Gen. Stone commenced the passage of the river on the 20th of October. A force of five companies of Massachusetts troops, commanded by Col. Devins, effected a crossing at Edwards' Ferry, and, a few hours thereafter, Col. Baker, who took command of all the Federal forces on the Virginia side, having been ordered by Stone to push the Confederates from Leesburg and hold the place, crossed the river at Conrad's Ferry, a little soutl of Harrison's Island, and on the direct road to Leesburg. Gen. Stone had ordered seven thousand five hundred men to co-operate in the movement. Baker's brigade, including the advanced companies under Devins, was two thousand three hundred strong, and he was rapidly reinforced until nearly the entire number designated by Stone had been thrown across the river.

Meanwhile Gen. Evans, who had taken a position at Goose Creek, awaited the approach of the enemy. The Federals had crossed the Potomac at different points, at Edwards' Ferry which was just above the mouth of Goose Creek, and at Conrad's Ferry, where a steep bank (Ball's Bluff) hung over the water. Finding that no advance from Edwards' Ferry was attempted, Gen. Evans ordered the 17th and 18th Mississippi regiments to move rapidly to the support of the 8th Virginia and some Mississippi companies, which held the approaches to Leesburg, and had already become hotly engaged with the main body of the enemy advancing from Ball's Bluff.

"If the enemy won't come to us we must go to them," exclaimed Evans, as he put the two Mississippi regiments in motion, which began a race of two miles to turn the tide of battle. The Federals who had occupied Ball's Bluff had advanced towards the wooded plain between the river and Leesburg, and held a semicircular line of battle, supported by four howitzers. Evans' order was, "to make the business short." As the fire of musketry became hot and general-for the Confederates had no opportunity to use their artillery-the Federals gave way, and fell back towards the bluff. Col. Baker urged his men to rally, and brought his disordered lines to a momentary stand. Gen. Evans, seizing the critical moment, ordered a charge. Virginians and Mississippians together rushed forward, making a resistless onset upon the Federal lines. A private sprang to the front, and advancing within eight feet of Col. Baker, fired five chambers of his revolver at him, piercing his head at the first shot, and striking him with nearly every ball. He fell dead. His terrified command gave way in utter rout, and fled towards the river. A portion, numbering several hundred men, attempted to make good their retreat by a flank movement to Edwards' Ferry, and were taken prisoners. But the bulk of the fugitives madly ran to the very verge of Ball's Bluff; and now ensued a scene of unutterable horrour, as these men were driven over the bluff on to the bayonets of their friends, thirty feet below.

THE BATTLE OF LEESBURG.

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Such slaughter, such havoc, such mangling of living men was scarcely ever seen before. A whole army was retreating, tumbling, rolling, leaping down the steep heights. Hundreds plunged into the rapid current ; many were shot in the act of swimming; and others were drowned in the water, choked with the wounded and dead. Large flats had been used to bring over reinforcements. They now attempted to return with the wounded; but such was the consternation among the troops that large numbers rushed on board, trampling upon the bleeding men until they all sank together, amid frightful screams. There were men in that agonized mass of fugitives who had never seen the field of battle. They had been sent over while the contest was in progress; they had climbed the mud of the bluff, expecting to find before them a scene of victory. But before them glared a victorious and vengeful foe; and behind them rolled the deep river. All was consternation and dismay. A thousand men ran up and down the banks. Two Massachusetts companies had the presence of mind to display a white flag and surrender. Others rushed wildly into the stream; and the shrieks of the wounded and drowning mingled with the shouts of the victors and the rattle of musketry.

The results of the terrible disaster of Leesburg were studiously suppressed by the Washington authorities. Indeed, they had the hardihood to claim an advantage; representing that the movement towards Leesburg was merely a "reconnoissance," and was, in the main, "gallant" and "successful." But the Federal Congress happened to be in session at the time; and the opposition party brought out the stark and horrible truth of the affair. It was ascertained that the Federal loss was not less than 500 killed and drowned, 800 wounded, and about the same number of prisoners, making a total exceeding two thousand. The loss of the Conederates was only one hundred and fifty-three in killed and wounded. Evans' little command had defeated an army, probably three times its strength, and had inflicted upon it a loss greater in number than the whole Confederate force engaged.

