 | I.
MANASSAS. Hammer and rapier |  |
1. I.
MANASSAS.
On the night of the 17th of July, 1861, a man,
standing upon the earthworks at Manassas, was looking
toward Centreville.
This man was of medium height—thin, but muscular—with
a sallow countenance, lips covered by a
heavy black mustache, scant locks at the temples, and
deep, dark eyes, in which might be read the slumbrous
spirit of “fight” observable in the eyes of the
blood-hound.
As he looked, silent and motionless, toward Centreville,
something which resembled a shooting star
rose slowly from the summit of the woods, described
a curve, and then descended. Another followed;
then another, red and baleful.
Thirty minutes afterwards the hoof-strokes of a
horseman were heard; a voice asked for General
Beauregard; the silent man went forward, and
opening the dispatch which the courier brought, perused
it with calm attention. That dispatch announced
force of the Southern army, had retired before
the “Grand Army” of the United States, and was
now in position upon the heights of Centreville, six
miles from Manassas.
What was the “Grand Army,” and upon what
errand had it come? The reply to these questions
would fill an octavo, but fortunately everybody can
answer them without prompting. The great masses
of blue soldiers—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—
had come to “crush the rebellion,” by one great “on
to Richmond;” a short, sharp, and decisive campaign
was to terminate all, and the broken chain of
the Union would be mended promptly by the huge
clashing sledge-hammer of battle.
In regard to the time required to effect this end,
there was little difference of opinion at the North.
One journalist wrote, “The nations of Europe may
rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging
from the battlements of Washington, at least by the
Fourth of July; we spit upon a later and longer
deferred justice.” Another said, “Let us make quick
work; the `rebellion,' as some people designate it, is
an unborn tadpole—a `local commotion'—a strong,
active pull together will do our work effectually in
thirty days.” A third said, “No man of sense can
for a moment doubt that this much-ado-about-nothing
will end in a month. The rebels, a mere band
of ragamuffins, will fly like chaff before the wind of
our approach.”
These vaticinations had inspired the people of the
North with a sort of madness. The thirst for battle
of volunteers rushed to the standard, and in their
hands were placed the best and most approved weapons
for the great blow to be struck at the South.
At the beginning of July this army numbered over
fifty thousand men, and never did troops take the
field more admirably equipped. Long trains of excellent
rifled artillery; rifled muskets, with barrels
shining like silver; carbines, pistols, sabres; luxurious
rations, preserved meats, condensed milk, coffee already
ground and mingled with sugar, wines, cordials,
liqueurs; `havelocks' to keep off the burning
southern sun, buskins to exclude the southern dust,
oilcloths to protect from southern dews—such were
some of the appliances for fighting and campaigning
which the men of the Grand Army brought
with them when they advanced upon Manassas.
At that place, soon to become historic, Beauregard
awaited them, with twenty thousand men, which he
had disposed behind earthworks along the southern
bank of Bull Run—a little stream which, rising in
the neighborhood of Aldie, winds about amid fields
and roads until it falls into the Occoquan.
We have seen that, on the 17th of July, the Grand
Army had pushed forward to Centreville after Bonham,
who retired before them. They had gutted
Annandale and Fairfax; burned Germantown; continued
their way; and now, on the night of this 17th
of July, paused in front of the Centreville Heights to
take breath before advancing upon the muzzles of the
Southern cannon.
Beauregard was quickly in the saddle, and couriers
to the various commanders. These orders were:
Get the troops under arms; form line of battle;
the enemy will be here at daylight.
A solitary officer at the same time left Manassas at
full speed, and disappeared toward the mountains.
He carried to Gen. Johnson, facing Patterson in the
Valley, the message from Beauregard: “If you wish
to help me, now is the time.”
Beauregard hastened then toward the front. On
the way, an officer said to him:
“The battle will be here, General?”
“Yes.”
“The battle of `Bull Run.' That is a bad name.”
“It is as good as `The Cowpens,' was the reply.”
At midnight the troops were in line of battle,
grasping their muskets, or crouching beside the cannon,
whose grim muzzles gleamed in the watch-fires.
Beauregard's right, under Ewell, was at Union
Mills; his centre, under Longstreet, at Blackburn's
and Mitchell's fords; his left, under Cocke and
Evans, near Stonebridge, in front of whose picturesque
brown arch the huge trees had been felled,
forming an abattis. This line was eight miles long.
