eventuated, were to experience the larger part of the sanguinary fighting of the day. suing morning for the hour of leaving camp. I movement on the right, and these troops, as it Three days' rations were to be served out by the commissary, and the tents of each regiment to remain standing and under guard. On the night preceding the battle Gen. Cameron visited the camp, reviewed the Third Tyler brigade, passed a few hours with Gen. McDowell, and then left for Washington, in spirits depressed by no premonition of the disaster which was to befall our arms, and the private grief which would add a deeper sorrow to the feelings he now experiences. After midnight a carriage was placed at Gen. McDowell's tent, which was to bear him to the scene of action. In order to be ready to move with the army I went down to the familiar quarters of Lieutenant Tompkins, whose company was attached to the general's escort, and there slept an hour while our horses ate the only forage they were to have for a day and a half. At two o'clock we were awakened; the army had commenced to move. The Midnight March. There was moonlight, as I have said; and no moonlight scene ever offered more varying themes to the genius of a great artist. Through the hazy valleys, and on hill-slopes, miles apart, were burning the fires at which forty regiments had prepared their midnight meal. In the vistas opening along a dozen lines of view, thousands of men were moving among the fitful beacons; horses were harnessing to artillery, white army wagons were in motion with the ambulances-whose black covering, when one thought about it, seemed as appropriate as that of the coffin which accompanies a condemned man to the death before him. All was silent confusion and intermingling of moving horses and men. But forty thousand soldiers stir as quickly as a dozen, and in fifteen minutes from the commencement of the bustle every regiment had taken its place, ready to fall in to the division to which it was assigned. General McDowell and staff went in the centre of Tyler's, the central column. At 2 A. M. the last soldier had left the extended encampments, except those remaining behind on guard. In the moonlight of the stillest hour of the night our force of 36,000 men began to move, in pursuance of the following arrangement for the advance: On the left, or southernmost road, the gallant Colonel Richardson, be it remembered, had continued to hold the approach to the field where he fought so bravely on Thursday, his command consisting of the Fourth Brigade of Tyler's Division, viz., the Second and Third Michigan, the First Massachusetts, and the Twelfth New York regiments. It was rightly determined that these troops, if they fought at all, should be apportioned to ground of which they already had partial knowledge. Behind Richardson, and near Centreville, Col. Miles was to take up his position in reserve, with his entire First and Second brigades. These included the Eighth (German Rifles) and Twenty-ninth New York regiments, the Garibaldi Guard and the Twenty-fourth Pennsylvania, the Sixteenth, Eighteenth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second New York regiments, and the Company G (Second Artillery) battery-the one lately brought from Fort Pickens. Thus Richardson could call to his support, if necessary, a reserve of 7,000 men, in addition to the 4,000 with which he was instructed to hold his position, to prevent the enemy from moving on "Centreville past our left, but not to make any attack. The centre, on the Warrenton road, commanded by Gen. Tyler, consisted of the First and Second Brigades of the Tyler Division, embracing the First and Second Ohio, and Second New York regiments, under Gen. Schenck, and the Sixty-ninth, Seventy-ninth, and Thirteenth New York, and Second Wisconsin, under Col. Sherman. Carlisle's, Rickett's, and Ayres's battery, accompanied this important column, which numbered 6,000 men, and which was supported in the rear by the Third Tyler Brigade, under Col. Keyes, consisting of the First, Second, and Third Connecticut regiments, and the Fourth Maine-a force of 3,000, The central line appeared to offer the best available at a moment's call. On the extreme chances for a survey of the impending action, right, Col. Hunter took the lead, with the two and in default of any certain pre-knowledge, brigades of his Division, viz., the Eighth and was accompanied by all non-participators whom Fourteenth New York regiments under Col. interest or duty had drawn to the movement Porter, with a battalion of the Second, Third, of the day. In order to obtain a full review and Eighth regular infantry, a portion of the of its moonlight march to the most momentous Second cavalry, and the Fifth Artillery battery, effort of the campaign, I started at the extreme under Col. Burnside; the First and Second Ohio, rear, and