University of Virginia Library

ALONG THE POTOMAC -"ON TO RICHMOND."

While these events were transpiring in Western Virginia, two powerful
armies were being concentrated on the banks of the Potomac, and
were quietly preparing for a great battle. General Beauregard, who had
taken command in Virginia, after the fall of Fort Sumter, was at the
head of a powerful army at Manassas Junction, while General Joseph E.
Johnston was in command of 30,000 men in the neighborhood of Harpers
Ferry. General Patterson was in command of a Federal force concentrating
at Hagerstown, Maryland, for the purpose of preventing Johnston
from joining Beauregard when an attack should be made upon the latter.
An army of 40,000 men had now been collected at Washington, and
public opinion at the North demanded that an attack be made at once
upon the forces of General Beauregard, who had changed his location
and taken a strong natural position at Bull Run, about thirty miles
from the national capital.

General Irwin McDowell was placed in command, and on the 17th of
July all things were inreadiness. It was Saturday, and at 4 o'clock A. M.
the orders to march were given. Forty thousand men filed out from
Washington on the road leading to Centreville. It was the grandest

pageant that had yet been witnessed on the continent. Banners were
flying in every direction, and strains of martial music filled the air.
Little thought any one that ere thirty-six hours had passed away, that
magnificent army would be but a shattered fragment of its former self.
But behind the fortifications at Bull Run lay 30,000 brave men awaiting
the shock of battle. With the rising of the sun on that Sabbath
morning, came the sound of battle, and for thirteen dreadful hours
70,000 men struggled for the mastery. As the day waned away, so appeared
to wane the cause of the Southern arms, and just when the
victory of the Federals seemed assured, a long-expected reinforcement
arrived and turned the tide of battle. As Blucher slipped away from
Grouchy at Wavres, to decide the fate of Napoleon at Waterloo, so Johnston
had stolen away from Patterson, and by forced marches arrived just
in time to save the day and make a Waterloo for the Federal arms at
Bull Run. He poured 10,000 fresh troops in upon the now exhausted
regiments, and then at once began one of the most disastrous retreats an
account of which is recorded in history. The Federal army fell back to
Washington and the Confederates remained in possession of Bull Run.
Four thousand men lay dead upon the field. Thus terminated the first
great battle of the Civil War.