The first attack was expected at Mitchell's ford,
the centre of the Southern line where, behind the
cannon frowning from the embrasures above the
ford and level stretch beyond, the gray infantry
were lying in line of battle, in the pine thickets.
Toward daylight a dull, muffled sound came borne
upon the wind from the direction of Centreville. It
was Bonham's column falling back. Then some shots
with the advance of the enemy.
Then, as day approached, dusky gray masses appeared
beyond the stream; the rumble of artillery made the
woods murmur; half an hour afterwards Bonham was
within the lines.
As broad day dawned, a sudden roar came from the
hill beyond the stream,—Kemper's battery, which had
just saluted the advancing enemy, came back at a gallop—the
signal gun of the first Manassas had been
fired.
An hour afterwards the Grand Army was in face of
Beauregard—their splendid cavalry was seen opening
right and left, and unmasking their superb artillery,—
a thundering salvo came, the shell tearing through the
trees, and blowing up caissons—the drama had begun.
The first design of Gen. McDowell, commanding
the Federal army had been to turn the Southern right.
“My personal reconnoissance of the roads to the South,”
he wrote, “had shown that it was not practicable to
carry out the original plan of turning the enemy's
position on their right.
The alternative, therefore, was to turn the extreme
left of his position.” What is called “The Battle of
the Eighteenth” showed Gen. McDowell the impracticable
nature of his first design.
This was scarcely more than a skirmish, but an obstinate
one. Longstreet was there at Blackburn's ford,
with twelve hundred muskets—the troops occupying
the level, low grounds, unprotected, except by a sort of
elongated mole hill, which they had thrown up with
their bayonets. Behind this they were lying down.
high, wooded, and excellent for attack. The advance
force of the enemy occupying it was about three
thousand infantry, with artillery.
At ten o'clock the attack began, under cover of an
artillery fire, and Longstreet's advance was speedily
driven across the stream. Then the enemy pressed
forward with cheers.
But they gained nothing. They were met by a close
and destructive fire of musketry, and fell back. Then
they charged again, and were again repulsed. They
charged a third time,—nearly gained the bank, but
were driven back at the point of the bayonet, and
retired.
Longstreet, calm, silent, and smoking his cigar, went
to his artillery on the slope in rear, and directed the
“duel” which now began between the opposing guns.
His battery was the “Washington Artillery” of New
Orleans, and it fired superbly. After four years' fighting,
in half a hundred battles, it attained no greater
skill than it displayed in this first action. As the guns
now opened, and the enemy replied,—their shell tearing
down limbs of trees, and screaming like unloosed
devils,—the infantry, crouching in the plain, looked
up with a sort of wondering, childish curiosity. When
a sudden crash across the stream was heard, and a
cloud of smoke rose from a blown-up caisson, they
langhed and cheered like school-boys.
The assault on Longstreet showed that Beauregard's
right could not be turned. As to his centre, at Mitchell's
ford, there was even less hope of breaking through
the earth-works bristling with cannon, behind which,
Even if the blue masses were able to sweep over those
sullen war-dogs, awaiting with grim muzzles and burning
port fires, like the glare of red eyes, they would
find still in their path beyond, that obstinate hedge
of steel behind which the lightning slumbered. The
centre,—on the straight road to Manassas,—was thus
even less “practicable” than the right. The left only
remained.
It was to the left, then, that the brave and skillful
McDowell turned his eyes. There is no evidence that
he was disheartened. He had about fifty thousand infantry,
nine regiments of cavalry, and twelve batteries
of rifled artillery, numbering forty-nine gnns. Beauregard
had twenty-one thousand eight hundred and
thirty-three muskets, twenty-nine pieces of artillery,
almost all smooth-bore, and about three companies of
cavalry,—for Johnston, it must be remembered, had
not yet arrived. Thus McDowell could bring more
than two to one of all arms, against his adversary.
Does any reader question the accuracy of this statement?
We reply that Gen. Beauregard is our authority.
His own numbers he states officially; the
enemy's he states upon Federal authority.
