the smoke which Lad engulfed the combat* ants rolled away. All at once those in the tree-tops saw a commotion in the far dis- tance. Colunms of troops were moving toward them with flashing bayo- nets, and Southern banners, unfurling the stars and bars to the sun. On they came — rank after rank, column after column, one continuous stream of armed men, pouring down upon the battle-field with bursts of music and wild shouts of enthusiasm. It was Johnston's reinforcements, marching up from the railroad. On they rushed, fresh, vigorous, and burning with ardor, through masses of wounded soldiers that lay by the road. The infantry broke from the double-quick to a swift run — the cavalry rode in on a sharp gallop — the artillery wagons were encircled with men eager to get their ordnance in place against the thrice-exhausted Union troops. In a continuous stream these columns swarmed into the woods, the greater force centering around the hill about which the storm of battle had raged fiercest. In an instant the whole battle commenced again. The ofiicers sprang to their guns, anxious but not appalled. The men fell into rank ready for a new onset, tired as they were. Then it was that Griffin's battery changed position, and the Fire Zouaves coming up under a teri-ible fire, broke and scattered down the hill-side, but rallied again in broken masses to rescuo^Rickett's battery, dragging the guns ofi" with their own hands from amid the pile of dying horses that lay around them. Then it was that the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth New York swept through the meadows from the north across the road, and charged up the hill with such daring cour- age, resisting the shock of battle fifteen minutes, and breaking only when mortal valor could withstand the storm of bullets no longer. Then the bold Connecticut regiments charged up the hill. Thousands of the impetuous enemy fell upon them, but in spite of all they planted the star-spangled banner and sent its folds sweeping out from the crest of the hill. Not till this .was done, and a long last shout sent ringing after the banner, were these heroic regiments driven from their posi- tion. But beaten back at last, they retired step by step, fighting as they went. ' Then the Zouaves brdke into the fight once more, scattered on the aground, some prostrate on their faces, others with limbs huddled together as if dead — while many stood with their eyes to the sun, waiting the onset of the Black Horse cavalry that came galloping upon 8 m 114 THK WAR FOB THE UNION. them from the woods, A few of these eccentric warriors were making a feint of defending themselves while the cavalry stood hesitating on the margin of the wood, but the rest seemed to have been cut down by the sweep of some deadly cannonade, and lay in the grass like a flock of partridge shot down in full flight. Out from the woody cover the Black Hawks thundered on, their arras flashing and the jetty necks of their horses flinging off" the sun- Bhine. The handful of Zouaves now flocked together in front of their prostrate comrades, seeming doubtful whether to fight or flee. On the black chargers came, champing the bit and tossing their heads angrily, the riders ready to trample the scattered Zouaves under hoof, as too easy a conquest for their flashing swords. A sudden, sharp ringing yell, and the dead Zouaves sprang to life, confronting the horsemen in a wall of bristliiig steel. A sharp volley — the horses reared, plunged, and ran back upon each other, some falling dead with quivering limbs as the fatal bullets rent their vitals, and gushes of blood crimsoned their coal-black chests ; others staggering from a dozen wounds, rushed madly through the broken ranks of the terrified cavalry. Before the chargers could again be brought into line, the Zouaves flung away their rifles, and sprang like tigers upon them. Seizing them by the bit, they wound themselves up over their arched necks — a flash of bowie-knives gleamed like chain-lightning across the ranks, and many a wild black horse plunged on riderless with burning eyes, stream- ing mane, and ringing empty stirrups, headlong through the already half-disorganized ranks, and scouring over the battle-Held, scattering dismay as they w«it, A last struggle now ensued, with desperate men and broken forces — then a retreat, so wild, so impetuous and reckless, that all organization was given up. Regiments lost their officers, broke, mingled into other*, and rushed across the field a headlong torrent, which no human power could arrest. On they went, plunging through the sea of carnage that surrounded the hill — the surging, angry broken waves of a brave army hurrying tumultuously from what had been a victorious field but an hour before. Down from the hills, broken into frightened masses, pallid, reeling with exhaustion, they swept onward like a whirlwind, bearing the pro- testing officers with them, or trampling them under foot ; for human life was nothing to them in that hot, mad race. The contagion of retreat spread like a prairie fire, from one point of the battle-field to another, scattering the army in wild confusion-. Still it was not quite a panic ; two regiments, the Seventy-first New York and Second Rhode Island, kept their ranks in all this confusion, and were led in order from the field, over the road they had passed in THE BATTLE OF BULL BUN. 115 the morning. Other regiments were led off in a wild, scattered way, but most of the great army was broken up, battalions and regiments surging together, and dashing through each other, till they became one mighty scene of confusion. THE ENEMY LARGELY EKINFORCED — DESPERATE nGUTINQ OF THE UNION TBOOFa AGAINST SUPERIOR NUMBERS, The enemy pursued them in a broken, hesitating way, like men aston- ished at their own success ; wanting confidence, they did not venture in force to follow the retreating army, but captured many of the scattered bands dispersed over the wide field of conflict. One detachment of cavalry charged on a helpless crowd of wounded, who were gathered near a hospital building ; when a handful of unorganized men, mostly civilians, seized upon the first weapons at hand, and repelled it bravely. Up to this time Schenck's brigade had kept its position at Stone Bridge. Captain Alexander, with his sappers and miners, had jugt cut through the abatis by the side of the mined bridge, that Schenck might lead his forces after those of Sherman and Keyes, when the torrent of retreat rolled toward him ; his protecting battery wa« taken, and a force of cavalry and infantry came pouring into the road at the very spot where the battle of the morning commenced. The first battery attacked tl at day had been silenced, but not taken ; 116 THE WAE FOR THE UKION. and there, in the woods which protected it, four hundred Sonth Caro- luiians had been concealed during the entire battle, to swarm out now and fall upon the Union infantry in this most critical moment. A sud- den swoop of cavalry completed that unhappy day's