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Gen. Evans was on the extreme left, and above the Stone Bridge; Col. Cocke was next; Col. Jackson, with his brigade from Gen. Johnston's forces, I think, was next; Bartow was next; Gen. Bonham next; Gen. Jones was next, and Gen. Ewell and Col. Easley, with their respective brigades, completed the display to the right at the Union Mills. These forces covered Bull Run from above the Stone Bridge to the point of crossing by the railroad, a distance of about six miles.

Bull Run, as I have had occasion to remark in former letters, is one of the branches of the Occoquan. They hold the Manassas Junction in the fork, and about three miles from either. From Centreville, as one may see from looking at the map, all the roads cross the run. That by Mitchell's Ford, being the most direct, is seven miles, and all the others longer. The fight occurring on the extreme right, all the reinforcements were necessarily thrown from along this line, and time was necessary; and as a considerable time elapsed after the engagement at the Stone Bridge, before the precise character of the enemy's movement appeared, it was late and long before all the movements could be made to meet it.

When it was ascertained what was the full meaning of the enemy to the left, I have reason to believe it was at once determined to throw a column from Mitchell's Ford upon the batteries above, and taking them, to fall upon the enemy's rear. Why it was not done I am not able to state, but it was not. And standing near Generals Beauregard, Johnston, and Bonham, on the hill of which I spoke yesterday, in the beginning of my report, I heard Gen. Beauregard remark, pointing to the fight to the west, There is the battle-ground." Soon after orders were despatched, and the generals, with their aids and attendants, dashed on to enter on the scene of conflict.

The apparent retreat of the enemy was, in fact, his extension to the right, to gain our flank, and sorely was that point contested. The fight began nearly in front of a house owned by a man named Lewes. Against the hill on which that house is situated, the enemy had planted his battery, and it was against that that many of our brave men fell. There the Fourth South Carolina and Wheat's battalion were slaughtered; there the gallant Bartow fell; and that for many of the bloody hours of the contest was the corner-stone of the structure. From this it extended on by successive efforts to outflank for two miles to the west. Brigade after brigade, as they successively fell in, took new ground. The Washington Louisiana Artillery, as the other sections of it came, took ground still to the left, and Shield's and Pendleton's each took its hill for special thunder, and each contributed its contingent to the mass of slaughter.

: When I entered on the field at 2 o'clock, the fortunes of the day were dark. The remnants of the regiments, so badly injured, or wounded

and worn, as they staggered out, gave gloomy pictures of the scene, and as, up to this time, after four hours of almost unprecedented valor and exertion, no point had been given, as each addition but seemed to stem the current of the enemy, but could not turn it back, as our forces were not exhaustless, as the distances to be traversed were continually greater, and as the enemy stood in possession of almost unlimited military power, and even the event was doubtful. We could not be routed, perhaps, but it is doubtful whether we were destined to a victory. But at this point the fortunes of the day were changed. The God of Battles seemed to stoop to our relief.

By an order of Gen. Beauregard, Gen. Bonham sent Col. Kershaw's regiment, with Kemper's battery of four guns annexed, and Col. Cash's regiment, to the rescue. On they came from four miles below, at a rapid march, driving great masses of the enemy before them, and making fearful execution in their ranks. Hill after hill was passed with the same result, until they reached the Stone Bridge. Here Gen. Beauregard halted them, reinforced them with a Virginia regiment, Hampton's Legion, what of it was in condition for service, some Marylanders and Louisianians, and started them again after the retreating foe, who fought and broke until the retreat became a rout. Cavalry came in now to finish. They were pursued by our forces to Centreville, some seven miles, leaving the road filled with plunder. The cavalry followed, cut down and captured, until late in the night.

