Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

F. P. BLAIR-SCOTT-PATTERSON.

549

midst, even though he had to travel | Fourth, at latest. That we had ample

in an ambulance. Moving slowly, steadily, cautiously forward, our army should have been reënforced by two or three fresh regiments each day, being exercised in field maneuvers at every opportunity. On or before the 1st day of July, this array, one hundred thousand strong, should have been before Richmond, not then fortified to any serious extent, and should have replaced the Stars and Stripes on the steeples of that city by the

were free from the Confederate bayonets, they gave a majority of votes against Secession. The same was the case in Tennessee. Any such plan as that which The Times says is Gen. Scott's plan of carrying on the war would leave the unarmed Union men of the Border States and of the Southern States at the mercy of the armies of the Confederate States. It would leave the 25,000 majority in East Tennessee, the vast majority in Missouri, and everywhere else, at the mercy of the Rebels.

"I say, further, that, if we remain idle for such a period of time, doing nothing upon the borders of these revolted States, however great an army we might possess, we should, by so doing, proclaim to the world that we were unable to enter those States and put down Rebellion; and the governments of Europe would make it a pretext for acknowledging the independence of those States.

"It is manifest, therefore, that such important political considerations must enter largely into any plan of campaign; and no plan is admissible which, by its delays, destroys the business of the country, leaves the Union men of the Border States and their property a prey to the Rebels, and gives a pretext to foreign Powers to interfere for the purpose of forcing our blockade."

That the policy of 'wait and get ready,' involved, in fact, a virtual admission of the independence of the Confederacy, while enabling the Rebels to crush out the last vestiges of Unionism in the South, as also to cover all the important points with impregnable fortifications, erected in good part by slave labor, is too obvious to need enforcement. It was the policy of all who wished to save the Union by surrendering at discretion to the Rebels, bidding them do what they pleased with the Constitution, the Government, the territories, so that they would but consent to endure us as fellow-countrymen.

28 That Gen. Scott, though loyal and Unionloving, was always in favor of buying off the Rebellion by compromises and concessions, and averse to what was most unjustly termed 'coër

force to do this, is now beyond doubt; for the Rebels, gathering all their strength from the Shenandoah on the one side to the James on the other, were barely able, on the 21st-three weeks after we should have been before Richmond-to beat a third of our regiments that might and should have confronted them.25

II. The flagrant disobedience and defection of Gen. Patterson," 'unaccountable on any hypothesis consist

cion' and 'invasion,' is no secret. How eagerly he jumped upon the finality' platform when nominated for President, in 1852, and ordered a grand salute of one hundred guns in honor of the passage of Mr. Guthrie's Compromise propositions in the "Peace Conference" of 1861, are matters of record. That he sought to have Fort Sumter evacuated, a month later, as a military necessity," is well known. Two or three weeks thereafter, on the very morning that the Rebels opened fire on Sumter, The National Intelligencer, of April 12th, contained the following, which was widely understood to have been inspired, if not directly written, by him:

[ocr errors]

"There is a general and almost universal desire that no coërcive measures should be resorted to, so as to induce actual collision of arms between the States that say they have seceded and the Government of the United States, until all peaceful remedies have been exhausted, yet:

"Great confidence is inspired by an exhibition of the actual strength and power of the Government. It gratifies national pride to have the consciousness that the Government is in possession of power, and that, when it is not exercised, it may receive the credit of forbearance. There would be an objection that this attribute of power should be directed, at the present moment, to any specific end; even though that end should be the execution of the laws. But no

thing can be more evident than that universal satisfaction is felt and security inspired by the knowledge that the power of the Government is ready, at a moment's notice, to be applied and used."