It will thus be understood that General McDowell
did not despair. As to the army, and the great crowd
of camp-followers, they would have regarded the expression
of a doubt as to the ultimate result, a species
of insult. Never did a stranger or more motley rout
than that crowd of hangers-on, assemble in the wake
of an army. A ship leaves foam in its wake as it
moves,—the Grand Army seemed to carry with it a
correspondents, ladies even, flocked to Centreville as
to a festival. None seemed to regard it as a festival
of death at all, but rather as a day of carnival. While
waiting for the thunder from “the mysterious Virginia
woods,” the crowd moved to and fro, ruffled its plumes,
rustled its silks, drank its champagne, cracked its jests,
made its bets, and speculated upon the delightful jaunt
it would make to Richmond, after riding over the battle-field,
strewed with the rebel dead,—once their
brethren.
Does any reader say that this is rhetoric—mere
fancy? Alas! it is true; and whether it pleases or
offends matters little. Truth is no respecter of events
or persons, and is her own vindication. It was the late
Mr. Lincoln who uttered that profound and solemn
maxim, worthy of the great monarch of the Jews,—
“You cannot avoid history!”
That singular spectacle took place on Friday and
Saturday, the 19th and 20th of July. Gen. McDowell
had no part in it. There is a personage more bitter,
bloody, and implacable than the soldier: it is the civilian.
The Federal commander had too great a weight
upon his shoulders to laugh and caper. The great
problem was unsolved; Beauregard was still in his
path; the perilous flank movement of the United States
forces against the Confederate left absorbed McDowell's
whole attention.
On the southern side of Bull Run the aspect of
affairs had undergone a very great change. The
officer sent to Johnston had killed his horse, but he
had delivered his message in time. By noon on
of the Shenandoah”—about 8,000 men—was at
Manassas. At midnight, Johnston, the cold, calm,
silent Virginian, was consulting with Beauregard,
the fiery, but self-possessed and reticent Creole.
Upon the tanned and ruddy face of Johnston, with
its English side-whiskers, its fixed gray eye, and
iron mouth, as upon the brunette countenance of
Beauregard with its “fighting jaw,” broad brow, and
eyes inflamed by watching, was seen by those around
them, the expression of a firm and moveless purpose.
That was to deliver battle where they were, to put
all upon the issue, and to drive the enemy back, or
die.
An army leader should have the spring of the
tiger, and the obstinate hold of the bull-dog. It is
not mere eulogy but truth to say that the Virginian
and the Louisianian had both—the first more of the
the last—the last more of the first.
At two hours past midnight—that is to say, toward
dawn of Sunday, July the 21st, couriers reached
Manassas with important intelligence. A reconnoissance
beyond the stream, in front of Stonebridge,
had developed the fact that Gen. McDowell was
massing his army on the Warrenton road, leading
from Centreville across Stonebridge, toward the
South, and that every probability existed of an attack
in force, at an early hour in the morning, upon
the Confederate left.
Sitting in a private room of the small house at
Manassas, which Beauregard then occupied as his
head-quarters, the two Generals listened to this intelligence,
upon their plan of action.
It was simple, and was suggested by Beauregard
—that active, vigorous, and trenchant mind of cultivated
acumen and trained genius. As soon as the
movements of the enemy had fully established the design
attributed to them to turn the Southern left flank,
the Confederate right and centre was to throw itself
across Bull Run, advance straight upon Centreville,
assail the Federal forces in flank and reverse, and cut
off, break to pieces, and capture or destroy them.
This movement required coolness, nerve, and skill.
Ewell, Longstreet, and Bonham were relied on. At
four o'clock the plan was all arranged; orders were
sent to the commanders of the right and centre to hold
their troops in hand to move upon the enemy at a
moment's warning; then the two Generals waited,
watching the day as it slowly dawned beyond the belt
of woods.
It was ushered in with a low continuous thunder, in
the direction of Stonebridge; and above the tree-tops
rose those clouds of snowy smoke which mark the field
of battle.
What was the origin of that menacing cloud, which
shone against the blue sky, lit by the first beams of
day?
The reply is easy.
During the entire night, General McDowell had
been moving. Leaving behind him at Centreville a
rear-guard of fifteen or twenty thousand men, he had
pushed his main body forward, over a narrow and almost
unknown road, through the sombre depths of the
hastening forward to deliver the gigantic blow which
his active brain had planned in his tent at Centreville.
His plan was excellent: while Hunter and Heintzelmen,
with their strong divisions, pushed for Sudley
ford, beyond the Confederate left, strong bodies were
to take position opposite Stonebridge, Red House, and
other fords, with orders to divert the attention of
Beauregard by heavy demonstrations, as though designing
there to pass the stream. Under cover of
these feints, the column of Hunter was to cross at
Sudley; sweep down, clearing in succession every
ford; the forces opposite were then to pass over—
thus a body of about forty thousand men would be
concentrated at sunrise on the southern bank of Bull
Run, directly upon Beauregard's left flank.