While this was transpiring at one point, other events took place further on in another part of the field. I mentioned that two brigades of Gen. Johnston's forces were behind, having been delayed by a collision on the Manassas railroad. The brigade of Gen. Smith, consisting of 1,800 men, arrived at Manassas after the fight began and hurried to the field. And at the instant when the regiments of the Fourth Carolina, Fourth Georgia, Fourth Alabama, Hampton's Legion, and others were struggling back for a moment's relief, and to fire again, they rushed with deafening shouts to the field of action. Col. Elzey, another portion of Gen. Johnston's force detained upon the railroad, was coming down. As he neared Manassas he heard the firing; he saw from the direction he could reach the scene of action sooner, and stopping the cars he ordered out the men, pushed directly on a distance of but a few miles, for the ene my's object, doubtless, was to reach the Manassas railroad in our rear. His line of travel brought him directly to the point where there was the effort to outflank again. The enemy. again and again defeated, and met by superior numbers, seemed at once to lose the spur of the contest when driven back. They did not face again over the rising grounds-beyond lines of dirt arose. What was their purpose did no appear. The sinking sun threw his sunligh over the magnificent landscape. The dead and

dying lay about. The masses of horse lay under cover of the hills for the occasion that should invoke their action. Men stood to their arms along that bloody line, and looked a strange interest on the enemy. Was he to return and continue a fight of eight hours' duration? was he to change the point of his attack, and force them, wearied and broken as they were, to another field? or, were they, broken and outdone, about to retire from a field in which they had become assured by experience there was no harvest of power or glory to be won, but where they were, indeed, welcomed by bloody hands to hospitable graves? That this was their purpose, at length appeared. A shout arose upon the conviction, from 10,000 throbbing and exultant hearts. The cavalry poured down upon them. The dust, as from the crater of a volcano, marked the point of contact. With a singular propriety of occurrence, the honored Chief Magistrate of the Confederacy arrived upon the ground almost as the shouts of victory died upon the distance.

They rose again for him, and again and again for the gallant military chieftains under whose able leadership the action had been won. And there was not one who looked upon that field, strewn with the fragments of war, and glittering in the beams of sunset, and upon those long lines of begrimed and bloody men, and upon the dark columns of the insolent invader, as crushed and cowed, he crawled from the field, who did not feel that he stood upon another historic point in human history. We stood upon one some six months since when we proclaimed the truths of our political faith; we stood upon another when we witnessed the solemnities of their vindication. There was no unbecoming demonstration-no heartless exultation. The common feeling was of sadness, rather that right and liberty, in the inscrutable ways of an overruling Providence, should only be purchased at so dear a price. But there was gratitude and trust, and an honest confidence of a future, which we had not scrupled to purchase at the sacrifices the God above us had seen proper to exact.

The movement on the right wing of our army upon the batteries in front, which seemed to have been resolved on early in the action, was at length made. About the time of our final charge upon the enemy's right, which drove them from the field, Gen. Jones, with the Fifth South Carolina regiment, Col. Jenkins, and the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Mississippi regiments, Cols. Featherston and Burt, moved round to gain the rear of the batteries over the hill, above Mitchell's Ford. Gen. Bonham, with the Third and Seventh South Carolina regiments, Cols. Williams and Bacon, moved up the hill in front. The enemy, though in considerable force, at once recoiled from the encounter; and, unlimbering their artillery, they made their way with the utmost rapidity in the direction of Centreville. It was too late for pursuit-too late to intercept the retreating columns from

the west, already under rapid headway; and, with no serious loss, and after but a short and spirited engagement on the enemy's left, in which the Fifth Carolina regiment suffered to some extent, they returned to their positions.

Of the many personal incidents of the battle, I have not time to speak to-night. My estimable friend, R. McKay, of Greenville, separated from his company, Capt. Hokes, came upon four of the enemy in charge of three of our prisoners whom they had taken, and was uncomfortably conscious he was about to add to their number; to be certain of the fact, however, he exclaimed interrogatively, "Prisoners, boys?" A Zouave answered, "We don't know exactly who are prisoners here." "Oh, you, of course," said our ready friend; whereupon demanding their arms, they laid them down, and were marched off to the rear.