29 Pollard, in his "Southern History," blandly says:

"The best service which the army of the Shenandoah could render was to prevent the defeat of that of the Potomac. To be able to do this, it was necessary for Gen. Johnston to defeat Gen. Patterson, or to elude him. The latter course was the more speedy and certain, and was, therefore, adopted. Evading the enemy by the disposition of the advance guard under Col

ent with the possession, on his part, of|oughly acquainted by their confeder

33

courage, common sense, and loyalty." ates, left by Davis, Floyd, etc., in our III. The failure of Gen. Scott to service, with everything that took send forward with Gen. McDowell a place or was meditated" on our side; force adequate to provide against all and so were able to anticipate and contingencies. The fact that 20,000 | baffle every movement of our arvolunteers remained idle and useless, mies. Thus, a military map or plan throughout that eventful Sunday, in of the region directly west of Washand immediately around Washing-ington had been completed for use ton-Scott having obstinately resist ed entreaties that they should be dispatched to the front-insisting that McDowell had "men enough”—that | he needed no cavalry, etc.-of itself attests strongly the imbecility and lack of purpose that then presided over our military councils."

IV. The Rebels were kept thor

Stuart, our army moved through Ashley's Gap to Piedmont, a station of the Manassas Gap railroad. Hence, the infantry were to be transported by the railway, while the cavalry and artillery were ordered to continue their march. Gen. Johnston reached Manassas about noon on the 20th, preceded by the 7th and 8th Georgia regiments and by Jackson's brigade, consisting of the 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33d Virginia regiments. He was accompanied by Gen. Bee, with the 4th Alabama, the 2d, and two companies of the 11th Mississippi. The president of the railroad had assured him that the remaining troops should arrive during the day."

30 Patterson was a Breckinridge Democrat of the extreme pro-Slavery type-of that type whose views were expressed by The Pennsylvanian(see page 428). When, on the reception of the tidings of Fort Sumter's surrender, a great popular uprising took place in Philadelphia, as in other cities, and immense crowds paraded the streets, demanding that the flag of the Union should be everywhere displayed, Gen. Patterson's was one of the mansions at which this public exaction of an avowal of sympathy with the outraged symbol of our Union was longest and most sturdily resisted.

31 W. H. Russell, writing from Washington to The London Times on the 19th, two days before the battle-doubtless obtaining his information from authentic sources-thus states the disposition of our forces at that moment:

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

at the War Department barely two days before our advance reached Centerville; but, the movement being rapid, the Rebels left here many articles in their hasty flight, and, among them, a copy of this map, which was supposed to be unknown to all but a few of our highest officers. It was so throughout. Washington swarmed

Thus, while the Rebels concentrated, from Richmond on the south to Winchester on the

north, all their available strength upon Manassas, and had it in hand before the close of the battle, McDowell had but little more than a third of our corresponding forces wherewith to oppose ithe acting on the offensive. In other words, we fought with 35,000 men, a battle in which we might and should have had 75,000.

32 Mr. Julius Bing, a German by birth but British by naturalization, who was on the battlefield as a spectator, and was there taken prisoner, and conducted next morning to Beauregard's head-quarters, whence he was sent to Richmond, and who seems to have had the faculty of making himself agreeable to either side, stated, after his return, that among the men he met at Beauregard's head-quarters, at the Junction, was Col. Jordan, formerly of our War Department, who boasted that he had received,

"Before the attack at Bull Run, a cipher dispatch from some well-informed person within our lines, giving full details of our movements, including the particulars of the plan of battle, the time at which operations would commence, and the number of our troops."

33 A correspondent of The New York Tribune, in his account of the battle, says:

A remarkable fact to be considered is, that the enemy seemed perfectly acquainted with our plans. The feint of Col. Richardson availed nothing, since the Rebel force had nearly all been withdrawn from that position. Our combined attack was thoroughly met, and at the very points where partial surprises had been anticipated."

CAUSES OF OUR DEFEAT-SHORT ENLISTMENTS.

with traitors, many of them holding official positions of the gravest responsibility; and whatever it was important to Beauregard to know he speedily ascertained. To cross the Potomac, a little below or above our camps, was never difficult; and, once across, trusty messengers knew where to find fleet horses and sure guides to take them to the Rebel lines. The Confederate chiefs knew which among our officers meant them any harm, and which might be confidently trusted never to take them at disadvantage. They evidently had no more apprehension that Patterson would obstruct or countervail the march of Johnston to Manassas than that Breckinridge or Burnett would do them mortal harm in Congress.