rapidly passed along to overtake the the Seventy-first New York, and two New Hamp-van of the column. For some way the central shire regiments, with the renowned Rhode Island battery. After Hunter's followed Col. Heintzelman's Division, including the Fourth and Fifth Massachusetts and the First Minnesota regiments, with a cavalry company and a battery, all under Col. Franklin, and the Second, Fourth, and Fifth Maine and Second Vermont regiments under Col. Howard. To about 14,000 men was thus intrusted the difficult and most essential labor of turning the enemy by a circuitous and right divisions were united, the latter forming off, as I have explained, about a mile beyond Centreville. So, leaving camp a mile below the village, I enjoyed the first spectacle of the day-a scene never to pass from the memory of those who saw it. Here were thousands of comrades-in-arms going forward to lay down their lives in a common cause. Here was all, and more than one had read of the solemn paraphernalia of war. These were not the armies of the aliens to us, but, with the dress, the colors, the officers, of every regiment, we were so familiar that those of each had for us their own interest, and a different charm. We knew the men, their discipline, their respective heroes; what corps were most relied on; whose voice was to be that of Hector or Agamemnon in the coming fray. How another day would change all this! How some long-vaunted battalions would perhaps lose their, as yet, unearned prestige, while accident or heroism should gild the standards of many before undistinguished! Then, as I followed along that procession of rumbling cannon-carriages and caissons, standards and banners, the gleaming infantry with their thousands of shining bayonets, and the mounted officers of every staff, what fine excitement was added to the occasion by the salutations and last assurances of the many comrades dearer than the rest! The spirit of the soldiery was magnificent. They were all smarting under the reproach of Thursday, and longing for the opportunity to wipe it out. There was glowing rivalry between the men of different States. "Old Massachusetts will not be ashamed of us to-night." "Wait till the Ohio boys get at them." "We'll fight for New York to-day," and a hundred similar utterances, were shouted from the different ranks. The officers were as glad of the task assigned them as their men. I rode a few moments with Licut.-Col. Haggerty, of the Sixty-ninth. He mentioned the newspaper statement that he was killed at the former battle, and laughingly said that ho felt very warlike for a dead man, and good for at least one battle more. This brave officer was almost the first victim of the day. The cheery voice of Meagher, late the Irish, now the American patriot, rang out more heartily than ever. Then there were Corcoran, and Burnside, and Keyes, and Speidel, and many another skilled and gallant officer, all pushing forward to the first fruition of their three months' patient preparation. In the ranks of the Connecticut and other regiments, were old classmates and fellow-townsmen, with whom it was a privilege to exchange a word on this so different occasion from any anticipated in those days when all the States were loyal, and the word "disunion" was a portion of an unknown tongue. General McDowell's carriage halted at the junction of the two roads, a place most favorable for the quick reception of despatches from all portions of the field. The column assigned to Colonel Hunter here divided from the main body and went on its unknown, perilous journey around the enemy's flank. A mile along-and by this time the white morning twilight gave us a clearer prospect than the fading radiance which had thus far illumed the march-we could look across an open country on the left to the farin-house, where we knew Col. Richardson was stationed, and to the blood-stained valley beyond, whose VOL. II.-Doc. 11 upper reaches were now to be the arena of a larger conflict. But it was after sunrise when the van of General Tyler's column came to the edge of the wooded hill overlooking those reaches. The sun had risen as splendid as the sun of Austerlitz. Was it an auspicious omen for us, or for the foe? Who could foretell? The scenery was too beautiful and full of nature's own peace, for one to believe in the possibility of the tumult and carnage just at hand, or that among those green oak forests lurked every engine of destruction which human contrivance has produced, with hosts of an enemy more dangerous and subtle than the wild beasts which had once here made their hiding-places. Then, too, it was Sunday morning. Even in the wilderness, the sacred day seems purer and more hushed than any other. It was ours to first jar upon the stillness of the morning, and becloud the clearness of that serene atmosphere with the rude clangor