first to last, destroyed during his raid military stores, railroad bridges, and other property to the value of eight or ten millions of dollars. He accomplished all this, besides putting the people of Cincinnati into a condition, described by one of their newspapers, as "bordering on frenzy," and returned to Tennessee with a loss in all his engagements of not more than ninety men in killed, wounded and missing.

While some activity was shown in extreme portions of the West, we shall see that our military operations from Greenbrier county, Virginia, all the way down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, were conducted with but little vigor. On the boundaries of East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia and Kentucky, we had a force in the aggregate of thirty thousand men, confronted by probably not half their number of Yankee troops; yet the Southwestern counties of Virginia and the valley of the Clinch, in Tennessee, were entered and mercilessly plundered by the enemy in the face of our troops.

But we shall have occasion to notice the campaign in the West on a broader arena. We shall see how movements in this direction pressed back the discouraged and retreating foe. We shall see how these movements of the Confederates were intended to repossess the country previously occupied by them and to go forward to the redemption of the State of Kentucky, and the attack of one or more of the leading cities of the West; how, in the prosecution of this plan, North Alabama and Mississippi were speedily cleared of the footsteps of the foe; how all of Tennessee, save the strongholds of Memphis and Nashville, and the narrow districts commanded by them, were retrieved, and, by converging armies, nearly the whole of Kentucky was occupied and held-and how, at last, all these achievements were reversed in a night's time, and the most valuable and critical points abandoned by our troops, or rather by the will of the unfortunate general who led them.

But our narrative does not yet open on the chequered page of the West. That important part of our history is prefaced by the brilliant story of the summer campaign of the upper Potomac, and is relieved by dazzling lights of glory on the old battle-grounds of Virginia.

6

CHAPTER III.

Effect of McClellan's Defeat in the North.-Call for more Troops.-Why the North was not easily dispirited.-The War as a Money Job.-Note: Gen. Washington's Opinion of New England.-The Yankee Finances.-Exasperation of Hostilities.-The Yankee Idea of a "Vigorous Prosecution of the War."-Ascendancy of the Radicals. ---War Measures at Washington.-Anti-Slavery Aspects of the War.-Brutality of the Yankees.-The Insensibility of Europe.--Yankee Chaplains in Virginia.-Seizures of Private Property.-Pope's Orders in Virginia.-Steinwehrs Order respecting Hostages.-The Character and Services of Gen. John Pope.-The "Army of Virginia.”— Irruption of the Northern Spoilsmen.-The Yankee Trade in Counterfeit Confederate Notes.-Pope's 66 Chasing the Rebel Hordes."-Movement against Pope by "Stonewall" Jackson.-BATTLE OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN.-McClellan recalled from the Peninsula. The Third Grand Army of the North.-Jackson's Surprise of the Enemy at Manassas.-A Rapid and Masterly Movement.-Change of the Situation.-Attack by the Enemy upon Bristow Station and at Manassas Junction.-Marshalling of the Hosts.-Longstreet's Passage of Thoroughfare Gap.-The Plans of Gen. Lee.-Spirit of our Troops.-Their Painful Marches.-THE SECOND BATTLE OF MANASSAS.-A terrible Bayonet Charge.-Rout of the Enemy.-A hideous Battle-field.--Gen. Lee and the Summer Campaign of Virginia.-Jackson's Share in it.-Extent of the Great Victory of Manassas.-Excitement in Washington.-The Yankee Army falls back upon Alexandria and Washington.-Review of the Situation.-Rapid Change in our Military Fortunes.-What the South had accomplished.-Comparison of Material Strength between North and South.-Humiliating Result to the Warlike Reputation of the North.

THE effect of the defeat of McClellan before Richmond was received at the North with ill-concealed mortification and anxiety. Beneath the bluster of the newspapers, and the affectations of public confidence, disappointment, embarrassment and alarm were perceptible. The people of the North had been so assured of the capture of Richmond, that it was difficult to reanimate them on the heels of McClellan's retreat. The prospects held out to them so long, of ending the war in "sixty days," "crushing out the rebellion," and eating victorious dinners in Richmond, had been bitterly disappointed and were not to be easily renewed. The government at Washington showed its appreciation of the disaster its arms had sustained by making a call for three hundred thousand additional troops;*

• The Army Register, published at Washington, in its statement of the organization of the regular army, enumerates as its force si regiments of cavalry, five of artillery, ten of infantry (old army), and nine of infantry (new army).

and the people of the North were urged by every variety of appeal, including large bounties of money, to respond to the stirring call of President Lincoln.

There is no doubt but that the North was seriously discouraged by the events that had taken place before Richmond. But it was a remarkable circumstance, uniformly illustrated in the war, that the North, though easily intoxicated by triumph, was not in the same proportion depressed by defeat. There is an obvious explanation for this peculiarity of temper. As long as the North was conducting the war upon the soil of the South, a defeat there involved more money expenditure and more calls for troops; it involved scarcely any thing else; it had no other horrors, it did not imperil their homes; it might easily be repaired by time. Indeed, there was some sense in the exhortation of some of the Northern orators, to the effect that defeat made their people stronger than ever, because, while it required them to put forth their energies anew, it enabled them to take advantage of experience, to multiply their means of success, and to essay new plans of campaign. No one can doubt but that the celebrated Manassas defeat really strengthened the North; and doubtless the South would have realized the same consequence of the second repulse of the enemy's movements on Richmond, if it had been attended by the same conditions on our part of inaction and repose.