work. The Union infantry broke ranks, and plunging into the woods fled up the hill. A crowd of ambulances and army wagons had concentrated close to this spot, and civilians, led to the field by curiosity, blocked up the ground. The panic which had swept the battle-field seized on them. Kellogg of Michigan, Washburne of Illinois, and it is said, Lovejoy of Illinois, flung themselves m the midst of the fugitives, and entreated them to make a stand. Ely, of New York, was taken prisoner in a rash effort to restore confidence to the panic stricken masses of men. But the maddened crowd plunged on. The teamsters urged their frightened horses into a headlong rush for the road ; everything and everybody, br.ive or craven, were swept forward by the irresistible human torrent. It was a stampede which no power could check or resist. From the branch road the trains attached to Hunter's division had caught the contagion, and rushed into the staggering masses, creating fresh dismay and wilder confusion. It was a frightful scene, more terrible by far than the horrors of the battle field. Broken regiments, without leaders, filled the road, the open fields, and skirted the fences, in one wild panic. Army wagons, fitler's teams and artillery caissons rushed together, running each other own, and leaving the wrecks upon the road. Hacks were crushed be- tween heavy wagon wheels and their occupants flung to the ground. Horses, wild with fright and maddened with wounds, galloped fiercely through the crowd, rearing and plunging when the worn-out fugitives attempted to seize them and save themselves from the destruction that was threatened at every step. Wounded men, who had found strength to stagger off" the battle-field, fell by the wayside, begging piteously to be taken up. Now and then a kind fellow would mount a wounded soldier behind him, and give tho horse be had caught a double load; most of the poor fellows were brought forward in this way. Sometimes a wounded man would bo picked up by two passing companions, and carried tenderly forward — for the sweet impulses of humanity were not all lost in that wild retreat. Then came the artillery — for much was saved — thundering through the panic-stricken crowd, crushing every tiling as it went, dragged reck- lessly along by horses wild as the men that urged them on. Rifles, bayonets, pistols, blankets, haversacks and knapsacks were flung singly or in heaps along the way. Devoured by intense thirst, black with powder, famished and halting, these stricken men plunged into the fields, searching for water. If a muddy pool presented itself, they 8t,ag- THB BATTLE OF BULL EUK. 117 gered to its brink with a pitiful laugh, and lying down on their faces, drank greedily, then arose with tears in their eyes, thanking God for the great luxury. As they passed by the few houses on the road, women — God bless them ! — would come out, some with curt, but genuine hospitality, others with tears streaming down their cheeks, and gave drink and food to the wounded men as they halted by. Those who fell upon the wayside were taken in and tended kindly till the next day. Boys came from the wells, bearing pailsful of water, which their little sisters distributed to the jaded men in their own tin cups. But this panic, like all others, was of brief duration.- When the fuo-itives reached Centreville, they found Blenker's brigade stretched across the road ready to guard the retreat. Some of the fugitives ral- lied and formed into line, but they had flung away their arms, and the highway from Stone Bridge to Centreville was literally covered with these cast-off weapons and munitions of war, hurled from the army wagons by reckless teamsters. In places the road was blocked up by the wagons themselves, from which the drivers had cut their teams loose and fled on the relieved horses. Blenker, of Miles' division, whose duty up to this time had been one of inaction at Centreville, now did good service at his important post With three regiments he kept the road, expecting every moment to be assailed by an overpowering and victorious enemy, eager to complete his fatal work. As the darkness increased, the peril of his position be- came imminent. At eleven o'clock the attack came upon the advance company of Colonel Stahel's rifles, from a body of the enemy's cavalry, which was, however, driven back, and did not return. At this time IJichardson and Davies were both in Centreville with their brigades, which composed the entire left wing, all well organized and under per- fect command. These troops were put under the command of Colonel Davies, who led them off the field— Blenker's brigade being»the last to leave the town it had done so much to protect. The cause of this stupendous stampede no one ever has or can ex- plain. Cowardice it certainly was not. Those men had fought too bravely, and suffered too patiently for that charge to be brought against them. They were in fact victorious soldiers, for the rout of a single half hour, disastrous as it proved, should have no power to blot out the deeds of heroism that had marked the entire day. Was it excitement, acting on an exhausted frame ? Let those answer who bore the flag of our Union through the long hours of that July day, carried it under the hot sim through the fierce fight, the dust and smoke and carnage, when the sky was one mosaic of flame, and the earth groaned under the vibrations of artiUery. They 118 THE WAi FOR THE UNIOIT. had marched twelve miles fasting, and with but one draught of water ; marched without pause straight on to the battle field, and for nearly five hours fought bravely .as men ever fought on earth. Slany who had food found no time to eat it till the battle was at its close, but in the rash eagerness for the field, these men, new to the necessities of war, had flung their rations away, restive under the weight. They had started not far from midnight, from camps in a tumult of preparation, and therefore lacked sleep as well as food. To all this was added thirst — that hot, withering thirst, which burns like lava in the throat, and drives a man mad with craving. Panting for drink, their parched lips were blackened with gunpowder ; and ex- hausted nature, when she clamored for food, was answered by the bit- tor saltness of cartridges ground between the soldiers' teeth. Think of these men, famished, sleepless, drinkless, after fighting through the fiery noon of a hot day, suddenly overwhelmed in the midst of a positive victory — called upon to fight another battle, while every breath came pantingly, from thirst, and every nerve quivered with the overtax of its natural strength. Think of them under the hoofs of the Black Horse cavalry, and swept down by the very batteries that had been their protection. Think of all this, and if men of military standing can condemn them, war is a cruel master, and warriors hard critics. It is very easy for civilians, who sit in luxurious parlors and sip cool ices under the protection of the old flag, to sneer at