of the avant messenger that heralded our challenge to a disloyal foe. The Battle. From the point I mention, where the road slopes down to a protected ravine, we caught the first glimpse of the enemy. A line of infantry were drawn up across a meadow in the extreme distance, resting close upon woods behind them. We could see the reflection of their bayonets, and their regular disposition showed them expectant of an attack. After a moment's inspection, General Tyler ordered Carlisle to advance with his battery to the front, and here one could think of nothing but Milton's line: "Vanguard! to right and left the front unfold." The ancient order for the disposition of advance ranks is still in military usage; for the second and third Tyler brigades under Schenck, wero at once formed in line of battle, in the woods on either side-the First Ohio, Second Wisconsin, Seventy-ninth, Thirteenth, and Sixty-ninth New York regiments succeeding each other on the right, and the Second Ohio, and Second New York being similarly placed on the left, while the artillery came down the road between. A great 32-pound rifled Parrott gun-the only one of its calibre in our field servicewas brought forward, made to bear on the point where we had just seen the enemy, (for the bayonets suddenly disappeared in the woods behind,) and a shell was fired at fifteen minutes past 6 A. M., which burst in the air; but the report of the piece awoke the country, for leagues around, to a sense of what was to be the order of the day. The reverberation was tremendous, shaking through the hills like the volley of a dozen plebeian cannon, and the roar of the revolving shell indescribable. Throughout the battle that gun, whenever it was fired, seemed to hush and overpower every thing else. We waited a moment for an answering salute, but receiving none, sent the second shell at a hill-top, two miles off, where we suspected that a battery had been planted by the rebels. The bomb burst like an echo close at the intended point, but still no answer came, and Gen. Tyler ordered Carlisle to cease firing, and bring the rest of his battery to the front of the woods and our column, ready for instant action. It was now about 7 o'clock. For half an hour but little more was done; then skirmishers were deployed into the forest on each side, in order to discover the whereabouts of our nearest foes. Before us lay a rolling and comparatively open country, but with several hills and groves cutting off any extended view. In the western distance on the left we could see the outskirts of Manassas Junction. The woods at whose edge our line of battle formed, extended half around the open fields in a kind of semicircle, and it was into the arms of this crescent that our skirmishers advanced. Soon we began to hear random shots exchanged in the thicket on the left, which proved the existence of an enemy in that direction. (What can be done against men who, to all the science and discipline of European warfare, add more than the meanness and cowardly treachery of the Indian? We had, all through the day, to hunt for the foe, though he numbered his myriads of men.) At the same time, a scout on the right captured a negro native, who was led to the general, shaking with fear, and anxious to impart such information as he had. Through him we learned that the rebels were quartered among the woods on the right and left, and in the groves in the open country; that they had erected a battery on the distant hill, and had kept him at work for three days, assisting to fell trees, so that a clear range of the road we occupied could be obtained. By this time our scouts reported the enemy in some force on the left. Two or three Ohio skirmishers had been killed. Carlisle's battery was sent to the front of the woods on the right, where it could be brought to play where needed. A few shell were thrown into the opposite thicket, and then the Second Ohio and Second New York marched down to rout out the enemy. In ten minutes the musketry was heard, and then a heavy cannonade answer. They had, without doubt, fallen upon a battery in the bushes. For a quarter of an hour their firing continued, when they came out in good order, confirming our surmises. After advancing a furlong they saw the enemy, who exchanged their fire and retired through the forest. Suddenly from a different direction a voice was heard, exclaiming, "Now, you Yankee devils, we've got you where we want you!" and several heavy guns were opened upon them with such effect that Schenck finally ordered them to retire, which they did in perfect order. The boys came out indignant at the practices of the rebels, and swearing they would rather fight three times their force in the open field than encounter the deadly mystery of those thickets. No soldiers are willing to have their fighting entirely confined to