It is curious to observe how completely the ordinary aspects of war were changed and its horrors diminished, with reference to the North, by the false policy of the South, in keeping

The strength of this branch of the service in men, may be thus stated:
Total commissioned officers,
Total enlisted,

Aggregate,

2,388 40,626

43,014

The figures which are collected below, to show the organization of the volunteer army of the North, refer to the date of the Register, August 1, 1862.

It appears that at this date there were in the volunteer army of the North seventy regiments of cavalry, seventy of artillery, and eight hundred and sixty regiments of infantry.

These startling official figures give the following result:

the theatre of active hostilities within her own borders. Defeat did not dispirit the North, because it was not brought to her doors. Where it did not immediately imperil the safety of the country and homes of the Yankees, where it gave time for the recovery and reorganization of the attacking party, and where it required for the prosecution of the war nothing but more money jobs in Congress and a new raking up of the scum of the cities, the effects of defeat upon the North might well be calculated to be the exasperation of its passions, the inflammation of its cupidity, and the multiplication of its exertions to break and overcome the misapplied power of our armies.

Indeed, the realization of the war in the North was, in many respects, nothing more than that of an immense money job. The large money expenditure at Washington supplied a vast fund of corruption; it enriched the commercial centres of the North, and by artificial stimulation preserved such cities as New York from decay; it interested vast numbers of politicians, contractors, and dissolute public men in continuing the war and enlarging the scale of its operations; and, indeed, the disposition to make money out of the war accounts for much of that zeal in the North, which was mistaken for political ardor or the temper of patriotic devotion.*

* The following is an extract from an unpublished letter from Gen. Washington to Richard Henry Lee, and, as an exposition of the character of the Northern people from a pen sacred to posterity, is deeply interesting. There can be no doubt of the authenticity of the letter. It has been preserved in the Lee family, who, though applied to by Bancroft, Irving, and others for a copy for publication, have hitherto refused it, on the ground that it would be improper to give to the world a private letter from the Father of his Country reflecting upon any portion of it while the Union endured. But now, that "these people" have trampled the Constitution under foot, destroyed the government of our fathers, and invaded and desolated Washington's own county in Virginia, there can be no impropriety in showing his private opinion of the Massachusetts Yankees :

Dear Sir: *

[Copy.]

CAMP AT CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 29, 1775.

As we have now nearly completed our lines of defence, we have nothing more, in my opinion, to fear from the enemy, provided we can keep our men to their duty, and make them watchful and vigilant; but it is among the most difficult tasks I ever undertook in my life, to induce these people to believe that there is or can be danger, till the bayonet is pushed at their breasts; not that it proceeds from any uncommon prowess, but rather from an unaccountable kind of stupidity in the lower class of these people, which, believe me, prevails but

But while politicians plundered the government at Washington, and contractors grew rich in a single day, and a fictitious prosperity dazzled the eyes of the observer in the cities of the North, the public finances of the Yankee government had long ago become desperate. It is interesting at this point to make a brief summary of the financial condition of the North by

too generally among the officers of the Massachusetts part of the army, who are nearly of the same kidney with the private, and adds not a little to my difficulties, as there is no such thing as getting officers of this stamp to exert themselves in carrying orders into execution. To curry favor with the men (by whom they were chosen, and on whose smiles possibly they may think they may again rely) seems to be one of the principal objects of their attention. I. submit it, therefore, to your consideration, whether there is, or is not, a propriety in that resolution of the Congress which leaves the ultimate appointment of all officers below the rank of general to the governments where the regiments originated, now the army is become Continental? To me it appears improper in two points of view-first, it is giving that power and weight to an individual colony which ought of right to belong to the whole. Then it damps the spirit and ardor of volunteers from all but the four New England governments, as none but their people have the least chance of getting into office. Would it not be better, therefore, to have the warrants, which the Commander-in-chief is authorized to give pro tempore, approved or disapproved by the Continental Congress, or a committee of their body, which I should suppose in any long recess must always sit? In this case, every gentleman will stand an equal chance of being promoted, according to his merit; in the other, all offices will be confined to the inhabitants of the four New England governments, which, in my opinion, is impolitic to a degree. I have made a pretty good slam among such kind of officers as the Massachusetts government abounds in since I came to this camp, having broken one colonel and two captains for cowardly behavior in the action on Bunker's Hill, two captains for drawing more provisions and pay than they had men in their company, and one for being absent from his post when the enemy appeared there and burnt a house just by it. Besides these, I have at this time one colonel, one major, one captain, and two subalterns under arrest for trial. In short, I spare none, and yet fear it will not all do, as these people seem to be too inattentive to every thing but their interest.

There have been so many great and capital errors and abuses to rectify-so many examples to make, and so little inclination in the officers of inferior rank to contribute their aid to accomplish this work, that my life has been nothing else (since I came here) but one continual round of vexation and fatigue. In short, no pecuniary recompense could induce me to undergo what I have; especially, as I expect, by showing so little countenance to irregularities and public abuses as to render myself very obnoxious to a great part of these people. But as I have already greatly exceeded the bounds of a letter, I will not trouble you with matters relative to my own feelings.

Your affectionate friend and obedient servant,

(Signed)

GEO. WASHINGTON.

Richard Henry Lee, Esq.