Six horsemen, detached from their company, dashed forward and came upon a company of the enemy all armed, forty-five in number, demanding a surrender as the best means of avoiding their own capture. The enemy complied, and the six men with sabres only marched them in.

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, NEday, July 24,

Tuesday, 23. I have visited again to-day the scene of conflict, and am able to add still other particulars of that most memorable action. Your readers will remember that the battle was begun by a feint at Mitchell's Ford, on the road from Centreville to Warrenton. This, however, was only true in part. To that point the mass of the enemy's immense columns was indeed directed, but that also was another feint. Planting batteries against the forces guarding that bridge he exhibited a purpose to force a crossing; but, while seeking to induce that impression, he in fact made a detour of more than a mile above, and further to the west; and when our attention was directed to the bridge, they sought to come upon our rear. To Gen. Evans, as I have said, the task of defending the bridge had been committed. He soon detected the enemy's purposes, and advanced to counteract them. Under him, as I have said, were the Fourth South Carolina regiment, Col. Sloan, Wheat's battalion, two guns of Latham's battery, (not the Washington Artillery, as I was at first informed,) and two companies of Radford's Cavalry. These he advanced to Sudley's Ford, but had hardly placed them in position before he saw the enemy in overwhelming masses on his flank, having already crossed. To resist them successfully was beyond a reasonable hope. A portion of his small force had already been detached to defend the bridge, and with the rest, not more than 1,100, he could not hope to stand against the accumulated thousands on his left; but he knew that victory or death was the determination for the day; he could at least arrest them, and ordering round his two pieces of artillery, and rapidly throwing forward his forces to the left, in the face of the enemy's

battery already in position, and of their serried | ranks near twenty times his own in number, he advanced to the charge; for a time he was covered by a clump of trees, but passing these he came directly in front of the enemy, within easy distance, and made his charge upon them. The result, of course, could not be questioned. "For one ball of his " there were twenty of the enemy, and there could be no expectation but to be ultimately cut to pieces, but he could sell his forces for their utmost value, and he did. The enemy, in fact, recoiled from the intense severity of his onset, but recovering they began to bear him back. Gen. Bee, with his brigade, then came to his support. That again checked the current for an instant. Col. Bartow then eame. That again impeded its resistless progress; but the disparity was still too great. Their forces were driven down to the Warrenton turnpike, then across it, and back to the woods, one hundred yards below. When Hampton's Legion came with this a charge was made, which drove the enemy back to the road. From this they were able to recover, and drove our forces back in turn; again they rallied and drove back the enemy, but extending to the left they forced us back again. Jackson and Cocke had also come to maintain the unequal strife, and in the midst of fearful carnage strove to hold their own against overwhelming numbers.

Then it was, whilst the victory wavered in the balance, and hope seemed almost gone, that the gallant Second, with Kemper's battery, and the Eighth, of Bonham's brigade, under a previous and well-timed order of Gen. Beauregard, came, sweeping every thing before them, the foe flying from their deadly fire and fierce charges.

On the other flank Smith, too, marched with four regiments, fresh from the railroad, to the vicinity of the enemy, put them to flight and commenced the pursuit.

pike, in the direction of Centreville; the others made again the detour round by Sudley's Ford; both made for Centreville; and as they went along the turnpike back, the play of Kemper's battery was as admirable as is often seen. The road is broad and straight for at least three miles. He planted his battery upon it. He was animated to his utmost skill and power by his sense of wrongs. The enemy for months has held and abused his home in Alexandria; and, as he ploughed the road along which they were forced to travel, I fear he did not ask for mercy on the souls of those he sent to their account.

The regiments of Kershaw and Cash, with Kemper's Battery, followed to within a mile of Centreville. The road was strewed with plunder, and at the Hanging Bridge, on Cobb's Creek, they took twenty-one guns, which had become jammed, and which, together with the horses which they were all too hurried to unhitch, were taken and sent back.