storming infernal earthworks at the point of the bayonet. Every regiment, yesterday, was at times a forlorn hope." A few dead and wounded began to be brought in, and the battle of Manassas had commenced. Carlisle's howitzers and the great rifled gun were opened in the direction of the battery, which answered promptly, and a brief, but terrific cannonading ensued. In less than half an hour the enemy's guns were silenced, two of Carlisle's howitzers advancing through the woods to gain a closer position. But a fatal error was here made, as I thought, by General Tyler, in not ordering in a division to drive out the four rebel regiments stationed behind the battery, and to seize its eight guns. Through some inexplicable fatuity he seemed to assume that when a battery was silenced it was convinced, and there it remained, with its defenders, unheard from and unthought of until the latter portion of the day, when it formed one cause of our final defeat. It is actually a fact, that while our whole forces were pushed along the right to a co-operation with Hunter's flanking column, and a distance of miles in advance, this position on the left, close to the scene of the commencement of the fight, and just in front of all our trains and ammunition wagons -a position chosen by all spectators as the most secure-was, through the day, within five minutes' reach of a concealed force of infantry, and a battery which had only been "silenced." No force was stationed to guard the rear of our left flank. It was near this very point, and with the assistance of this very infantry, that the enemy's final charge was made, which created such irretrievable confusion and dismay. And after the first few hours no officer could be found in this vicinity to pay any attention to its security. All had gone forward to follow the line of the contest. Meantime, Richardson, on the extreme left, could not content himself with "maintaining his position," for we heard occasional discharges from two of his guns. However, he took no other part in the action than by shelling the forces of the enemy which were sent rapidly from his vicinity to the immediate point of contest. From the hill behind we could see long columns advancing, and at first thought they were Richardson's men moving on Bull Run; but soon discovered their true character. Indeed, from every southward point the enemy's reinforcements began to pour in by thousands. Great clouds of dust arose from the distant roads. A person who ascended a lofty tree could see the continual arrival of cars at the nearest point on the Manassas railroad, with hosts of soldiers, who formed in solid squares and moved swiftly forward to join in the contest. The whistle of the locomotive was plainly audible to those in our advance. It is believed that at least fifty thousand were added during the day to the thirty thousand rebels opposed to us at the onset. It was hard for our noble fellows to withstand these incessant reinforcements, but some of our regiments whipped several corps opposed to them in quick succession, and whenever our forces, fresh or tired, met the enemy in open field, they made short work of his opposition. At 10 A. M. Hunter was heard from on the extreme right. He had previously sent a courier to General McDowell, reporting that he had safely crossed the run. The general was lying on the ground, having been ill during the night, but at once mounted his horse and rode on to join the column on which so much depended. From the neighborhood of Sudley Church he saw the enemy's left in battle array, and at once advanced upon them with the Fourteenth New York and a battalion of regular infantry -Colonel Hunter ordering up the stalwart Rhode Island regiments, (one led by that model of the American volunteer, Burnside,) the Second New Hampshire, and our own finely-disciplined Seventy-first. Gov. Sprague himself directed the movements of the Rhode Island brigade, and was conspicuous through the day for gallantry. The enemy were found in heavy numbers opposite this unexcelled division of our army, and greeted it with shell and long volleys of battalion firing as it advanced. But on it went, and a fierce conflict ensued in the northern battle ground. As soon as Hunter was thus discovered to be making his way on the flank, Gen. Tyler sent forward the right wing of his column to co-operate, and a grand force was thus brought to bear most effectually on the enemy's left and centre. in the fierceness of its most extended fury. The batteries on the distant hill began to play upon our own, and upon our advancing troops, with hot and thunderous effects. Carlisle answered for us, and Sherman for Hunter's division, while the great 32-pounder addressed itself resistlessly to the alternate defences of the foe. The noise of the cannonading was deafening and continuous. Conversely to the