Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War
church, already occupied by a company called the Grayson Dare-devils,
who, wishing to show their hospitality, assigned the pulpit to Captain
Pendleton as an appropriate lodging. The four guns were at once
christened Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
[8] O.R., vol. ii, p. 814.
[9] _Ibid.,_ pp. 881, 889, 897, 898, 901, 923.
[10] Cooke, p. 47.
[11] O.R., vol. ii, p. 157.
[12] O.R., vol. ii, p. 515.
[13] O.R., vol. ii, p. 507.
[14] O.R., vol. ii, pp. 169, 170.
[15] “The discouragements of that day’s march,” says Johnston, “to one
accustomed to the steady gait of regular soldiers, is indescribable.
The views of military obedience and command then taken both by
officers and men confined their duties and obligations almost
exclusively to the drill-ground and guards. In camps and marches they
were scarcely known. Consequently, frequent and unreasonable delays
caused so slow a rate of marching as to make me despair of joining
General Beauregard in time to aid him.”— Johnston’s _Narrative._
[16] Letter to Mrs. Jackson, _Memoirs,_ p. 176.
Chapter VI
THE FIRST BATTLE OF MANASSAS OR BULL RUN
July 19 At the first streak of dawn, Jackson aroused his men and
resumed the march. Before the column gained the plain, Stuart’s cavalry
clattered past, leaving Patterson at Charlestown, in ignorance of his
adversary’s escape, and congratulating himself on the success of his
cautious strategy. At Piedmont, a station at the foot of the Blue
Ridge, trains were waiting for the conveyance of the troops; and at
four o’clock in the afternoon Jackson and his brigade had reached
Manassas Junction. The cavalry, artillery, and waggons moved by road;
and the remainder of Johnston’s infantry was expected to follow the
First Brigade without delay. But in war, unless there has been ample
time for preparation, railways are not always an expeditious means of
travel. The line was single; so short notice had been given that it was
impossible to collect enough rolling-stock; the officials were
inexperienced; there was much mismanagement; and on the morning of
Sunday, July 21, only three brigades of the Army of the
Shenandoah—Jackson’s, Bee’s, and Bartow’s—together with the cavalry and
artillery, had joined Beauregard. Kirby Smith’s brigade, about 1,900
strong, was still upon the railway.
The delay might easily have been disastrous. Happily, the Federal
movements were even more tardy. Had the invading army been well
organised, Beauregard would probably have been defeated before Johnston
could have reached him. McDowell had advanced from Washington on the
afternoon of the 16th with 35,000 men. On the morning of the 18th, the
greater part of his force was concentrated
at Centreville, twenty-two miles from Washington, and five and a half
north-east of Manassas Junction. Beauregard’s outposts had already
fallen back to the banks of Bull Run, a stream made difficult by wooded
and precipitous banks, from two to three miles south, and of much the
same width as the Thames at Oxford.
It would have been possible to have attacked on the morning of the
19th, but the Federal commander was confronted by many obstacles. He
knew little of the country. Although it was almost within sight of the
capital, the maps were indifferent. Guides who could describe roads and
positions from a military point of view were not forthcoming. All
information had to be procured by personal reconnaissance, and few of
his officers had been trained to such work. Moreover, the army was most
unwieldy. 35,000 men, together with ten batteries, and the requisite
train of waggons, was a force far larger than any American officer had
yet set eyes upon; and the movement of such a mass demanded precise
arrangement on the part of the staff, and on the part of the troops
most careful attention to order and punctuality; but of these both
staff and troops were incapable. The invading force might have done
well in a defensive position, which it would have had time to occupy,
and where the supply of food and forage, carried on from stationary
magazines, would have been comparatively easy; but directly it was put
in motion, inexperience and indiscipline stood like giants in the path.
The Federal troops were utterly unfitted for offensive movement, and
both Scott and McDowell had protested against an immediate advance. The
regiments had only been organised in brigades a week previously. They
had never been exercised in mass. Deployment for battle had not yet
been practised, and to deploy 10,000 or 20,000 men for attack is a
difficult operation, even with well-drilled troops and an experienced
staff. Nor were the supply arrangements yet completed. The full
complement of waggons had not arrived, and the drivers on the spot were
as ignorant as they were insubordinate. The troops had received no
instruction in musketry, and many of the regiments
went into action without having once fired their rifles. But the
protests of the generals were of no effect. The Federal Cabinet decided
that in face of the public impatience it was impossible to postpone the
movement. “On to Richmond” was the universal cry. The halls of Congress
resounded with the fervid eloquence of the politicians. The press
teemed with bombastic articles, in which the Northern troops were
favourably compared with the regular armies of Europe, and the need of
discipline and training for the fearless and intelligent
representatives of the sovereign people was scornfully repudiated.
Ignorance of war and contempt for the lessons of history were to cost
the nation dear.
The march from Washington was a brilliant spectacle. The roads south of
the Potomac were covered with masses of men, well armed and well
clothed, amply furnished with artillery, and led by regular officers.