I spoke, last night, of the movement of Generals Jones and Bonham upon the batteries in front of them, but I did not state the full effect of their exertions. They followed on to within sight of Centreville. The enemy had preceded them, and had encamped. Alarmed at their approach, he struck his camp again, worn as he was, and did not stop until far beyond Fairfax. Whether he stopped this side of Alexandria or Washington, does not appear. In his route, he left equipage and baggage, and four of his guns at Centreville, which he had not the spirit even to attempt to save. The number of guns now taken is reported to be fifty-one, and as a conclusive indication of what is the true import and effect of our action, it may be stated that yesterday the Confederate flag was run up at Fairfax. That night the town was in possession of a detachment of our cavalry, and tonight it will be occupied by a force sufficient to hold it.

In further evidence of the demoralization of the enemy, it was stated this morning by a gentleman of official position and character in Alexandria, that he left that town unchallenged last night, that he came to our own pickets unquestioned, and that the rumor was, the volunteers whose term of service had expired, have resolved to leave; that it is determined to prevent them, and that the regular soldiers are now called out to keep them in subjection. This is probable. In a house to-day where some forty of the wounded enemy had crept, and where they have since been lying without food or attendance, I met a lad who said the coming of many of the troops was entirely involuntary; that their term of service having expired, they demanded their discharge, but were told they must fight the battle, and that then they would be paid. If not willing to fight, they must do it anyhow.

Each in turn had met the successive enfilading columns of the enemy, until at length he had no other enfilading columns to advance. The pluck of our men began to tell against even overwhelming numbers. Their batteries, which they had advanced to the eminences east of the Warrenton road, and near a mile within the line of battle which we took at first, became the objects of attack. The assault was fearful, but the defence was stern and bloody. From Rickett's battery every horse was killed, and even to-day there lie around the place where it stood the bodies of one hundred of the enemy. It was taken twice, but retaken again; and it was only when the regiments of Cols. Cash and Kershaw had cleared the land to the left that the effort to retake it was abandoned. The guns were turned at once upon the enemy, and helped to drive them from the field. Not far to the right the same tragedy was enacted to I mentioned yesterday that much depended the same result. The line of the enemy cut in on the opportune arrival of Col. Elzey with his two at this point was never formed again. brigade. In reference to the time I was misOne portion retreated by the Warrenton turn-taken; his was a portion of the command of

Gen. Smith, whose coming, however, was most opportune; and when Gen. Smith was shot, Col. Elzey took command, and did at least his share to secure the victory.

When I entered on the field at 2 o'clock of the day of battle, the scene, as I have mentioned, was gloomy, for the battle was undecided, and the chances seemed against us, but I did not mention all that made it painful. In peaceful life we are not familiar with the scenes of war, and it has happened to me, at least, to have seen but little suffering from the casualties or combats of life. I had not, therefore, the advantage of familiarity, and just at once the scene was one to task the nerve of any man. At the first trench I came to, which was just beyond the range of bullets, lay one hundred, at least, in every stage of suffering and endurance. One had his leg shot off with a cannon ball, another had his arm broken, another had his jaw shot away. Col. Hampton met us with the appearance of having had a ball in his temple, and he said he had been insensible from the effects, but he hoped soon to be upon the field again. A few steps further on I saw a Palmetto boy with his under jaw shot off at the instant. I met Col. Shingler, riding before an ambulance, which, he said, contained the late lamented Gen. Bee. The General lay prostrate, and almost expiring, from the wound in his abdomen, which of necessity must prove mortal. A few steps further still, and there lay the helpless form of my late friend, Col. Johnson. Others there were-aged men, whose gray hairs proclaimed them sixty and more; boys whose young hearts yearned, I know, for softer hands and sweeter faces than were around them there. To this spot all had been impelled by the wounded soldiers' constant want of water. The stream, by the constant crossing, was so muddy, it was scarcely fluid, but they drank it; and, with the night approaching, through which they must either be under the cold sky or bear the jolting of a journey to Manassas, and without attendance or the certainty of medical attendance, they yet were cheerful, or, if not, enduring. No one added to the sufferings of others by exhibitions of his, and during the time I felt at liberty to stay-for the order came for all able to bear a gun to enter in the ranks for a final stand-I heard no solitary groan from any one.