Then the game would be as good as won. The Confederates
were scattered all along the stream over a
distance of eight miles, and several hours would be required
to concentrate a sufficient body near Stonebridge.
But before that could be done, the issue
would be decided. Falling like lightning upon the
southern flank, General Hunter had it in his power to
drive all before him: Beauregard must hastily evacuate
his works, and fall back on Manassas; then a battle
of two against one—the one retreating rapidly, the
two hotly pursuing.
Such was Hunter's plan, and it seemed at daylight
sure of success. His column pushed on steadily;
passed Bull Run and the little Catharpin; moved on,
without pausing; and at half-past eight was almost
within sight of the Confederate left.
What was that left?
The reply will sound ludicrous. It was eleven
hundred men, and four smooth-bore six-pounders.
One thing, it is true, counted. The infantry were
Alabamians, Mississippians, and Georgians, commanded
by such men as Wheat. The artillery were Virginians,
commanded by that brave, Gray Latham.
The whole was led by Evans, that veritable grizzly
bear, with the shaggy beard, and the flashing eyes, who
was to inflict upon the enemy, three months from this
day, the bloody disaster of Ball's Bluff.
He was opposite Stonebridge, and the Federal force
across the stream had duly made the demonstrations
ordered, both with infantry and artillery. A swarm
of sharpshooters had made repeated feints to cross,
firing rapidly as they did so; and the rattle of these
popguns, mingled with the roar of the Federal artillery,
completely diverted Evans' attention from the
thunderbolt about to fall upon his rear, from the direction
of Sudley.
It was nearly nine o'clock before that approaching
fate sent its long, warning shadow on before, to his
position near the bridge. Then the whole extent of
the mortal peril menacing him, became obvious. A
mounted man came at a thundering gallop to announce
that a great host of the enemy were closing in upon
his rear to crush his little force like an egg-shell.
Evans acted as he always did—like the heart of
oak he was. Taking eight hundred of his eleven hundred
infantry, and two of his four six-pounders, he
hurried to the scene of danger, and at a point on the
struck full against the front of Hunter.
A single glance revealed the whole extent of the
danger. Directly before the eight-hundred men and
two guns of Evans, were the sixteen thousand men
of Hunter, with seven companies of cavalry, and
twenty-four pieces of artillery. Opposite Red House
ford, the force of General Keyes was about to cross;
that at Stonebridge was closing in; more than thirty
thousand men would soon be opposed to less than
one thousand; but it was necessary to meet and arrest
them, or die.
No other course was left. Beauregard must have
time to concentrate his forces near Stonebridge; a
new line of battle must be formed; time must be
purchased with blood. The little force of Southerners
went forward to the struggle as the three hundred
of Leonidas took post between the walls of Thermopylae.
The war was fruitful in heroic deeds but it offers no
braver spectacle than this. Hope must have veiled
her face for that handful—the grave yawned before
them. There was no possibility of victory for them.
How could that atom arrest for a single instant the
mighty machine rolling on to crush it?
A commander of weak nerves might have asked
himself that question. It never occured to Evans.
He placed his six-pounders on the hill in his rear;
drew up his men; and received with the obstinacy of
a bull dog the furious assault of the enemy.
It was the Second Rhode Island Infantry, supported
by six thirteen-pound rifles, which led the charge; and
The lines delivered their volleys almost breast to
breast, and in an instant the field was one great cloud
of smoke, from which rose cheers, yells, groans,
mingled with thunder.
From that moment the conflict became one of
enormous bitterness, and the Federal forces fought
with a gallantry which achieved the best results.
Evans fought like a tiger, but his thin line was almost
annihilated by the concentrated fire of the Federal
musketry and cannon. Wheat fell, and was borne
from the field; all around Evans, raging like a wild
boar, his men were falling. Step by step, he was
forced back, torn and bleeding.
Still the thought of retreat did not occur to him.
It was necessary to fight until reinforcements came,
holding that precious ground. If he could not hold
it, then it was necessary to die. Blood was dear, but
time was beyond all estimate.
