CHAPTER II.

AN EXPERIMENT.

THE troops which were to move "on to Richmond," in accordance with the popular cry, were encamped in some sort of order on the south bank of the Potomac, from the Chain Bridge to Alexandria, and were thrown together, with more or less haste, into what were called five divisions, of two, three, or four brigades each. Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler, of the Connecticut Volunteers, commanded the First Division, Colonels David Hunter, Sixth Cavalry, Samuel P. Heintzelman, Seventeenth Infantry, and Dixon S. Miles, Second Infantry, the Second, Third, and Fifth, respectively, and Brigadier-General Theodore Runyon, of the New Jersey militia, the Fourth Division. Three of these were old and experienced officers of the regular army, who had seen service in Mexico and in many Indian fights. Brigadier-General Robert C. Schenck commanded the First Brigade of Tyler's division; Colonel Erasmus D. Keyes, Eleventh Infantry, the Second; Colonel Sherman the Third Brigade, composed of the Thirteenth, Sixty-ninth, and Seventy-ninth New York, and Second Wisconsin regiments of infantry, with Captain Ayres's Battery E, Third Regular Artillery; and Brigadier-General Israel B. Richardson commanded the Fourth Brigade. The troops were all raw. Most of them had volunteered for three months. As the end of that period approached, these men naturally thought more of home than they did of battle, more of living to see their friends than of dying for their country. Many of the volunteers had never fired a gun before, and felt nearly as much trepidation in loading their own pieces, and as much

alarm in discharging them, as the most deadly fire of the enemy could have occasioned. Captains knew little or nothing of tactics beyond the manual of arms and the facings. Colonels could not put their regiments through the simplest manœuvres. Regimental commanders did not know their brigade commanders, and brigade commanders made the acquaintance of their division commanders upon the field of battle. According to the ideas of those days, there was a deficiency of transportation; that is to say, each regiment had not a score of wagons: and the quartermasters in Washington were at their wits' end to supply the demand. Wagons intended for General McDowell's army went to General Patterson's, and General McDowell's army must therefore wait. The District of Columbia was embraced in a separate military department, called the Department of Washington. Its commander was overwhelmed by office details; so the troops which were to go to the Army of Northeastern Virginia got mislaid, and had to be hunted up and hurried into brigades at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour. Every thing that was done was rushed into the newspapers, and most things that were intended to be done. The railroad lines leading South, with only slight breaks, were still in use, and passes over them were freely issued, so that the rebel authorities might read the plan of today's operations at breakfast. But the people, drunk with hope, saw none of these things, or saw them double; and those who might have led the people, ran after them.

It may be said, in defence of the delusions of the hour, that our army was numerically stronger, as well officered, better equipped, and as well instructed as the rebel forces; and so indeed it was. But the rebel army was to act upon the defensive, ours upon the offensive. The advantage of ground would be with the enemy, the advantage of surprise, and the great advantage of cohesion at the moment of attack. On the other hand, our troops would have to move, to find the enemy, and to attack him in his chosen position, or sustain his fire delivered from behind cover or behind earthworks. But the salient point of this question is, that the result of any move

It

ment, by either side, was left to chance; no man could have indicated the causes which would determine the result. was purely chance whether any movement ordered from headquarters would be made at all; a rare chance whether it would be made at the time designated in orders; a miraculous chance if it were made exactly as ordered. By waiting a very little while, the result might have been reasonably assured. We could not wait. In the American character, Hope crowds Patience to the wall.

After much public discussion and excitement, the order was given to General McDowell to move forward.

The enemy had a force of about twenty-two thousand men, organized in eight brigades, with twenty-nine guns, encamped and intrenched at Manassas Junction, and commanded by General Gustave T. Beauregard. They had outposts at Fairfax Courthouse, and at Centreville, seven miles from the Junction. The brigades were commanded by Brigadier-Generals Ewell, Holmes, D. R. Jones, Longstreet, and Bonham, and Colonels Cocke, Evans, and Early.

General Joseph E. Johnston was at Winchester, with about twelve thousand men, watching our forces under Major-General Robert Patterson, one of the Pennsylvania three months' militia. Generals Bee and Bartow and Colonel Jackson commanded the brigades of General Johnston's army. General Patterson's force amounted to twenty-three thousand men of all arms, chiefly three months' militia.