But of all imaginable scenes of horror, the battle-field to-day excels. Upon the hills from which the enemy was last driven, still lay the dead they had not time to remove. Some had been buried by our own men, but the task was too repulsive, and the most of them were left upon the bare ground without a leaf to shade them, bloated, blackened, and rotting in the sun, for birds and insects to devour. And it was scarcely possible not to commiserate the fate of men who had offered up their lives for a country that would not show to them the cold charity of even a grave to lie in. Nor was it better with the poor starved wretches who

had crawled into the storehouse upon the field of battle. Sick, famished, friendless, and without a home or country they could love or honor, it were scarcely better to be alive than dead. I spoke of the fact to Gen. Evans, in whose military department they are at present, and he promised to keep them from starving at least; but in the mean time the country people were coming in with offers of assistance, and one was taking one poor fellow off to his house at Brentsville.

Battles make singular developments. My friend, Dr. Shepardson, visiting the prisoners yesterday, found a college-mate among them. One of our soldiers found among them his own brother. Gen. Evans found among them Major Tillinghast, long known in Charleston, who had been his classmate-at the instant of recognition, Major T. was at the point of death, and died soon after; and also in a horse that was taken at Fairfax, the charger upon which he rode in the service of the United States. And Col. Mullins, in a customer that was skulking on the road to Centreville upon the evening of the battle, and whom he made his prisoner, the Hon. Mr. Ely, of New York.

There is a feeling of regret for all the gallant men who fell in this engagement, but for none more than for the gallant Bartow. He had gone into this war with such uncalculating zeal and fidelity to the great cause, and bore himself so nobly in the fight, that if there were the wish to, it were hard to withhold our admiration. When his horse was shot, he led the Eighth Georgia regiment, on foot, to storm a battery. This was cut to pieces, and retiring to put himself at the head of the Seventh, he asked of Gen. Beauregard what he would have him do. The General said, "There is the battery." He started for it again. The colorbearer was shot down, when he seized the colors, and bearing them on, he received a shot in his left breast.

Nor less lamented is the death of Gen. Bee. He has been regarded as one among the best military appointments, and has won opinion in every act of his military life. He was first in the field to sustain our leading column at every succeeding crisis of the contest. He was present at the passage of the turnpike; at the gallant charge of the Hampton Legion; at the storming of the batteries; and at last fell near the fatal spot where also had fallen the gallant Bartow. Of his aids were Gen. Gist, Col. Shingler, and Major Stevens, who was slightly wounded, shared his pains, and remained to the further fortune of the contest.

Nor is less sympathy experienced for the sufferings of Gen. Smith. He came to stem the current of our backward fortunes, and leading his brigade to the very head of the flanking column, fell almost at the first fire, pierced through the breast with a grape shot. Hopes, however, are entertained for his recovery. On his staff were our townsmen, Col. Buist and Capt. Tupper, who were with him when he fell.

Of Col. Johnson, the career was short and brilliant. The Legion arrived in the night, and in a few hours after, almost unfit for service, it was thrown into the very thickest of the fight, and Col. Johnson fell, with Col. Hampton, on the spot upon which their columns had been planted. I sent the casualties of Col. Kershaw's regiment by telegraph to-day; but those of the other regiments, so scattered as they are, and in weather so exceedingly unsuitable to travelling as it has been, I have not yet been

able to obtain.

President Davis left the army this morning in the cars for Richmond. Though the Chief Magistrate of a great republic at the most salient period of its greatness, were arrogated no special privilege, he took his seat with others in an overcrowded car; and in that, and in every other instance of his intercourse with his fellow-citizens here, he exhibited but the appearance and bearing of a well-bred gentleman, as he unquestionably is.