circumstance of the former engagement, it completely drowned, at this period, the volleys of the musketry and riflemen. It blanched the cheeks of the villagers at Centreville, to the main street of which place some of the enemy's rifled shell were thrown. It was heard at Fairfax, at Alexandria, at Washington itself. Five or six heavy batteries were in operation at once, and to their clamor was added the lesser roll of twenty thousand small-arms. What could we civilians see of the fight at this time? Little: yet perhaps more than any who were engaged in it. How anxiously we strained our eyes to catch the various movements, thoughtless of every thing but the spectacle, and the successes or reverses of the Federal army. Our infantry were engaged in woods and meadows beyond our view. We knew not the nature or position of the force they were fighting. But now and then there would be a fierce rush into the open prospect, a gallant charge on one side and a retreat on the other, and we saw plainly that our columns were gaining ground, and steadily pursuing their advantage by their gradual movement, which continued towards the dis|tance and the enemy's centre. We indeed heard continuous tidings of heroThe famous Irish regiment, 1,600 strong, who ism and victory; and those in the trees above have had so much of the hard digging to per-us told us of more than we could discover with form, claimed the honor of a share in the hard fighting, and led the van of Tyler's attack, followed by the Seventy-ninth (Highlanders) and Thirteenth New York and Second Wisconsin. our field glasses from below. We heard that Hunter had fairly rounded the enemy's flank, and then we listened for ourselves to the sound of his charges in the northern woods, and saw It was a brave sight-that rush of the Sixty- for ourselves the air gathering up smoke from ninth into the death-struggle! With such their branches, and the wavering column of the cheers as those which won the battles in the Mississippians as they fled from their first batPeninsula, with a quick step at first, and then tery, and were forced into the open field. Then a double quick, and at last a run, they dashed we saw our own Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth, forward, and along the edge of the extended corps animated by a chivalrous national rivalry, forest. Coats and knapsacks were thrown to press on to the support of the more distant coleither side, that nothing might impede their umn. We could catch glimpses of the continwork, but we knew that no guns would slip ual advances and retreats; could hear occasionfrom the hands of those determined fellows, ally the guns of a battery before undiscovered; even if dying agonies were needed to close could guess how terribly all this accumulation them with a firmer grasp. As the line swept of death upon death must tell upon those unalong, Meagher galloped towards the head, cry-daunted men, but could also see and our ing "Come on, boys! you've got your chance cheers continually followed the knowledgeat last!" I have not since seen him, but hear that he fought magnificently, and is wounded. Tyler's forces thus moved forward for half a mile, describing quite one-fourth of a circle on the right, until they met a division of the enemy, and of course a battery of the enemy's most approved pattern. The heat of the Contest. It was noon, and now the battle commenced that our forces were gradually driving the right of the enemy around the second quarter of a circle, until by one o'clock the main battle was raging at a point almost directly opposite our standing-place-the road at the edge of the woods-where it had commenced six hours be fore. There was a hill at the distance of a mile and a half, to which I have heretofore alluded. From its height overlooking the whole plain, a few shell had reached us early in the day, and as it was nearer the Manassas road than almost any other portion of the field, more of the enemy's reinforcements gathered about its ridge than to the aid of the beaten robels in the woods and valleys. Here there was an open battery, and long lines of infantry in support, ready, for a wonder, to let our wearied fellows see the fresh forces they had to conquer. A As the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth wound round the meadows to the north of this hill, and began to cross the road apparently with the intention. of scaling it, we saw a column coming down from the farthest perspective, and for a moment believed it to be a portion of Hunter's division, and that it had succeeded in completely turning the enemy's rear. wild shout rose from us all. But soon the look-outs saw that the ensigns bore secession banners, and we knew that Johnston or some other rebel general, was leading a horde of fresh troops against our united right and centre. It was time for more regiments