



Produced by David Widger





                          THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

                         Its Origin and History

                                 Part 3

                                   BY

                               JOHN LOGAN


                              CHAPTER XI.

                        THE CAUSES OF SECESSION.

In preceding Chapters of this work, it has been briefly shown, that from
the very hour in which the Republic of the United States was born, there
have not been wanting, among its own citizens, those who hated it, and
when they could not rule, were always ready to do what they could, by
Conspiracy, Sedition, Mutiny, Nullification, Secession, or otherwise, to
weaken and destroy it.  This fact, and the processes by which the
Conspirators worked, is very well stated, in his documentary "History of
the Rebellion," by Edward McPherson, when he says: "In the Slaveholding
States, a considerable body of men have always been disaffected to the
Union.  They resisted the adoption of the National Constitution, then
sought to refine away the rights and powers of the General Government,
and by artful expedients, in a series of years, using the excitements
growing out of passing questions, finally perverted the sentiments of
large masses of men, and prepared them for Revolution."

Before giving further incontestable proofs establishing this fact, and
before endeavoring to sift out the true cause or causes of Secession,
let us first examine such evidences as are submitted by him in support
of his proposition.

The first piece of testimony, is an extract from an unpublished journal
of U. S. Senator Maclay of Pennsylvania, from March 4, 1789, to March 3,
1791--the period of the First Congress under the Federal Constitution.
It runs thus:

"1789, June 9.--In relation to the Tariff Bill, the affair of confining
the East India Trade to the citizens of America had been negatived, and
a committee had been appointed to report on this business.  The report
came in with very high duties, amounting to a prohibition.  But a new
phenomenon had made its appearance in the House (meaning the Senate)
since Friday.

"Pierce Butler, from South Carolina, had taken his seat, and flamed like
a meteor.  He arraigned the whole Impost law, and then charged
(indirectly) the whole Congress with a design of oppressing South
Carolina.  He cried out for encouraging the Danes and Swedes, and
foreigners of every kind, to come and take away our produce.  In fact he
was for a Navigation Act reversed.

"June 11.--Attended at the hall as usual.

"Mr. Ralph Izard and Mr. Butler opposed the whole of the drawbacks in
every shape whatever.

"Mr. (William) Grayson, of Virginia, warm on this subject, said we were
not ripe for such a thing.  We were a new Nation, and had no business
for any such regulations--a Nation /sui generis/.

"Mr. (Richard Henry) Lee (of Virginia) said drawbacks were right, but
would be so much abused, he could not think of admitting them.

"Mr. (Oliver) Ellsworth (of Connecticut) said New England rum would be
exported, instead of West India, to obtain the drawback.

"I thought it best to say a few words in reply to each.  We were a new
Nation, it was true, but we were not a new People.  We were composed of
individuals of like manners, habits, and customs with the European
Nations.  What, therefore, had been found useful among them, came well
recommended by experience to us.  Drawbacks stand as an example in this
point of view to us.  If the thing was right in itself, there could be
no just argument drawn against the use of a thing from the abuse of it.
It would be the duty of Government to guard against abuses, by prudent
appointments and watchful attention to officers.  That as to changing
the kind of rum, I thought the collection Bill would provide for this,
by limiting the exportation to the original casks and packages.  I said
a great deal more, but really did not feel much interest either way.
But the debates were very lengthy.

"Butler flamed away, and THREATENED A DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, with
regard to his State, as sure as God was in the firmament.  He scattered
his remarks over the whole Impost bill, calling it partial, oppressive,
etc., and solely calculated to oppress South Carolina, and yet ever and
anon declaring how clear of local views and how candid and dispassionate
he was.  He degenerates into mere declamation.  His State would live
free, or die glorious."

The next piece of evidence is General Jackson's letter to Rev. A. J.
Crawford, as follows:

["Private."]

"WASHINGTON, May 1, 1833.