After the lesson administered at Leesburg, McClellan for some months attempted nothing but some foraging expeditions; but he was constantly busy with the organization and morale of his army; and the material which was raw at Manassas was rapidly improving in discipline, stanchness and soldierly qualities. On the 20th of December occurred an affair, which was more creditable to the Federals than any that had yet taken place in the region of the Potomac, and constituted McClellan's first success since the engagement of Rich Mountain.

On the day named Gen. J. E. B. Stuart with a large foraging force, consisting of about twenty-five hundred men, fell in with the enemy near Dranesville. The Federals were in superiour force; Gen. Ord's brigade, which was also marching to the same neighbourhood for forage, being

thirty-five hundred strong, while two other brigades were in supporting distance. A rocket, shot up by the enemy, gave to the Confederates the first intimation of their presence. To give his wagon-train time to retreat in safety, Gen. Stuart prepared for battle. He was exposed to a very severe cannonade from the enemy; and finding his men contending at serious disadvantage with an enemy greatly outnumbering them, and almost concealed in ambush, he, after a desultory engagement, drew off his forces, and fell back two miles. The enemy did not pursue. The Confederate loss in killed and wounded was about two hundred.

The affair of Dranesville was the last conflict of arms of any note that occurred near the Potomac in the first winter of the war. But within this period, we must remark an expedition, conducted by "Stonewall" Jackson, which was a most extraordinary enterprise, and was attended by such hardships and sufferings as made it a story of terrible interest and fearful

romance.

In September, Jackson had been made a Major-General, and in the early part of October he was assigned to the command of the Confederate forces in and around Winchester. About this time the famous Col. Turner Ashby, with his own regiment and other cavalry detachments, making a total of some twelve hundred horse, was watching the river-front from Harper's Ferry to Romney. In December the enemy were strongly posted at Romney and Bath southwards; and Banks, with his whole army being north of the Potomac, it was evident that some great movement was in contemplation, which prudence demanded should be watched by a strong force.

A large part of Gen. Loring's command, after a march of two hundred and sixty miles, joined Gen. Jackson at Winchester. He was now at the head of about nine thousand men; and on the first day of January, 1862, with a portion of his force he marched from Winchester.

It was the object of Jackson to surprise the Federals stationed at Bath, otherwise known as Berkeley Springs. Amid the snow, sleet, rain and ice of the most severe days of the winter he commenced his march. He had to travel over fifty miles of the roughest country in the world, and he was obliged to take unfrequented roads to keep his movement secret. Penetrating the mountains on roads winding along their sides, and through their rugged defiles, exposed to sleet and hail in mid-winter, and enduring the bitterest cold, the march was one of almost indescribable suffering and horrour. The men were without tents. The roads were covered with ice two inches thick, and glazed over by the sleet, so that neither man nor horse could keep his feet except by great care. Horses had their knees and muzzles terribly injured and streaming with blood. Occasionally, horsemen, infantry and wagons would slip over an embankment; and men crippled, or filled with bruises and pains, laid down by the wayside

6.

STONEWALL

JACKSON AT ROMNEY.

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to die, or staggered on in the terrible march. Many were bootless, hatless, and ragged. They were not allowed to kindle fires, being within a few miles of the enemy's posts; and their most comfortable sleep was under stick arbours packed with snow.

Amid the sharp distresses of this march the command struggled on with patient courage, and almost superhuman spirit. On arriving at Bath, they found the Federals had retreated to the Potomac, and had waded the river on one of the coldest days of winter.

