to ourselves, mould our opinions, to be as free from all causes of sectional bias as an American can be.

Born in a Northern state, I left it in childhood (almost), to enter into the service of my country. In that state, where I have not spent as much as a whole month in the aggregate, since the age of eighteen, I have not, for years, had blood relatives, unless, perhaps, very distant ones.

Early ordered to the South, I there passed the first fifteen years of my youth and early manhood. My domestic ties have been formed there, and, up to the period of "Secession," though stationed in a Northern city (itself the stronghold of Northern "sympathy" for the "South"), my associations and ties were mainly with the South.

Standing aloof from either of the parties which have recently divided the nation, an officer of the army, serving his "country," and not a section of that country, I claim that my views of the character of secession, and the early conviction (formed some time before the Fort Sumter affair), that it would have to be "put down" by force of arms, and the seceding states treated as “rebel,” are those of my reason, and not of passion or prejudice.

My account of the battle of Bull Run will hardly be satisfactory to those who would comprehend the affair at a glance. The brief narrative of General McDowell, in his official report, was (unaccompa nied by the reports of his subordinates) too general. The reports of the subordinate officers are too circumstantial. I must plead want of time to condense them, and the belief that, after all, the truest picture of the battle would be found in

grouping together the important parts of the different reports.

The occurrences and combats (not unimportant) which took place at Blackburn's Ford and the Stone Bridge, I have been obliged to pass over nearly in silence, as they were quite distinct from the main battle. The official reports treat of these, and to them I must ask attention.

I append to these pages copies of the plans of the field which accompanied General McDowell's official report; a plan recently made, under my directions, by Lieutenant H. L. Abbott, Topographical Engineer, who served with General Tyler in the battle (this gives the topography with much accuracy, that prepared for General McDowell having been, necessarily, in some degree conjectural)—a plan prepared for the "Rebellion Record" by General W. F. Barry, Chief of Artillery, under General McDowell (now Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac), and a curious map published in Richmond soon after the battle.

It should be noted that the ford that we called "Blackburn's," and thence designate the combat of the 18th of July, is really "Mitchell's Ford." Blackburn's Ford is a mile lower down.

THE

C. S. A.,

AND THE

BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

*

WHEN I SAW you in Europe, I little imagined that the lapse of a few short months would exhibit my country rent by civil war, and the wicked and impracticable attempt to divide it into two separate governments.

I am in error, it was not to divide it; this was not the plan. It was to reduce the Northern or free states to more thorough subjection to the slaveholding interest; it was to make, expressly, and by admission, the slaveholding policy the ruling policy of the country. It was to open all the territories of the United States to slavery: to make even the free states recognize (if not receive) it within their own borders. You may not find such

intentions expressed in printed documents, nor admitted now, but I think I could furnish you with sufficient evidence of the truth of the above assertions.

When I returned from Europe I found my country in the same career of prosperity, apparently as little apprehensive for the future, as when I left it. It is true that political feelings ran higher, threats of "secession" were louder, but we had heard such threats before; we had escaped many great dangers threatening our national existence, and we believed in our destiny. The Northern people expected nothing so serious to occur, on Mr. Lincoln's elec tion, as to be irremediable; and I sincerely believe that not one in a hundred throughout the South harbored graver forebodings.

Much has been said of the apathy of the government and of the North. It was an apathy originating in a long-experienced security-in an unwillingness to comprehend that any considerable number of people of the United States were really prepared to destroy this nationality, to blot out the memory of our past history, to erase the records of our joint and common glory.

But there was a greater justification of such apathy. Our government is expressly founded upon the consent of the people. By such consent alone