Soon the moment came, however, when all was
plainly over—when a handful of Southerners only remained
and the conflict was no longer possible. The
enemy pressed on with cheers. Evans was forced back,
fighting desperately at every step—when all at once
the expected reinforcements came. Descending rapidly
from the Henry House hill in his rear were
seen the four thousand men of Bee and Bartow—and
reaching the field, General Bee took command:
formed line of battle, and threw himself like an
athlete against the victorious enemy. The conflict
which followed was a war of giants. Bee had under
him, besides Evans' remnant, four regiments and four
their great force of cavalry and artillery. But now
more than ever it was necessary to hold that ground,
for Beauregard was moving, and Bee was the one of
ten thousand for the work before him.
From the moment of his arrival the thunders of
battle redoubled. It was a trained and full-armed
gladiator, however small of stature, which threw himself
against the Federal Goliah; and the conflict was
of great ferocity.
“I salute the Eighth Georgia with my hat off,” said
Beauregard, afterwards, as the bleeding survivors
passed him. “History shall never forget you!”
But with Bee, as with Evans, the moment of fate
was to come. The force before him was too ponderous.
No blows against it told. The hammer was
shattered by the anvil.
By main force of merciless fusilades, and storms of
shell and canister, the Southern lines were, man by
man, swept to perdition. The ground was drenched
in blood; the air was a sulphur-cloud; the thin line
staggered to and fro, having bid farewell to hope.
Then an incident as ludicrous as tragic came to finish
all. From Red House ford the brigades of Sherman
were seen pressing forward to envelope the
right flank of the main band of Southerners. It was
a giant closing his huge hand upon a fly—a sledge-hammer
raised to crush an insect. In thirty minutes
Bee saw that his brigade would be annihilated: and
with bitterness of heart he gave the order to retire
toward the high ground in his rear.
At the word, the gray line fell back, fighting still, but
—never were soldiers braver than those Georgians,
Alabamians and Mississippians—but hope had deserted
them; and only the trained troops of many
battles fight when every chance of victory has disappeared.
Bee saw with unutterable anguish that the retreat
was every instant threatening to become a panic-stricken
flight. But he could not check it. In vain
did he ride, sword in hand, through the fire which
swept his lines, beseeching the men to fall back in good
order, and not fly. His voice was unheard, or his
orders unheeded. The merciless volleys from the
Federal infantry tore all to pieces; the hurricane of
canister swept, as with the besom of destruction, the
whole field over which the men were scattering, mere
fugitives.
It was at this instant—when Bee was mastered by
a sort of fury of despair, and his men in hopeless rout
—that the glitter of bayonets was seen beyond the
Henry House hill. Plunging the spurs into his horse,
Bee went to meet them, and found himself face to
face with a soldier in an old gray coat, riding a bay
horse. A yellow cadet cap drooped above the forehead
of this personage. Under its rim a pair of dark
eyes glittered.
Bee, covered with dust and sweat, his horse foaming,
his drawn sword in his hand, stopped suddenly in front
of the silent man.
“General, they are beating us back!” he groaned.
And he pointed with his sword to the blue masses
continuous and mortal fire.
Jackson looked in the direction indicated. Not a
feature moved. Then his eye flashed; a slight color
came to his cheek, and he said, in his calm, brief
voice:
“Sir, we will give them the bayonet.”
There are words which, however quietly uttered,
ring in the ears of men like the blast of a bugle.
These of Jackson rang thus in the ears of Bee. Without
reply he wheeled his horse, went back at a gallop
to his broken lines, and pointing with his sword to
Jackson, shouted:
“Look! there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!
Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer!”
His men thrilled at these noble words, vibrating in
the air above them like the sound of a clarion; shouts
answered them; the lines were partially restored; and
once more holding in his strong, brave grasp, that battered
and splintered, but sharp and tempered weapon,
his brigade, Bee took position on the right of Jackson,
halting and facing the great masses pressing on to
crush him.
Then was witnessed a spectacle which made the pulses
throb. It was that presented by the six hundred men
of Hampton, meeting front to front, on the Warrenton
road, the whole division of Keyes, and driving it
back. The stubborn blood of a race of thorough-breds
fought that day in the veins of Wade Hampton, as it
fought thereafter upon many memorable fields.
There are men whose characters, like their faces,
will the South forget him.