Having rested two or three days in Bath, Jackson made daily demonstrations at the river to induce the belief that his command was the advance of a large force about to cross into Maryland. The demonstration succeeded even beyond his expectations. The Federal troops in and around Romney amounted to eleven thousand men, under command of Gen. Shields. This officer felt so certain that Jackson was bent on crossing the Potomac, that, though forty miles above, he transferred his whole command to the north bank to dispute the supposed passage. As soon as Jackson was informed of this, he marched up the south bank to Romney, surprised and captured many of the enemy, and destroyed what he could not carry away of Shields' immense stores, amounting to some half a million of dollars. Leaving a small force in Romney, Jackson returned with his army to Winchester. The success of his expedition was complete; but it had been terribly purchased, for hundreds of his brave men had sunk under the exposure of the march, or were long on the sick-list from its effects.

With this movement closed the campaign of the winter in Virginia. The armies of Johnston and Beauregard, at Centreville and Manassas, of Huger, at Norfolk, of Magruder on the Peninsula, of Jackson at Winchester, and the bodies of troops from Evansport to Acquia on the Potomac, in the Alleghany Mountains and around Richmond, rested for a season in their winter quarters; and fields of Virginia soon to run red with blood, were now covered with mantles of snow and ice.

NAVAL OPERATIONS IN 1861.

The Federals had one immense and peculiar advantage in the war; and they were prompt to use it. The superiourity which a large navy gave them may be estimated when we reflect that the sea-coast of the Confederacy stretched in a continuous line of eighteen hundred miles; that along this were scattered sea-ports, many of them without the protection of the feeblest battery; and that the Mississippi, with its tributaries was an inland sea, which gave access to the enemy almost as freely as the Gulf of Mexico.

At the opening of the war, President Lincoln found under his com mand a navy of ninety ships of war, carrying eighteen hundred and nine guns. In little more than a year from that time the Federal navy embraced three hundred and eighty-six ships and steamers, carrying three thousand and twenty-seven guns. Keels were laid not only in the Eastern ship-yards, but on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers; iron armour was prepared; mortar ketches were built; the founderies and shops worked day and night upon engines, plates, and guns.

While this wonderful energy was being displayed by the North in preparations to operate against our sea-coast, and by fleets of gunboats on the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries, to drive our armies out of Kentucky and Tennessee, the Confederate Government showed a singular apathy with respect to any work of defence. The Confederate Congress had made large appropriations for the construction of gunboats on the Mississippi waters; there was the best navy-yard on the continent opposite Norfolk; there were valuable armouries with their machinery at Richmond; and although the Confederate Government was very far from competing with the naval resources of the enemy, yet there is no doubt, with the means and appliances at hand, it might have created a considerable fleet. In no respect was the improvidence of this Government more forcibly illustrated than in the administration of its naval affairs; or its unfortunate choice of ministers more signally displayed than in the selection as Secretary of the Navy of Mr. Mallory of Florida, a notoriously weak man, who was slow and blundering in his office, and a butt in Congress for his ignorance of the river geography of the country.

The consequences of the defenceless and exposed condition of the Confederate sea-coast were soon to be realized; and many intelligent men already took it as a foregone conclusion, that in the progress of the war the Confederacy would lose not only all her sea-ports, but every fort and battery to which the floating guns of the enemy could get access.

In the year 1861, two naval expeditions were sent down the Carolina coast; and their results gave serious indications of what was to be expected from this arm of the enemy's service on the slight fortifications of our ocean frontier. The first of these expeditions was designed against Hatteras Inlet. To reduce two extemporized works there, mounting altogether fifteen guns, the enemy, with his usual prodigality of preparation and care to ensure victory, sent an enormous sea armament, carrying one hundred heavy guns, and a naval and military force numbering not less than three thousand men. The fleet was under the command of Commodore Stringham, while Maj.-Gen. Butler, of Massachusetts, commanded the force intended to operate on land. On the 26th of August the expedition sailed from Fortress Monroe, arriving off Hatteras on the 28th. Three hundred and fifteen men, with a twelve-pound rifled gun, and twelve