to be sent forward, and Keyes was ordered to advance with the First Tyler brigade. The three Connecticut regiments and the Fourth Maine came on with a will: the First Connecticut was posted in reserve, and the other three corps swept up the field, by the ford on the right, to aid the struggling advance. personally experienced it. And so the conflict lulled for a little while. It was the middle of a blazing afternoon. Our regiments held the positions they had won, but the enemy kept receiving additions, and continued a flank movement towards our left-a dangerous movement for us, a movement which those in the rear perceived, and vainly endeavored to induce some general officer to guard against. Here was the grand blunder, or misfortune of the battle. A misfortune, that we had no troops in reserve after the Ohio regiments were again sent forward, this time to assist in building a bridge across the run on the Warrenton road, by the side of the stone bridge known to be mined. A blunder, in that the last reserve was sent forward at all. It should have been retained to guard the rear of the left, and every other regiment on the field should have been promptly recalled over the route by which it had advanced, and ordered only to maintain such positions as rested on a supported, continuous line. Gen. Scott says, to-day, that our troops had accomplished three days' work, and should have rested long before. But McDowell tried to vanquish the South in a single struggle, and the sad result is before us. As it was, Capt. Alexander, with his sappers and miners, was ordered to cut through the abatis by the side of the mined bridge, in the All eyes were now directed to the distant valley directly before us, and lay pontoons hill-top, now the centre of the fight. All could across the stream. Carlisle's artillery was desee the enemy's infantry ranging darkly against tailed to protect the work, and the Ohio and the sky beyond, and the first lines of our men Wisconsin reserve to support the artillery. moving with fine determination up the steep Meanwhile, in the lull which I have mentioned, slope. The cannonading upon our advance, the the thousand heroic details of Federal valor and struggle upon the hill-top, the interchange of the shamelessness of rebel treachery began to position between the contestants, were watched reach our ears. We learned the loss of the by us, and as new forces rushed in upon the brave Caineron, the wounding of Heintzelman enemy's side the scene was repeated over and and Hunter, the fall of Haggerty, and Slocum, over again. It must have been here, I think, and Wilcox. We heard of the dash of the Irishthat the Sixty-ninth took and lost a battery men and their decimation, and of the havoc made eight times in succession, and finally were com- and sustained by the Rhode Islanders, the Highpelled, totally exhausted, to resign the comple- landers, the Zouaves, and the Connecticut Third; tion of their work to the Connecticut regiments then of the intrepidity of Burnside and Sprague which had just come up. The Third Connecti--how the devoted and daring young governcut finally carried that summit, unfurled the Stars and Stripes above it, and paused from the fight to cheer for the Union cause. Then the battle began to work down the hill, the returning half of the circle which the enemy, driven before the desperate charges of our troops, described during the day, until the very point where Tyler's advance commenced the action. Down the hill and into the valley thickets on the left, the Zouaves, the Connecticut, and New York regiments, with the unconquerablo Rhode Islanders, drove the continually enlarging but always vanquished columns of the enemy. It was only to meet more batteries, earthwork succeeding earthwork, ambuscade after ambuscade. Our fellows were hot and weary; most had drunk no water during hours of dust, and smoke, and insufferable heat. No one knows what choking the battle atmosphere produces in a few moments, until he has or led the regiments he had so munificently equipped again and again to victorious charges, and at last spiked, with his own hands, the guns he could not carry away. The victory seemed ours. It was an hour sublime in unselfishness, and apparently glorious in its results! At this time, near four o'clock, I rode forward through the open plain to the creek where the abatis was being assailed by our engineers. The Ohio, Connecticut, and Minnesota regiments were variously posted thereabout; others were in distant portions of the field; all were completely exhausted and partly dissevered; no general of division, except Tyler, could be found. Where were our officers? Where was the foe? Who knew whether we had won or lost? us. The question was to be quickly decided for A sudden swoop, and a body of cavalry rushed down upon our columns near the bridge. |