But the moment came for him, as it had come for
Evans; as it had come for Bee. Flanked on the left,
his line swept by a furious fire of artillery posted near
the Old Stone House, Hampton was compelled to fall
back in order to escape annihilation; he did so; took
position on the right, like Bee—then Jackson, with
his two thousand six hundred and eleven muskets,
moved forward, slow, unshaken, silent as some approaching
fate.
In twenty minutes he had formed line of battle under
the eastern crest of the Henry House hill. In
front of his men, lying down to escape the storm
sweeping over them, the figure of the Virginian was
seen riding to and fro, his lips repeating calmly,
“Steady, boys! steady, all's well!” In front of his
line two guns, which he had just posted there, were
steadily firing.
That moment was the turning point of the battle of
Manassas. Had the enemy advanced, they would have
swept the hill, and snatched victory; for nearly thirty
thousand infantry, and about thirty pieces of artillery,
besides a regiment of cavalry, were there, right in front
of less than five thousand Southerners.
They did not attack in force for more than an hour.
Then the Southern lines were ready.
Johnston and Beauregard—the latter directing operations
under the former, his superior—had determined
to fight the decisive battle here. Why? From one of
those fatalities which prove to men what puppets in
the hands of Providence they are.
The officer sent to order the right and centre to move
upon the enemy's rear at Centreville, had failed to deliver
the order, or had delivered it too late. The right,
under Ewell, moved; the centre, under Bonham, remained
in the trenches. Thus the golden moment
passed—the hand upon the dial of destiny points to
“too late.” Johnston and Beauregard went on their
foaming horses in the direction of Stonebridge.
There the opposing lines were about to grapple in a
mortal struggle. The fate of a continent seemed about
to be decided upon the slope of the Henry House hill,
amid those clumps of pines and green cornfields above
which hovered the lurid cloud of battle. Thunder,
lightning, and tempest, seemed to have reached their
utmost fury there. In the midst of smoke, dust, and
uproar—the diabolical bass of artillery, and the crashing
treble of musketry—the blue and gray lines were
about to rush together like two wild animals drunk
with blood, and bent on tearing each other to peices.
Johnston was and is, and ever will be, a brave soldier
—a fighter, no less than a general. He seized the
colours of the Fourth Alabama, shouted to the men to
follow him, and plunged with that deadly burden into
the gulf of battle. The men followed him with wild
cheers, and the Alabamians were good, from that instant,
for a conflict as desperate as the first.
Beauregard was galloping up and down the lines,
with his drawn sword in his hand. In his black eyes
burned the hard-fighting Creole blood; his sallow
cheeks were flushed—at that moment, as he darted to
and fro, calling on the troops to die in defence of their
the Empire rallying the Old Guard of Napoleon.
In thirty minutes the broken and disheartened lines
of Bee and Evans were as firm as a rock again. Hampton
was by them, cool and composed as ever; on the
left were some companies which had hastened from
below—and in the centre was Jackson, a stone wall
backed by a steel hedge of bayonets.
Hitherto, the writer of this page has stated facts, in
regard to which there is no controversy. They are not
only history, but accepted history. What followed the
arrival of Johnston and Beauregard is reported diversely.
The latter officer reports that Jackson charged
twice, being driven in the first charge, from the hill.
Johnston, Hampton, Pendleton, and Jackson himself,
state that he charged but once, and was never driven
from the hill. We follow Johnston, Hampton, Pendleton,
and Jackson.
This latter won on this occasion his soubriquet of
“Stonewall”—he also won the enthusiastic admiration
of his men. Wounded in the hand, he wrapped it in a
handkerchief, and forgot it. Surrounded by hurry and
excitement, he remained as cool as ice.
“General!” exclaimed an officer, “I think the day
is going against us!”
Jackson looked sidewise at the speaker. Then, in
his curt voice, he replied:
“If you think so, sir, you had better say nothing
about it.”
Riding slowly up and down, he waited—unconscious
wholly, it seemed, of the terrible fire amid
which he moved. He had ordered his four regiments
guns, until the enemy arrived within about seventy-five
yards of them, when they were to rise, and
“charge with the bayonet.”
Soon the moment came. The Federal forces had
swept on, gained the plateau of the Henry House, and
now their rear was seen to close up; their masses
were rapidly formed for the charge. The great
swarm seemed to concentrate; the blue lines presented
a front, broad, deep, and terrible, with its bristling
bayonets; then, all at once, with redoubled thunders
of musketry and cannon, they were hurled against
the thin Confederate front.