To the sound of martial music they had defiled before the President.
They were accompanied by scores of carriages. Senators, members of
Congress, and even ladies swelled the long procession. A crowd of
reporters rode beside the columns; and the return of a victorious army
could hardly have been hailed with more enthusiasm than the departure
of these untrained and unblooded volunteers. Yet, pitiful masquerade as
the march must have appeared to a soldier’s eye, the majority of those
who broke camp that summer morning were brave men and good Americans.
To restore the Union, to avenge the insult to their country’s flag,
they had come forward with no other compulsion than the love of their
mother-land. If their self-confidence was supreme and even arrogant, it
was the self-confidence of a strong and a fearless people, and their
patriotism was of the loftiest kind. It would have been easy for the
North, with her enormous wealth, to have organised a vast army of
mercenaries wherewith to crush the South. But no! her sons were not
willing that their country’s honour should be committed to meaner
hands.
As they advanced into Virginia, the men, animated by their
surroundings, stepped briskly forward, and the
country-side was gay with fantastic uniforms and gorgeous standards.
But the heat was oppressive, and the roads lay deep in dust. Knapsack,
rifle, and blankets became a grievous burden. The excitement died away,
and unbroken to the monotonous exertion of the march the three-months’
recruits lost all semblance of subordination. The compact array of the
columns was gradually lost, and a tail of laggards, rapidly increasing,
brought up the rear. Regiment mingled with regiment. By each roadside
brook the men fell out in numbers. Every blackberry bush was surrounded
by a knot of stragglers; and, heedless of the orders of those officers
who still attempted to keep them in the ranks, scores of so-called
soldiers sought the cool shade of the surrounding woods.[1] When
darkness fell the army was but six miles from its morning bivouacs; and
it was not till late the next day that the stragglers rejoined their
regiments.
McDowell had intended to attack at once. “But I could not,” he says,
“get the troops forward earlier than we did. I wished them to go to
Centreville the second day, but when I went to urge them forward, I was
told that it was impossible for the men to march further. They had only
come from Vienna, about six miles, and it was not more than six and a
half miles further to Centreville, in all a march of twelve and a half
miles; but the men were foot-weary—not so much, I was told, by the
distance marched, as by the time they had been on foot, caused by the
obstructions in the road, and the slow pace we had to move to avoid
ambuscades. The men were, moreover, unaccustomed to marching, and not
used to carrying even the load of ‘light marching order.’ . . . The
trains, hurriedly gotten together, with horses, waggons, drivers, and
waggon-masters all new and unused to each other, moved with difficulty
and disorder, and were the cause of a day’s delay in getting the
provisions forward.”[2]
On the morning of the 18th, in order to attract the enemy’s attention
from his right, a brigade was sent south,
in the direction of Bull Run. The Confederate outposts fell back over
Blackburn’s Ford. The woods about the stream concealed the defenders’
forces, and the Federals pushed on, bringing artillery into action. Two
Confederate guns, after firing a few shots, were withdrawn under cover,
and the attacking troops reached the ford. Suddenly, from the high
timber on the further bank, volleys of musketry blazed out in their
very faces, and then came proof that some at least of the Federal
regiments were no more to be relied upon in action than on the march. A
portion of the force, despite the strong position of the enemy and the
heavy fire, showed a bold front, but at least one regiment turned and
fled, and was only rallied far in rear. The whole affair was a mistake
on the part of the commander. His troops had been heedlessly pushed
forward, and General Longstreet, commanding the opposing brigade, by
carefully concealing his infantry, had drawn him into an ambuscade. The
results of the action were not without importance. The Federals fell
back with a loss of 83 officers and men, and the Confederates were much
elated at their easy success. Among some of the Northerners, on the
other hand, the sudden check to the advance, and the bold bearing of
the enemy, turned confidence and enthusiasm into irrational
despondency. A regiment and a battery, which had enlisted for three
months and whose time was up, demanded their discharge, and
notwithstanding the appeals of the Secretary of War, “moved to the rear
to the sound of the enemy’s cannon.”[3]
McDowell’s plans were affected by the behaviour of his troops. He was
still ignorant, so skilfully had the march from the Valley been carried
out, that Johnston had escaped Patterson. He was well aware, however,
that such movement was within the bounds of possibility, yet he found
himself compelled to postpone attack until the 21st. The 19th and 20th
were spent in reconnaissance, and in bringing up supplies; and the lack
of organisation made the issue of rations a long process. But it was
the general’s
want of confidence in his soldiers that was the main cause of delay.
The Confederates were strongly posted. The bridges and fords across
Bull Run, with the exception of Sudley Ford, a long way up stream to
the Federal right, were obstructed with felled trees, and covered by
rude intrenchments. Even with regular troops a direct attack on a
single point of passage would have been difficult. McDowell’s first
idea was to pass across the front of the defences, and turn the right
at Wolf Run Shoals, five miles south-east of Union Mills. The country,
however, on this flank was found to be unfit for the operations of
large masses, and it was consequently determined to turn the