this panic of Bull Run, but many a brave man — ^braver than their critics, or they would not have been in the ranks — was foimd even in the midst of that stampede. What if all along the road were the marks of hurried flight — aban- doned teams, dead horses, wasted ammunition, coats, blankets ? Were there not dead and dying men there also ? brave and hardy spirits, noble, gegerous souls, crushed beneath the iron hoof of war — sacrificed and dying bravely in retreat, as they had fought in the advance ? Never on this earth did the proud old American valor burn fiercer or swell higher than on that day and field. And a reproach to the heroes who left the impress of bravery, and gave up their lives on that red val- ley, should never come from any true American heart. THE BATTLE ON THE LEFT WING. On the morning of the 21st, according to McDowell's plan of battle, the left wing, composed of Colonel Miles' division, M'as stationed at Centreville and at Blackburn's Ford, the scene of Tyler's disaster on the 1-eth. Thus during the heat and struggle of that awful day the greater portion of the left wing was six miles from the centre of action. But THE BATTLE OF BULL EUN. 119 notwithstanding, no better service was rendered to the country on that day than that of this comparatively small handful of men. The first brigade of this command, under Colonel Blenker, occupied the heights of Centreville. » , The second brigade, under Colonel Thomas A. Davies, of New York, and Richardson's brigade, were ordered by Colonel Miles to take posi- tion before the batteries at Blackburn's Ford, near the battle ground of the 18th, to make demonstrations of attack. In pursuance of General McDowell's order. Colonel Davies, being ranking officer, took command of Richardson's brigade. On his route from Centreville in the morning, when about half-way to Blackburn's Ford, Colonel Davies, while conversing with the guide who rode by him, saw a country road, apparently little used, leading through the woods to the left. " That road," said the guide, a fine, in- telhgent fellow, " will give position farther left and nearer the enemy, for it runs directly to Beauregard's headquarters." Colonel Davies, who had graduated at West Point and served in the Mexican war, was prompt to recognize the importance of a point which might enable the enemy to move upon his rear. He ordered a halt, ^nd detailed the Thirty-first New York regiment. Colonel Pratt, and the Thirty-second, Colonel Mathewson, with a detachment of artillery, to guard the road at its junction, and deployed another regiment with a section of artillery on the road, which was shaded and hedged in on both sides by a heavy growth of timber. This duty performed, the troops continued their march. Davies took his position in a wheat field with what was left of his brigade, leaving Richardson to make his own arrangements to defend the position in front of the enemy's batteries at Blackburn's Ford, the battle-ground of the 18th." Richardson posted his command in this place, on the road from Centreville heights to Blackburn's Ford. The wheat field which Davies occupied contained a hill which over- looked a ravine,*ffiickly wooded, on the opposite slope. On this hill Hunt's battery, commanded by Lieutenant Edwards, was placed, having been exchanged from force of circumstances for Green's battery, which belonged to Davies' command, but was now with Richardson. The bat- tery was supported by Davies' own regiment, the Sixteenth New York, and the Eighteenth, Colonel Jackson. This hill commanded a broad view of the country on every side. The battle ground of the right wing, six miles off, was in full sight. Opposite his position, across the stream, was the road which led from Bull Run to Manassas, and also to Beauregard's extreme right. Parallel with the river to his extreme left, it was plainly traced, except where groves and clumps of trees con- cealed it. This road, with all the high grounds sloping from Manassas, 120 THB WAR FOB THE UNION. covered with broken" ridges, rich pasture lands and splendid groves, lay before the men as they placed their battery. On their rear tlie Centreville road stretched along a beautiful tract of country, hidden by a»waving sea of luxuriant fbliage. Indeed all the converging roads that threaded the vast battle-field were plainly visible from that point. Posted in this commanding position, Davies opened his demonstration with two twenty-pound rifle guns from Hunt's battery. The first shot hurled a shell into Beauregard's headquarters, which sent the rebels scat- tering in eVery direction. Richardson also commenced firing across the Run, producing the desired effect of keeping the enemy at their defences in the neighborhood. At ten o'clock Colonel Miles visited the command. Finding the two regiments and artillery posted at the country road, he ordered the regiments to move forward one-fourth of a mile, and the artillery to join Davies' command, leaving the road exposed. He then sent two companies to reconnoitre the enemy's position. They had a skirmish on the stream, at Blackburn's Ford, and came back with little damage. The moment Miles rode back to Centreville, Davies ordered out his brigade pioneer corps, all sturdy lumbermen of the North, with orders to fell trees and block up the country road thus left exposed. For two hours these sturdy men sAvnng their axes among the heavy timber, answering the distant roar of the battle-field with a wild, crash- ing music, that broke with a new and more startling expression of war through the familiar roll of cannon. With sharp, crashing groans, the great trees were hurled to the earth, locked their splintered and broken boughs across the road, and covered it with mangled foliage, forming a barricade one-fourth of a mile long, impassable as a thousand cactus hedges. The roar of cannon afar off, and the batteries belching iron close by, failed to drown the groaning rush of these forest monarchs ; and when the near guns were silent for a little time, as often happened, the almost human shiver of a tree, in its last poise before it rushed downward with a wail in all its leaves and branches, conveyed an idea of death more'^thrilling than any noise that battle-field had to give. At twelve o'clock, just after the pioneers had returned to position, a body of the enemy came down this road from Bull Run, intending to march on Cen- tre^'ille and take Miles' division in the rear. Clouds of red dust rising from the trees betrayed them just as they had discovered the barricade, and a storm of shell and shrapnel hastened their backward march. About this time the road on the other side of Bull Rim was one cloud of flying dust. It was Johnston's forces, a close line, going up to snatch victory from the brave army at Stone Bridge. The advance of these forces became ^ isible at first in tiny curls of dust rising from the THB BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 121 woods. Then it swelled into clouds, through which jaded horses and