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wretches, small-change knaves, and vagrants, the offscouring of the populous cities. These are the levied forces which Lincoln arrays as candidates for the honor of being slaughtered by gentlemen such as Mobile sends to battle. Let them come South, and we will put our negroes to the dirty work of killing them. But they will not come South; not a wretch of them will live on this side of the border longer than it will take us to reach the ground to drive them off."

There was also foolish boasting in the newspapers of the North; the people were confident that the war would not last more than a month or two. The Secretary of State, William H. Seward, expressed the opinion that it would be over in three months. It was believed that the Union men in the Southern States would rise against the secessionists. On the other hand, the Confederates believed that those in the North opposed to the war would rise against the Government. The farthestsighted, whether living North or South, had little conception of what the conflict was to be, how vast its proportions, how tremendous in results.

THE

CHAPTER V.

THE FIRST GREAT BATTLE.

HE mustering of armies began. Mountains, rivers, railroads — the physical geography of a country-were to determine military campaigns. The great Appalachian chain of mountains covers a wide section of country; it was plain that the great movements of armies must be either east or west of this region. In the east two Union armies were gathering one at Chambersburg, in Pennsylvania, the other at Alexandria, in Virginia, commanded respectively by Generals Patterson and McDowell. General McDowell issued an order to the troops to respect private property. Officers were to keep a strict account of all land taken for camps, to estimate all damage in the destruction of fences or buildings, or trees cut down, and to obtain the names of the owners that they might be reimbursed. Very few men at the beginning had any comprehension of what destruction would come to the South.

Two Confederate armies were gathering in Virginia: one at Manassas, under General Beauregard, the other at Harper's Ferry, under General Joseph E. Johnston. On June 6th Beauregard issued this address to the people of Loudon, Fairfax, and Prince William counties:

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A reckless and unprincipled tyrant has invaded your soil. Abraham Lincoln, regardless of all moral, legal, and constitutional restraints, has thrown his abolition hosts among you, who are murdering and imprisoning your citizens, confiscating and destroying your property, and committing other acts of violence and outrage too shocking and revolting to humanity to be enumerated.

"All rules of civilized warfare are abandoned, and they proclaim by their acts, if not on their banners, that their war - cry is 'Beauty and Booty.' All that is dear to man— your honor, and that of your wives and daughters, your fortunes and your lives, are involved in this momentous conflict."

It is not to be supposed that General Beauregard sincerely believed what he had written. He had been in the service of the United States more than twenty years. When South Carolina seceded he was in command. of the military school at West Point, mingling with the refined, intelligent

people of New York. He knew that they were not what he represented them to be, and that the address was a slander. It was the spirit of slavery and the madness of the hour that prompted him.

General Johnston was stationed at Harper's Ferry, because it was supposed to be an important position. Jefferson Davis said that it was a natural fortress, and that it commanded the Shenandoah Valley. The military men at Washington made the same mistake. It commanded nothing.

MARTINSBURG

POTO

HARPERS FERRY

WINCHESTER

LEES

CHAIN BRIDGE

BALTIMORE

The Union army gathering at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was designed to confront that under Johnston. General Patterson had served in Mexico. He was sixty-nine. years old, indecisive, easily influenced. He advanced to Williamsport, on the Potomac, above Harper's Ferry, whereupon Johnston spiked the heavy cannon which he had brought up from Norfolk Navy-yard and placed in position, and retreated to Winchester, more than twenty miles. General Patterson could not comprehend it, neither could his brigade commander, General Cadwallader, nor his adjutantgeneral, Fitz-John Porter.

ASHBY'S
GAP

PIEDMONT

WARRENTON

SAS CAPRAR

OMANA

JUNCTION

ALEXANDRIA

MAP OF BULL RUN.

WASHINGTON

"I believe it is designed for a decoy; there may be a deep-laid plot to deceive us," wrote Patterson. "The whole affair is a riddle," said Cadwallader. But it was not a decoy; it was plain common-sense on the part of Johnston, who saw that the position had no particular military value; that Patterson could march past him, gain his rear, and cut off his retreat. In studying the war, we are to consider that the generals in command at the beginning knew very little about war except what they learned from books, and that some of them never had commanded even a company. A large number were made generals because they had been prominent in political affairs.

General Scott, commander-in-chief of the Union armies, planned a campaign. The people demanded that the armies should move. "On to Richmond!" was the cry. The rebellion must be crushed. At Alexandria and Arlington were between thirty and forty thousand troops, under Gen

eral McDowell, confronted by the Confederate army under Beauregard, supposed to number twenty-five thousand. McDowell was to advance against Beauregard, and Patterson, at the same moment, was to move upon Johnston at Winchester. General Scott was apprehensive that Johnston would make a quick movement, join Beauregard, and outnumber McDowell, and he very emphatically informed Patterson that he must not permit any such movement. He assured McDowell that if Johnston attempted

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it he would have Patterson at his heels. Patterson had twenty-two thousand men, Johnston about twelve thousand.

From the beginning the Confederates artfully and successfully deceived the Union generals as to their numbers. The timid Patterson accepted as truth all the stories told by men who to be Union men, but who were spies. men and fifty cannon," said one.

came from Winchester pretending "Johnston has forty-two thousand General Scott and the War Department

knew better; but there was very little reliable information as to what was going on in Richmond or in the Confederate lines, while Jefferson Davis had accurate accounts of matters at Washington. When the war begun it was a Southern city, and a large number of the people sympathized with the South. They were in the Departments, in position to know all the secret movements. There was an organized mail-route between Washington and Richmond. Every evening a man left the city on horseback, riding eastward to Port Tobacco. The country around is very poor. One hundred and fifty years ago there were tobacco plantations, with gangs of slaves cultivating the ground. Now the once waving fields are overgrown with pines, and Port Tobacco is a sleepy place. The people of that region were in sympathy with the South.

On the bluff overlooking the Potomac stood the house of Mr. Watson, who had a son in General Lee's army. Across the Potomac, in Virginia, stood the house of Mr. Grimes. These gentlemen owned boats, and used to ferry people across the river in the night who carried percussion-caps, quinine, and other things purchased in Baltimore, to Richmond, making a great deal of money. There were Union gunboats in the river and soldiers on land; but Mr. Watson had a daughter whose sympathies were with the Southern army, and who kept a sharp lookout for the gunboats and soldiers. When neither was near she hung out a shawl from her chamber window as a signal to Mr. Grimes that the coast was clear, and when night came, light skiffs darted out from the creek along the shore and glided across the river. Mr. Jones, who lived near Mr. Watson, was the Confederate mail-agent; his post-office was a hollow tree at the foot of the bluff. When night came he made his way with letters and newspapers through the thick pines to the bank of the river, leaving the packages in the hollow tree, and taking those that he found there. He knew where the Union sentinels were, and how to avoid them. Every day when the New York newspapers arrived at Annapolis, a Confederate agent made up a package, which before night was in the hands of Mr. Jones, and which the next night would be in Richmond, Mr. Grimes sending a messenger across the country with the bag.

We come to July 15th. The time of the soldiers called out for three months has nearly expired; the movement to Manassas must be made at once, or not at all. General Patterson is at Martinsburg, and marches to Bunker Hill, within nine miles of Winchester. He has no definite plan.

On the morning of the 16th the cavalry makes a reconnoissance, and finds the Confederates in line of battle behind stone walls north of Winchester. There are three things which Patterson can do, either of which

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