35

[ocr errors]

551

After the mischief was done, Runyon's division was ordered forward from Fairfax-of course, to no purpose. But it should, at least, have been promptly employed to block completely with its bayonets the roads leading to Washington, sternly arresting the flight of the panicstricken fugitives, and gathering them up into something which should bear once more the semblance of an army.

VI. The original call of President Lincoln on the States, for 75,000 militia to serve three months, was a deplorable error. It resulted naturally from that obstinate infatuation which would believe, in defiance of all history and probability, that an aristocratic conspiracy of thirty years' standing, culminating in a rebellion based on an artificial property valued at Four Thousand Millions of Dollars, and wielding the resources of ten or twelve States, having nearly ten millions of people, was to be put down in sixty or ninety days by some process equivalent to reading the Riot Act to an excited mob, and sending a squad of police to disperse it. Hence, the many prisoners of war taken with arms in their hands, in West Virginia and Missouri, had, up to this time, been quite commonly permitted to go at large on taking an oath of fidelity to the Constitution

V. The fall, very early in the action, of Gen. David Hunter, commanding the 2d or leading division, was most untimely and unfortunate. He was so seriously wounded that he was necessarily borne from the field. Gen. Heintzelman, commanding the 3d division, was also wounded; not as severely, but so as to disable him. Gen. McDowell either had control of Runyon's division, guarding his line of communication, or he had not. If he had, he should have ordered the bulk of it to advance that morning on Centerville, so as to have had it well in hand to precipitate on the foe-a process which, in their view, was at the decisive moment; or, if he was so hampered by Scott that he was not at liberty to do this, he should have refused to attack, and resigned the command of the army, rather than fight a battle so fettered.

34 Colonel of the 3d cavalry in the regular service.

35 Colonel in the regular service.

about as significant and imposing as taking a glass of cider. The Government had only to call for any number of men it required, to serve during the pleasure of Congress, or till the overthrow of the Rebellion, and

list of prisoners taken by us--not even of those paroled -- was kept at the War Department; hence, we fell deplorably behind in our account

36 For the first year of the war, no regular current with the Rebels.

they could have been had at once. | there would be no serious fighting; Regiments were pressed upon it from that the Rebels were not in earnest; all sides; and the hotels of Washing- that there would be a promenade, a ton were crowded by keen competi- frolic, and, ultimately, a compromise, tors for the coveted privilege of rais- which would send every one home, ing more batteries and fresh bat- unharmed and exultant, to receive talions. None asked for shorter terms from admiring, cheering thousands to serve, or would have then hesi- the guerdon of his valor. Hence, tated to enlist for the war. It was some regiments were very badly offientirely proper to call out the organ- cered, and others gave way and scatized and uniformed militia as minute-tered, or fled, just when they were most men to defend Washington and pro- needed. tect the public property until volunteers could be raised; but no single regiment should have been organized or enlisted, during that springtide of National enthusiasm, for any term short of the duration of the war.

VII. It is impossible not to perceive that the Rebel troops were better handled, during the conflict, than

ours.

Gen. McDowell, who does not appear to have actively participated in any former battle but that of Buena Vista, where he served as Aid to Gen. Wool, seems to have had very little control over the movements of his forces after the beginning of the conflict. Gov. Sprague, who fought through the day as brigadier with the 2d Rhode Island, whose Colonel, Slocum, and Major, Ballou, were both left dead on the battle-field, observed to one who asked him, near the close of the fight, what were his orders, that he had been fighting all day without any. In short, our army was projected like a bolt, not wielded like a sword.