tired men seemed struggling onward in a continued stream. At this time the distant cannonading became louder and more contin- uous ; the far-oflf woods rolled up vast volumes of smoke, and where the battle raged,-a black canopy hung suspended in mid-air. How those brave men, chained to their post by inevitable military law, panted to plunge into that hot contest ! The inaction forced upon them when a struggle of life and death was going on in the distance, was worse than torture. They suspected. the character of those troops moving forward in the red cloud, and followed them with eager, burning eyes. But they soon had work of their own to do ! The firing on the right slackened between three and four o'clock, grow- ing fainter and fainter. About five, Colonel Davies received a line from Richardson, saying : " The army is in full retreat ;" but the line was written in the haste and agitation of bad news, and was indistinct. Davies read it : " The enemy is in full retreat," But for this providen- tial mistake, the battle of that day would have had a darker record than we are making now ; for the retreat, disastrous as it was, would have been cut oK, and Washington probably taken. Believing the anny victorious, these brave men bore the restraints of their position more patiently,*but still panted for a share in the work. At this time Beauregard's telegraph, opposite the left of Davies' posi- tion, had been working half an hour ; and from lines of dust concentrat- ing there and at Davies' front, he anticipated an attack, and made dis- position accordingly. At five o'clock, the enemy appeared on the left, as Davies formed in line parallel to Bull Run, and about eight hundred yards distant. Be- tween the hill which he occupied, and the slope down which they came from the road, was the valley or ravine, about four hundred yards from Hunt's battery. They filed down the road and formed in the valley, marching four abreast, with their guns at right shoulder shift, shining like a ripple of diamonds in the sunshine, and moving forward in splendid style. At first Davies viewed them in silence, and standing still ; but as the column began to fill the valley, he changed front to the left, and ordered the artillery to withhold its fire till the rear of the enemy's column presented itself, and directed the infantry to He down on their faces, and neither fire nor look up without orders. This was done that the enemy might not learn his strength and charge on the battery. The rear of the column at last presented itself, an officer on horse- back bringing it up. Then an order to fire was given, and Lieutenant Benjamin, a brave young fellow from West Point, fired the first shot from a twenty-pound rifled gun. 122 THE WAR FOB IHB UiaOX. A uloud of dust, with a horse rearing, and its rider struggling in the midst, was all the result that could be observed. The rear of the enemy's column then took the double-quick down the valley, and six pieces of artillery opened on them. The effect was terrible ; at the distance of only four hundred yards, the enemy took the raking downward fire in all its fury. An awful cry rang up from the valley ; the men had been swept down like wheat before a scythe, and their moans filled the air. This murderous fire was repeated over and over again. There was no waiting to swab the guns, but, fast as powder and ball could be served, the ordnance sent out its volleys. The enemy made a desperate stand, but every shot swept down the men in masses. A vacant space appeared for a moment, then fresh men filed in. Twice they attempted to reform and charge the battery, but the rapidity with which the pieces were served, and the peculiar nature of the ground, rendered every shot effective,, and they were swept back, cut down, speedily dis- organized, and fled for the woods. During all this action, Lieutenant-Colonel Marsh, of the Sixteenth, and Colonel Pratt, of the Thirty-first (the former since killed, and the latter wounded before Richmond), controlled their men perfectly. Not an infantry shot Avas fired during the Engagement. Balls from the enemy struck the ground in volleys before the men, filling their eyes with dust. No man gave way ; they were compelled to change posi- tion three times during the fight. Although so many of the enemy were killed, this spot being named, in the secession reports, as giving the heaviest mortality of the day, only two men of Davies' command were hurt. One man was wounded, anH. Lieutenant Craig, a brave young officer from West Point, was killed. This brilliant engagement, so important in its results, sprang out of a singular series of accidents: first, in the mistake made in reading Richardson's dispatch, and again in a failure of orders. When the main army began its retreat past Centreville, at four o'clock. Colonel Miles sent his aid. Captain Vincent, to order Davies and his command back to Centreville, but Vincent, instead of coming first to Davies, stopped to give orders to Richardson, and two regiments of Davies' brigade, stationed to guard his rear. After ordering Richardson back, Vincent came over the ravine to deliver his orders to Davies, when he heard his firing on the extreme left, went back to Centreville, to re- port, and returned just as the firing ceased, to direct Colonel Davies to retire on Centreville. Davies, ignorant that Richardson had already fallen back, rode over to order his retreat, but to his astonishment, almost horror, found that the whole brigade, with two regiments of his own forceC^left to guard THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 123 his rear, had been gone a full hour. Thus it happened \/iat this im- portant engagement had been fought and won with a single battery and two regiments of infantry, utterly alone and unsupported on the de- serted battle-field, against a large body of men, endeavoring to sweep to the rear and cut off the army in its retreat. It was near six o'clock when this contest terniinated — two hours after the main army were in full retreat. If ever delay and accident were providential on this earth, it was l^re ; for brave as these men were, no sane leader would have felt justified in exposing them to such peril upon a deserted battle-field, and in the face of a whole victorious army, after all chance of protection had been withdrawn. When this band of victorious men reached Centreville, a stream of jaded, wounded and heavy-hearted men were pouring through the vil- lage, while General McDowell was making a desperate eifort to collect all the troops that still kept a show of organization, under his own com- mand. These troops were principally cornposed of the left wing, which came ofi" the ground in good order. McDowell, about eight o'clock, left Centreville for Fairfax Court House. Before going Colonel Miles was relieved from his command of the left wing, and the following order, written on the back of a visiting card, was handed to Colonel Davies : Colonel Davies is consigned to the command of the left