General McDowell was to move directly upon Manassas on the 9th of July, and, turning the enemy's right flank, cut off his forces from Richmond. The movement began on the 16th. The men, unaccustomed to marching, moved very slowly. Long years of peace had nourished in the minds of our citizens a reluctance to endure pain and privation, and the citizens had not become soldiers by a mere change of clothing. The men stopped every few moments to pick blackberries, stepped aside to avoid mud-puddles, crossed fords gingerly, emptied their canteens and filled them with fresh water whenever they came to a stream. Thus the army did not reach Centreville

until the night of the 18th. Two days were spent here in reconnoissances, and on the 21st the final movement began. All this time the enemy, fully advised of our movements by the daily papers, was busily engaged in concentrating his available forces to meet our attack. That he would do so was obvious. General Scott had undertaken to guard against this, so far as the army under Johnston was concerned, by instructing General Patterson to observe him. Accordingly, after many delays, General Patterson moved from Martinsburg to Bunker Hill, nine miles from Winchester, and then turned aside and marched to Charlestown. At the very moment when Johnston was withdrawing with all speed from Winchester, and hurrying to Beauregard's aid, Patterson was retreating to the Potomac.

Tyler's division, which had marched from its camp near the Chain Bridge, on the extreme right of our lines, by the Vienna Road, was the first to reach Centreville. General Tyler's orders were to seize and hold this position, but not to bring on an engagement. He had no sooner arrived there than, elated at finding our progress undisputed by the enemy, he took the road to the left and pushed on, with Richardson's brigade, Ayres's battery, and a few cavalry, to Blackburn's Ford, where the Manassas and Centreville road crosses Bull Run. The ground on the left bank of that stream is, just here, open and gently undulating; on the other side it becomes at once heavily wooded, and ascends rather abruptly to the elevated plateau on which Manassas Junction is situated. General Tyler was surprised to find that the enemy had not occupied the left bank at the ford; and still more, that they permitted our men to approach it unmolested. Nor was the enemy to be seen on the opposite bank. He deployed the infantry, and caused Captain Ayres to open fire from his battery on the woods opposite. Instantly a hot fire, as if from four thousand muskets at once, says the general, was opened from the woods. Our troops replied for a short while, and then retired. This movement was contrary to orders; had no object worth mentioning; and its result had a most dispiriting effect upon the whole

army of General McDowell. Before it, the men had been all enthusiasm. They either would not meet the enemy at all, they dreamed, or they would whip him and chase him to Richmond. The enemy had been met, had not fled at the sight of us, and had not been whipped. The enthusiasm, which had been at the boiling point, was chilled by a doubt. The delay of the 19th and 20th, while waiting for the subsistence to come up, spread and increased the flatness.

The original plan was to turn the enemy's right, and so cut off his communication with Richmond. General McDowell had objected to moving by his right to turn the enemy's left, because the movement would be indecisive. At the eleventh hour, this indecisive course was adopted, for the reasons that the roads on the left appeared impracticable, that the enemy's attention had been attracted to Blackburn's Ford by the blunder of the 18th, and that it had now become an object to guard against the expected arrival of Johnston, by occupying his line of railway communication.

On the night of Saturday, the 20th of July, General McDowell issued his orders for the attack. Runyon's Fourth Division was left in the rear near Fairfax Courthouse. Tyler's division-except Richardson's brigade, which was to remain at Blackburn's Ford and report to Colonel Miles-was to march at half-past two o'clock on Sunday morning down the Warrenton road, and threaten the Stone Bridge. Schenck's and Sherman's brigades were encamped on the Warrenton road, about a mile beyond Centreville; Keyes's brigade, which had become separated from the rest of the division, had gone into camp half a mile east of Centreville. Hunter's division, which was about a mile and a half beyond Keyes's, was to move at two o'clock, and close up on Tyler. Heintzelman's division, which was encamped on the Braddock road, two miles east of Centreville, was to march at half-past two, and fall in in the rear of Hunter. Under cover of Tyler's attack, Hunter and Heintzelman were to move to the right, cross Bull Run at Sudley's Springs, and turn the enemy's left. Miles's division was held in reserve at Centreville, to guard