VIII. Although our army, before fighting on that disastrous day, was largely composed of the bravest and truest patriots in the Union, it contained, also, much indifferent material. Many, in the general stagnation and dearth of employment, had volunteered under a firm conviction that

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

IX. Col. D. J. Miles, a Marylander, commanding the 5th (reserve) division, was drunk throughout the action, and playing the buffoon; riding about to attract observation, with two hats on his head, one within the other. As, however, he was pretty certainly a traitor, and was not ordered to advance, it is hardly probable that his drunkenness did any serious damage, save as it disgusted and disheartened those whose lives were in his hands.

No one who did not share in the sad experience will be able to realize the consternation which the news of this discomfiture-grossly exaggerated-diffused over the loyal portion of our country. Only the tidings which had reached Washington up to 4 o'clock-all presaging certain and decisive victory-were permitted to go north by telegraph that day and evening; so that, on Monday morning, when the crowd of fugitives from our grand army was pouring into Washington, a heedless, harmless, worthless mob, the loyal States were exulting over accounts of a decisive triumph. But a few hours brought different advices; and these were as much worse than the truth as the former had been better: our army had been utterly destroyed-cut to

EXTENT AND RESULTS OF OUR DISCOMFITURE. 553

pieces, with a loss of twenty-five to | with their tales of impregnable in

thirty thousand men, beside all its artillery and munitions, and Washington lay at the mercy of the enemy, who were soon to advance to the capture and sack of our great commercial cities. Never before had so black a day as that black Monday lowered upon the loyal hearts of the North; and the leaden, weeping skies reflected and hightened, while they seemed to sympathize with, the general gloom. It would have been easy, with ordinary effort and care, to have gathered and remanded to their camps or forts around Alexandria or Arlington, all the wretched stragglers to whom fear had lent wings, and who, throwing away their arms and equipments, and abandoning all semblance of military order or discipline, had rushed to the capital to hide therein their shame behind a cloud of exaggerations and falsehoods. The still effective batteries, the solid battalions, that were then wending their way slowly back to their old encampments along the south bank of the Potomac, depressed but unshaken, dauntless and utterly unassailed, were unseen and unheard from; while the panic-stricken racers filled and distended the general ear

37 Gen. McDowell, in his official report, in giving his reasons for fighting as and when he did,

says:

"I could not, as I have said more early, push on faster, nor could I delay. A large and the best part of my forces were three months' yolunteers, whose term of service was about to expire, but who were sent forward as having long enough to serve for the purpose of the expedition. On the eve of the battle, the 4th Pennsylvania regiment of volunteers, and the battery of volunteer artillery of the New York 8th militia, whose term of service expired, insisted on their discharge. I wrote to the regiment, expressing a request for them to remain a short time; and the Hon. Secretary of War, who was at the time on the ground, tried to induce the battery to remain at least five days. But in vain. They insisted on their discharge that

trenchments and masked batteries, of regiments slaughtered, brigades utterly cut to pieces, etc., making out their miserable selves to be about all that was left of the army. That these men were allowed thus to straggle into Washington, instead of being peremptorily stopped at the bridges, and sent back to the encampments of their several regiments, is only to be accounted for on the hypothesis that the reason of our military magnates had been temporarily dethroned, so as to divest them of all moral responsibility.

The consequences of this defeat were sufficiently serious. Our 75,000 three months' men, whose term of enlistment, for the most part, expired within the three weeks following the battle, generally made haste to quit the service and seek their several firesides at the earliest possible moment." Our armies were thus depleted with a rapidity rarely equaled; and the Government, which, throughout the preceding month, had been defending itself as best it could against importunities and entreaties to be allowed to furnish a regiment here or a bat

night. It was granted: and, the next morning, when the army moved forward into battle, these troops moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy's

cannon.

'In the next few days, day by day, I should have lost ten thousand of the best armed, drilled, officered, and disciplined troops in the army. In other words, every day, which added to the strength of the enemy, made us weaker."

It should here be added, that a member of the New York battery aforesaid, who was most earnest and active in opposing Gen. McDowell's request, and insisting on an immediato discharge, was, at the ensuing election, in full view of all the facts, chosen Sheriff of the city of NewYork-probably the most lucrative office filled by popular election in the country.

« FöregåendeFortsätt »