wing, as the troops are now formed. By command, J. B. Fey, a. a. g. July 21. Under this running order Colonel Davies assumed command of all that was left of the army in Centreville, and marched them in good order to Alexandria and Washington, Blenker's division being the last to leave the field. This gallant oflScer had been among the bravest and most resolute in protecting the retreat, and had by his firmness held the enemy in check during the afternoon and evening. THE BATTLE-FIELD AT JflGHT. At night the calm air, the gently falling dew, visited that blasted earth sweetly as they had done the night before, when the valley was fresh with verdure and beautiful with thrifty crops. But the scene it presented was O, how different ! In mercy the deep shadows cast by the Avoods concealed its worst features, and the smoke had risen so densely between earth and sky that the moon looked down upon it mournfully, through a veil. The battle-field was still, save when the solemn shiver of the leaves came Uke a painful and mighty sigh, or the 124 THE WAIl FOR TUB UNION". troubled waves of the Run continued it in hoarser murmurs. If human moans broke the stiUness, they were lost on that vast field, and only heard by the pitying angels. But solitary lights wandered over the field, like stars dropped by a merciful heaven to light the departing souls through the valley and shadow of death. They were indeed heavenly rays, for all that is divine in human mercy sent them forth. Kind men, and more than one heroic woman carried them from point to point over that dreary battle-field, searching among the dead for those who, breathing yet, might suffer for water or Cliristian comfort. There was a house on the hill top where Griffin's battery had stood, and where the Connecticut troops had planted the stars and stripes in their last desperate charge. Through all the fight, a helpless and frightened family had found precarious shelter in their own dwelling. The household was composed of a son, a daughter, and the mother, a gentle Christian Avoman, who had been confined to her bed for years. There was no hopes of flight for her, poor soul, and neither son nor daughter would abandon her when the storm of battle was at their threshold. Hoping to find a place of safety, the devoted children carried her to a neighboring ravine, sheltering her with their own persons. But this spot became at last more dangerous than the house. So the harassed children took their parent back to her home, and placing her in bed again, stood to screen her from the bullets that broke like hail through the walls and windows. While her house was riddled with cannon balls and musket shot, and the missiles of death plunged through her chamber and into her bed, three bullets pierced her frail person. Still she outlived the battle tempest that raged around her, a tempest that she had not even dreamed of approaching her dwelling when that fatal day daAvned upon it. When the night came on she died peacefully, and the troubled moon looked down on a mournful scene here also. Within the riddled walls and under the torn roof, this gentle woman lay, in a quieter sleep than she had known for many a long night, and by her bed knelt the bereaved children who had dared so much, weeping that a life so peaceful should have met that violent ending. Painful as this was, there lay many poor soldiers on the field that hour, Avhose children would never have the privilege of weeping over them. In an orchard of young trees, just forming their fruit, lay many a pros- trate Southron, sent to his long account ; for the enemy had suQ*ered terribly there. The northern verge of the field was blackened by a fine grove in which a Georgia regiment had fought, and under its black shadows the dead lay thick and numerous. Here Lamar had fallen. THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 125 and many a brave Northman slept side by side with the foe he had sent into eternity but a moment in advance of himself. The fatal hill, scorched and blackened in every tree and blade of grass, was strewn with the dead of both sections, among them some of the bravest leaders that the enemy boasted. There have been rumors of great cruelty on the battle-field after the fight was over — of men prowling like fiends among the dead, and murdering the wounded ; but these things should be thrice proven before we believe them of American citizens. Rumor is always triple- tongued, and human nature does not become demoniac in a single hour. One thing is certain, many an act of merciful kindness was performed that night, which an honest «^en should prefer to record. Certain it is that Southern soldiers in' many instances shared their water — the most precious thing they had — with the wounded Union men. A sol- dier passing over the field found two wounded combatants lying together — one was a New Yorker, the other a Georgian. The poor wounded fellow from New York cried out piteously for water, and the Georgian, gathering up his strength, called out : " For God's sake give him drink ; for I called on a New York" man for water when his column was in retreat, and he ran to the trench at the risk of his life and brought it to me !" One brave young enemy lost his life after passing through all the perils of the battle, in attempting to procure drink for his wounded foes. If there were individual instances of cruelty on either side, and this is possible — let us remember that there was kindness too ; and when the day shall come — God grant it may be quickly — when we are one people again, let the cruelty be forgiven and the kindness only remem- bered. And now our record of the battle of Bull Run is at an end. It was valiantly contended on both sides, and won only from superior num- bers and reinforcements of fresh troops, poured upon the exhausted soldiery of the Union. To gain this contest the South sent her best and very bravest generals. Her forces Avere led by Beauregard and Johnston, both experienced oflScers. They were also cheered by the near presence of Jefferson Davis, who came upon the field when the victory was assured, amid the shouts of a soldiery, the more enthu- siastic because they hadjust been rescued from almost certain defeat. They had the choice of position and had fortified it with wonderful skill ; a thorough knowledge of the country, and troops unwearied by long marches — indeed, the advantages were altogether on their side. The North, never dreaming that an open rebellion would break out, was utterly dependant on undisciplined troops ; while the South, having premeditated resistance to the Government, had been drilling men for 126 TIIE WAR FOB TUE UNION. months, if not years. There was no one point except in the actual bravery of their leaders and soldiers in which the enemy was not supe- rior to the Union forces. In personal valor the Southerners themselves have never claimed to surpass that exhibited in this battle by their foes. The smallest estimate of the forces actually engaged on the