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, CAMP PICKENS,

Wednesday, July 24.

The great battle at Stone Bridge has been the theme for days, but still is not exhausted. It stirred our hearts so deeply that they cannot take the current of another thought. Nor is it necessary. The military event of this age, and the event upon which hung suspended the private feeling and the public interests of the South, it is scarcely to be thought of that I should offer, or you should ask, the reason why I dwell upon it.

In writing yesterday, I endeavored to present that at one time the fortunes of the day were doubtful-hung suspended on a thread-and that by Beauregard's order, the victorious ad vance of the Second and Eighth Carolina regiments, with Kemper's battery from the centre at 2 o'clock, after several fierce struggles determined fortune in our favor. At 3 o'clock, too, Gen. Smith, leaving the railroad cars, formed his four regiments and marched against the enemy on the extreme left wing, driving them before him. I hesitate to dwell, however, upon certain incidents which, however apparently established, were yet contested, or seemed to be so, and I was unwilling to commit myself to statements until I had made every reasonable effort to obtain the truth. The first of these was the taking of a battery by Hampton's Legion. Your readers will now have had some faint conception of the battle-ground. It occurred, they will remember, on the turnpike road from Centreville to Warrenton, just after it crosses Bull Run, on the Stone Bridge. The road at this point pursues its path between two ridges or ascending slopes, the summits of which are near a mile apart. The woodland for near a mile has been all cleared away, and it was upon this splendid theatre, and all in full view, were made those constant movements to outflank each other, upon which fate depended. The enemy having inade the detour by Sudley's Ford to get upon our flank, of which I spoke

first, broke the cover of the trees which crowned the eminence on which we rested, by planting a battery of rifled cannon. Gen. Evans met it the best he could by planting his two guns, the one to the right and the other to the left of his position, and advanced under such cover as they gave to meet the enemy. He could not permanently check them, however; they drove him back across the road, and with him his pieces of artillery. One was disabled; but the others, under Lieut. Davidson, of Latham's battery, took position in the road, and with almost unexampled intrepidity continued to play upon the enemy advancing up the road, into which they had entered lower down, until they were already rising the eminence upon which he stood. Before that, however, Capt. Imboden, with his battery, from Staunton, had been placed within about one hundred yards of the road, and had opened a most galling fire. Gens. Bee and Bartow, and Hampton's Legion, rallied to sustain him. The fight was bloody, entire line, the enemy had planted another batbut nearer to the road, in position to rake their tery. Fresh columns were thrown from the eminence beyond, across the field upon the road. Our gallant men were forced back by the pressure of these overwhelming numbers. They crossed the road and planted two batteries, the one Rickett's and the other a section of Sherman's, it is supposed, upon our side, but about two hundred yards off from Imboden's, to rake the hill with grape and canister. From these, even, Imboden's was compelled to fall back, which he did, and carried off his guns, when it seemed impossible that any human power could save him. To take these batteries, so established upon our side, or to quit the field, was then the only option left us.

Of these the one, Rickett's, of four guns, was beyond a little house owned and occupied by a man named Henry, and the other to the right of it and lower down the hill. Against the first of these it was that Bee and Bartow fought and fell, and at length, at fearful sacrifice of life, the men and horses were shot down and the guns were silenced, but the other still kept on. No single movement could be made below the brow of the hill against the turning columns of the enemy until this was taken, and against that the legion, as a forlorn hope, was led. In their first charge they had advanced to Henry's house, and were passing through the garden, when Col. Hampton was shot down. Without his further orders they were confused. Thus, Lieut.-Col. Johnson had fallen, and Capt. Conner, of the Washington Light Infantry, senior captain, led them back to form them; retiring under cover of the hill, they found the Seventeenth Virginia regiment, Col. Withers, and through Adjutant Barker, proposed that he should join them, which he did. They formed their line of battle; Capt. Conner led the legion. They tore down upon the enemy through a storm of balls. They reserved their fire until within a certain distance of the

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