The assault was met with the bayonet. Rising suddenly
from the pines, the Virginians, under Jackson,
fired a volley, and rushed up the slope. With shouts,
cheers, mad yells, the blue and gray lines clashed,
fighting desperately for the possession of the plateau.
In ten minutes the Southerners had swept the Federal
forces back, and gained it. Then the question
was—could they hold it?—and one of the bloodiest
conflicts, of a war as bloody as any in history, took
place on the slope of that hill.
Jackson did not flinch. It was a veritable stone
wall which he presented to his foes, but a wall that
still advanced, step by step, as inexorable as destiny.
On his right and left some of the bravest gentlemen
of the South were fighting, falling, and dying. One
—a boy, and a private—exclaimed, as they carried
him expiring from the field:
“They've done for me now, but my father's there
yet!”
Hampton, charging with his legion, near the Henry
House, was shot, and fell.
Bee fell, struck down at the head of his troops,
grasping the sword which South Carolina had presented
to him.
Bartow, who had said, “I shall go into that fight
with a determination never to leave the field alive, but
in victory,” was shot through the heart while leading
the Seventh Georgia, and died exclaiming:
“They've killed me, but never give up the field!”
But, in spite of the fall of their leaders, the troops
pressed on. Jackson had rooted himself firmly in the
soil of the plateau, and now, as the right and left
wings closed up, and preserved his flanks from danger,
he made his great advance. In the midst of the
hurricane, which had now reached its wildest intensity,
he dressed his line, placed himself in front, and
fell, like a thunderbolt, upon the Federal centre.
An instant decided all. The centre was pierced;
the two wings of the United States army separated;
and as Jackson's brigade, supported, shoulder to shoulder,
by the South Carolinians of Hampton, the North
Carolinians of Fisher, the Georgians, Alabamians,
Mississippians, and other troops, rolled foward, like a
wave of iron, and pressed the Federal right, centre,
and left, the troops of General McDowell were thrown
into disorder; then they gave way; then they broke;
then were seen flying, with the shouting Confederates
pursuing them.
The Federal commander formed a new line of battle,
ridge in rear of the Old Stone House; but his men
had lost heart.
Just as another advance had begun the brave Gen.
Kirby Smith arrived with seventeen hundred fresh
troops—these were thrown into action—fell on the
enemy's right—and the long, hard conflict soon terminated.
The Federal army, which had advanced that morning
in all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious
war, was no longer anything but a mass of fugitives;
and, sitting his horse upon the battle-field,
General Stonewall Jackson said:
“Give me ten thousand men, and I will be in Washington
to-night!”
Such was Manassas—the first great fight of the
civil war. I have endeavored to describe the struggle
with the fairness of truth itself, not with rancour or
bitterness. Alas! grief supplants hatred when I think
of that battle; for the night of the action fell dark as
a funeral pall upon the corpses of more than one
friend whom I dearly loved, and still mourn.
I have described the battle. I would not like to
undertake a description of the retreat—of that tragic
spectacle of human beings mastered by a frightful
panic—of masses torn by shot and bursting shell—of
men rolling, crushed beneath the wheels of their own
artillery—of others throwing away guns, knapsacks,
oilcloths, swords, hats, coats, every object which was
calculated to impede their flight to the sheltering ramparts
of Washington.
Let others elaborate that sombre and terrible picture;
the present writer declines the lugubrious task.
It is enough to say here that, on the evening of the
21st of July, 1861, the “Grand Army” of the United
States was in hopeless rout. Its pride was all broken;
its flowers had disappeared before the sythe of death;
it was as the unripe fruit which fades before the summer.
We shall meet hereafter with battles as desperate,
and more bloody, but with none which possess the
dramatic interest of this one.
It was the death-wrestle of two great races, and one
fell, it seemed, never to rise again. But that hope
was vain. The fallen grew stronger—the conquerer
weaker.
At Gettysburg, in July, 1863, the mighty gladiators
seemed of nearly equal strength.
At Petersburg, in the spring of 1865, the world saw
that the victor at Manassas, Fredericksburg, Cold Harbor,
Chancellorsville, was tottering, feeble, faint.
It was not until the 9th of April, at Appomattox
Court House, that the explanation of this phenomenon
was given.
The Southern army was not conquered; it was
starving to death.
| I.
MANASSAS. Hammer and rapier | |