Southern side is eighteen thousand — while the Union forces which crossed Bull Run did not at any time count more than thirteen thousand. One brigade of McDowell's eighteen thousand was not in the action, except in a vain effort to check the retreat. This brigade, of General Tyler's division, was stationed at Stone Bridge, and never advanced upon the actual battle-field. The attack repulsed by. Davies on the left wing, at Blackburn's Ford, took place nearly two hours after the army Avas in retreat. In the loss of officers, the enemy was even more unfortunate than the Union army. The fall of General Bee, one of the bravest of their lead- ers, Bartow, Colonel Thomas, Colonel Hampton, Colonel Johnson, Lamar, and others, shed a gloom upon their victory, and greatly weak- ened their cause in the future. The Union loss was heavy, for the men who fell or were taken prisoners were among the bravest that marched .with the army, but the Joss of officers by death was inferior to that of the enemy, and though Corcoran and Wilcox were wounded and taken prisoners, they were not lost to their country. In ordnance and muni- tions of war the conquest was less important than might have been supposed, Many of the Union guns were rescued from the field during the next day. Of the fine horses attached to the ordnance a large pro- portion were killed, and others were saved by their drivers, Avho cut the traces, and rode them from the scene of battle. The loss in killed and wounded on the Union side, was 481 killed, 1,011 wounded, Und 1,216 missing: total, 2,708. That of the enemy numbered, by Beaure- gard's report, 393 killed, 1,200 wounded. The victory was a very important one to the South, as it gave pres- tige and force to a rebellion which, had the position of things been reversed, would, it is probable, have expired before the year went out. But in the North it only served to arouse the people to a pitch of ex- citement hitherto unparalleled ; if troops had been sent forth in regi- ments before, they came in brigades after that defeat. 11^ WESTERN VIEGINIA. 12J WESTEM VIEGDflA. Virginia has three grand divisions, viz. : the Eastern Section, extend- ing from tide-water up to the Blue Ridge Mountains ; the Great Valley between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies ; Western Virginia, stretching from the Great Valley to the Ohio river. The contest between the people of the eastern and western portions of the State for supremacy had been one of long duration, dating back for many years. Internal improvements appear to have been the cause of this dissension — Western Virginia claiming that the East had en- joyed and been benefitted by them hitherto exclusively. In this jealousy the inhabitants of the Valley sympathized, and the completion of the James River and Kanawha Canal to the Ohio- aroused a feel, ing of such bitter rivalry, that even the Governor favored the project of a division of the State. Added to this was the complaint of unequal taxation. The eastern portion being the large slaveholding district, paid per capita^ without regard to value, while the wealth of the west- ern, consisting of land and stock, was taxed ad valorem. This strife, of necessity, was carried from the people into the Legislature, and stormy debates followed. The feeling of the West on the slavery question, also, added fuel to the flame, and the loyalty of that section was attacked. In the State Convention which passed the ordinance of secession, the western delegates took a firm and bold stand against it. When the Act was about to be consummated, great excitement prevailed in regard to the action of the western members, both inside and out of the Convention, and some of them were obliged to leave Richmond. In May, when the ordinance was submitted to the people, the north- western counties voted largely against it. A Convention assembled at Wheeling, and a committee was ap- pointed, which called a General Convention 'to convene at the same place on the 11th of June. Forty counties were represented there, and an ordinance was passed for the reorganization of the State Govern- ment, every officer to be obliged to swear allegiance anew to the United States, and to repudiate the Richmond Convention. A Governor, Lieu- tenant-Governor, and other State officers were elected, and the Legisla- ture was summoned " to assemble at the United States District Court- room in the city of Wheeling, at noon, on the first day of July, 1861." Both houses met and organized. The Governor's Message was sent in- together with a document from Washington, officially recognizing the new Government. The message recommended an energetic co-operation with the Federal Government. United States Senators were then elected. On the 20th of August, the Convention passed an ordinance creating , 130 niE WAR FOR THE UiriOIT. • a new State, to be called " Kanawha." It included thirty-nine counties, and provision was made for the admission of other adjoining counties, if a majority of the people of each desired it. The question of forming a separate State was submitted to the popular vote on the 24th of Oc- tober, and resulted in favor of the proposition by a large majority. Since that time other counties have signified a desire to be admitted. Western Virginia became the scene of military operations directly after the war broke out, following in close order upon the occupation of Alexandria. On the 30th of May Colonel Kelly took possession of Grafton, and the occupation of Phillipi followed but a few days subse- quently. Federal troops also crossed the Ohio and entered Parkers- burgh. General McClellan had command of this portion of the State, it being included in the Ohio district, and issued his proclamation to the Union men of Virginia. A series of offensive and defensive events now followed each other in rapid succession, exhibiting bravery and determination unparalleled in history — individual heroism and uncomplaining endurance of suffering — rapid marches and brilliant charges, that shine in letters of fire upon the pages of our war history, and threw the prestige of early victory about the northern arms. It was here that IMcClellan won his first laurels — here that chivalric Lander met a soldier's death — here that Kelly was wounded, till for M^eeks and Weeks his life jvas despaired of Li fact, Western Virginia is covered with victorious Union battle-fields. She has indeed given" their greenest laurels to many of our generals. The military department of Ohio, in which Western Virginia was included, was organized on the tenth of May, and Major-General George B. McClellan appointed to the command. His headquarters were at Cincinnati. On the 2Gth of the same month he issued his first proclamation, declaring that his mission was one of fraternity, luiion, and protection, and called upon all patriotic men to aid him in his endeavors to accomplish this holy purpose. The proclamation produced a marked effect. Colonel Kelly, of Wheeling, Virginia, had prior to that date organized a regiment for the defence of the Union, known as the' "First Virginia Volunteers." * On Friday, the 24th of May, about twelve hundred rebels had assem- bled and marched from Harper's Ferry to Grafton, a town on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and forced many citizens to abandon their homes and fly for safety, leaving their property to be pillaged by the ene- my. About one hundred of the fugitives reached Morgantown. The in- habitants of that place, warned of their danger, immediately flew to arms and prepared for a vigorous defence. Finding that they were not to be mo- lested, and burning for revenge, they marched, 1000 strong — their ranks having been swelled by friends from Pennsylvania — towards Grafton. BATTLE OP PIIILLIPI. 131 The rebels became alarmed and fled to Philippi, in Bourbon county, about 17 miles southward.* On Monday, the 27th, detachments of Oliio and Indiana troops crossed the Ohio river at Wheeling and at Marietta, on their Avay, also, ^o Grafton. Simultaneously, Colonel Kelly's regi- ment of Virginians moved forward in the same direction^* but the bridges having been destroyed, their march Avas delayed. At every point, and especially at IMannington and Fairraount, they were received with great enthusiasm and hailed as deliverers. BATTLE or PHILLIPI. Brigadier-General Thomas A. Morris arrived at Grafton on the even- ing of June 1st, and took command of the Union forces. An expedition was immediately organized to surprise and attack the rebels at Philippi, under the command of Colonel Porterfield. The troops left in two divisions. The First Virginia regiment, part of the Ohio Sixteenth, and the Seventh Indiana, under Colonel Kelly, moved eastward, by rail to Thornton, a distance of five miles, and from there marched on twenty-two miles to Phillipi, reaching the town on the lower side. The second division, consisting of the Sixth and Seventh Indiana, the Fourteenth Ohio, and a, section of artillery under Lieutenant-Col- onel Sturgis, met by detachments at Webster, on the North-western Virginia railroad, and marched twelve miles to Phillipi. The com- bined forces were commanded by Colonels Dumont and Lander, and at eight o'clock on the night of the 2d of June marched forward through one of the most overwhelming storms known to our country that year. Lander had been detailed to a special command by General Morris, and in the terrible march that followed, through darkness, mud and rain he led the way, sometimes exploring the route three miles ahead of his forces, in the midst of profound darkness; and through mud so deep and tenacious that every forward step was a struggle. The men followed, bravely toiling through the miry soil, staggering forward in thick dark- ness, and pelted by the rain so violently that they could not have seen the road had it been daylight. Still, not a murmur Avas heard. Against the Avhole force of the elements the brave fellows struggled on, eager for the storm of fire Avhich Avas soon to folloAV the deluge that poured upon them. Noav and then Lander's majestic form, seated upon his charger, Avould loom upon them through the darkness, returning from his scouting duty to cheer them Avith his deep, sympathetic voice, which aroused them like a trumpet. Thus they moved on, supported by one Btern purpose, through Avoods, across valleys, and over hills, the storm droAvning their approach till they dreAV up on the edge of the toAvn 132 THE WAB POB THB XTSIOTH. overlooking the enemy. But it was not altogether a surprise. Just before they reached the town the troops had passed a farm-house. A woman within that house sprang from her bed as she saw the lines of troops filing slowly by in the misty gray of the*dawn, and guessed their object. She instantly aroused her little scfti and sent him by a short cross-road to give the alarm. The boy was quick of foot, but the hopes of conflict had so aroused the energies of these jaded men that he was but a few minutes in advance of them. Lander's troops took position on a hill across the river and below the town, commanding it and the encampments around. He at once planted two pieces of artillery, and prepared to open fire at exactly four o'clock, the hour agreed upon for the attack, which was to be made at once by both divisions. Lander was to assault them in front, while Kelly was to attack the rear and cut off all retreat. But Lander found his division alone before the enemy. The terrible night, the almost impassable roads, and a march of twenty-two miles had delayed Kelly's forces, and when he did arrive it was to come in by mistake below the town. The presence of Lander's troops aroused the town and threw it into terrible commotion. In vain Lander searched the distant hills, impatient fdjr Kelly's appearance. The hour of attack had arrived and passed. The men became impatient as their leader, who, in his indomitable courage commenced the battle with a portion of his forces. When Lander gave the order his eager men sprang to their posts, and the artillery opened fire. As the first gun awoke its thunder on the encampments, Kelly advanced, but in the wrong direction. He instantly comprehended Lander's action, and with prompt courage charged upon the encampments. The batteries had by this time ob- tained the range, and were pouring in their messengers of terror and death, tearing through tents and cabins, and scattering the rebels like chaff in every direction. Aftir firing a volley of musketry, Lander advanced. Colonel Kelly's command was close upon the enemy, the Virginia troops in advance, the Henry Clay Guards in front, and Colonel Kelly , and Captain Fordyce leading, while Colonel Lander's force came rush- ing down the hill to the bridge and joined in an impetuous pursuit of the fugitives. Colonel Kelly, who, with a bravery amounting almost to rashness, had been foremost from the very first, was shot by a con- cealed foe, the ball entering the left breast and lodging beneath the shoulder blade. As his men conveyed him to a place of safety, this brave man, while in the agony of his pain, exclaimed, " I expect I shall have to die. I would be glad to live, if it might be, that I might do something for my country, but if it cannot be, I shall have at least the GENERALS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. 133 » consolation of knowing that I fell in a just cause." But he was not destined to be cut off in the zenith of his fame and usefulness. After a few weeks of danger and anguish he was again performing noble duty for the country he loved so well. In this dashing victory fifteen of the rebels were killed, a large num- ber wounded, and ten taken prisoners, together with a quantity of camp equipage, arms, &c. The organization of the rebels at that point was completely broken up, and the men driven to the mountains. GREAT DESTRUCTION OP RAILROAD PROPERTY. The bitter animosity of the rebel army was strikingly illustrated on the 23d Jxily, by the destruction of a large number of locomotives and cars of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad by secession troops under the command of Colonel Thomas J. Jackson. Forty-eight locomotives and three hundred cars were blown up or burned, one of the engines having been previously wrapped in our national ensign. The road had been rendered impassable by the destruction of bridges, and, there- fore, the rolling stock could not have been rendered available. The estimated loss was about three-quarters of a million of dollars. GENERAL M'CLELLAN IN WESTERN VIRGINIA. General McClellan, during the time that elapsed since his appoint- ment, had been actively engaged in organizing his forces and getting them ready for efficient service. Scouting parties — an important fea- ture of his department — were detailed for service, and raw troops replaced by experienced men. Colonel Kelly, who was now recovering from the wounds received at Phillipi, had been appointed by Gover- nor Pierpont to the command of the Virginia brigade of volunteers. Gens. Morris, Hill, Schenck and Schleich were assigned their respective positions — the telegraph lines were put in order, and new ones for mili- tary purposes were constructed where necessary. The arrival of fresh regiments, among which Colonel Rosecranz made his appearance, added great activity to the department. On the side of the enemy were Generals Robert S. Garnett, Henry A. Wise, Ex-Governor, John B. Floyd, Ex-Secretary of War, and Colonel Pegram. Columns of Federal troops were dispatched to attack the enemy, simultaneously, at three different points, and the first collision between them occurred on the 10th of July. 134 THB WAB FOB THE UNION". BATTLE OF SOAEEYTOWN. A brigade of rebels under Governor Wise, crossed the Alleghanies to the head-waters of the Kanawha, with the intention of attacking the rear of McClellan's forces, while General Garnett was prepared to meet him in front. General Cox had been dispatched to this section with a considerable force of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky troops, and was encamped on the Kanawha about ten miles below its junction with Scarey Creek. Hearing that a portion of the rebel force had taken position at Scareyto^v^l, but four miles above his camp, on the other side of the river, and were entrenching themselves there, General Cox dispatched a force of about 1,000 men, consisting of the Twelfth Ohio, a portion of the Twenty-first Ohio, the Cleveland Artillery, and a de- tachment of cavalry, all under the command of Colonel Lowe, to dis- lodge the rebels if practicable. The column was ferried across the stream, and moved cautiously onward, the scouts scouring the country as they advanced. The enemy was found to be entrenched on the opposite side of Pocatallico Creek, here intersecting the Kanawha, protected by breastworks, and also sheltered by woods, about half way up a slope of high hills, having two pieces of artillery in position, while a portion of their infantry had possessed themselves of ten or twelve log huts, constituting the village of Scareytown, in which they had improvised loop-holes. The Federal troops were met by a dis- charge from the rebel battery as soon as they made their appearance ; but the artillery of Captain Cotton soon got in position, and returned the fire of the enemy with good effect. The infantry were now ordered to advance, and rushed fearlessly across the stream, which was fordable, in tlie face of a heavy fire. The left wing, composed of portions of the Twelfth and Twenty-first Ohio, had reached the enemy's entrench- ments, but being unsupported by the right, and a fresh regiment of the rebels appearing on the ground, they were compelled to retreat, leav- ing many of their dead and wounded on the field. The loss of the Federal forces by this engagement was nine killed, thirty-eight wounded, and three missing. Of the rebel loss we have no record. A great misfortune of the day, however, was the capture of five of the principal officers of General Cox's command, who were not attached to the expedition. Colonels Woodruff and De Villers, Lieutenant-Colonel Neff, and Captains Austm and Ilurd, prompted by an eager desire to witness the engagement in which they were not assigned a part, rode up the banks of the river to its junction with the creek, and hearing a loud shout, BATTLE AT KICH MOUNTATN. 136 were* led to believe that the Federal forces were victorious. They procured a skiff, crossed the creek, and inadvertently strayed within the enemy's lines, where they were all made prisoners. HOW THE EXEMT WAS TO BE ATTACKED, General Garnett had at this time nearly 10,000 men under his com- mand, and occupied a position at Beverly, on Tygart's Valley river, Randolph Co., in a valley of the Alleghany Mountains. Two good roads unite at an acute angle at this place, one leading westwardly to Buckhannon, and the other northwest to Phillipi. A mountainous ridge crosses both thesp roads in front of Bevei'ly, and at each point of intersection General Garnett had an intrenched camp. The first was on the road to Buckhannon, called the Rich Mountain Camp, under command of Colonel Pegram ; and the second, on the road to Phillipi, called Laurel Hill Camp, under General Garnett's personal command. Early on the morning of the 11th of July, General Rosecrans was dispatched to attack Colonel Pegram, and dislodge him from his posi tion. General Morris was to make a simultaneous movement on the position held by General Garnett. BATTLE AT EIOH MOmTTADJ. July 12, 1802. The rebel entrenchments at Rich Mountain were very strong in their position, and were evidently to be taken only by a great sacri- fice of life. They had rolled great trees down the steep sides of the mountain, and banding their branches into a general entanglement, filled the open spaces with earth and stones. The dense forest on all sides made the approach almost impassable. General Rosecranz was accord- ingly directed to attack them in their rear. For this purpose he took with him the Eighth and Tenth Indiana, and the Nineteenth Ohio, and under the leadership of an experienced guide, started about day- light to ascend the mountain. The path was exceedingly difficult and tedious, most of the distance being through thick laurel underbrush, almost impenetrable woods, and a broken, rocky region, which gave them a toilsome march of nearly nine miles. Meantime a courier from General McClellan with dispatches for General Rosecrans, had been captured by the rebels, who instantly took the alarm, and a body of 2,500 men were sent to the top of the mountain by a short route 136 TBE WAB FOB THB UWIOIf. which they commanded, and on the arrival of the Union brces thej stood ready for defence. The rebels had three cannon it place, and awaited the troops, facing that part of the road where ^lioy would emerge from the timber. For some time there was skirmishino', the rebels firing their cannon into the woods at random. Tlia Union troops had no cannon, and left the sheltering trees only lon