"MY DEAR SIR: * * * I have had a laborious task here, but Nullification
is dead; and its actors and courtiers will only be remembered by the
People to be execrated for their wicked designs to sever and destroy the
only good Government on the globe, and that prosperity and happiness we
enjoy over every other portion of the World.  Haman's gallows ought to
be the fate of all such ambitious men who would involve their Country in
Civil War, and all the evils in its train, that they might reign and
ride on its whirlwinds and direct the storm.  The Free People of these
United States have spoken, and consigned these wicked demagogues to
their proper doom.  Take care of your Nullifiers; you have them among
you; let them meet with the indignant frowns of every man who loves his
Country.  The Tariff, it is now known, was a mere pretext--its burden
was on your coarse woolens.  By the law of July, 1832, coarse woolen was
reduced to five per cent., for the benefit of the South.  Mr. Clay's
Bill takes it up and classes it with woolens at fifty per cent., reduces
it gradually down to twenty per cent., and there it is to remain, and
Mr. Calhoun and all the Nullifiers agree to the principle.  The cash
duties and home valuation will be equal to fifteen per cent. more, and
after the year 1842, you pay on coarse woolens thirty-five per cent.  If
this is not Protection, I cannot understand; therefore the Tariff was
only the pretext, and Disunion and a Southern Confederacy the real
object.  The next pretext will be the <DW64> or Slavery question.

"My health is not good, but is improving a little.  Present me kindly to
your lady and family, and believe me to be your friend.  I will always
be happy to hear from you.
                         "ANDREW JACKSON."


Another evidence is given in the following extract from Benton's "Thirty
Years in the Senate," vol. ii., as follows:

"The regular inauguration of this Slavery agitation dates from the year
1835; but it had commenced two years before, and in this way:
Nullification and Disunion had commenced in 1830, upon complaint against
Protective Tariff.  That, being put down in 1833 under President
Jackson's proclamation and energetic measures, was immediately
substituted by the Slavery agitation.  Mr. Calhoun, when he went home
from Congress in the spring of that year, told his friends that 'the
South could never be united against the North on the Tariff question
--that the sugar interest of Louisiana would keep her out--and that the
basis of Southern Union must be shifted to the Slave question.'  Then
all the papers in his interest, and especially the one at Washington,
published by Mr. Duff Green, dropped Tariff agitation, and commenced
upon Slavery, and in two years had the agitation ripe for inauguration,
on the Slavery question.  And in tracing this agitation to its present
stage, and to comprehend its rationale, it is not to be forgotten that
it is a mere continuation of old Tariff Disunion, and preferred because
more available."

Again, from p. 490 of his private correspondence, Mr. Clay's words to an
Alabamian, in 1844, are thus given:

"From the developments now being made in South Carolina, it is perfectly
manifest that a Party exists in that State seeking a Dissolution of the
Union, and for that purpose employ the pretext of the rejection of Mr.
Tyler's abominable treaty.  South Carolina, being surrounded by Slave
States, would, in the event of a Dissolution of the Union, suffer only
comparative evils; but it is otherwise with Kentucky.  She has the
boundary of the Ohio extending four hundred miles on three Free States.
What would our condition be in the event of the greatest calamity that
could befall this Nation?"

Allusion is also made to a letter written by Representative Nathan
Appleton, of Boston, December 15, 1860, in which that gentleman said
that when he was in Congress--in 1832-33--he had "made up his mind that
Messrs. Calhoun, Hayne, McDuffie, etc., were desirous of a separation of
the Slave States into a separate Confederacy, as more favorable to the
security of Slave Property."

After mentioning that "About 1835, some South Carolinians attempted a
Disunion demonstration," our authority says: It is thus described by
ex-Governor Francis Thomas of Maryland, in his speech in Baltimore,
October 29, 1861:

"Full twenty years ago, when occupying my seat in the House of
Representatives, I was surprised one morning, after the assembling of
the House, to observe that all the members from the Slaveholding States
were absent.  Whilst reflecting on this strange occurrence, I was asked
why I was not in attendance on the Southern Caucus assembled in the room
of the Committee on Claims.  I replied that I had received no
invitation.

"I then proposed to go to the Committee-room to see what was being done.
When I entered, I found that little cock-sparrow, Governor Pickens, of
South Carolina, addressing the meeting, and strutting about like a
rooster around a barn-yard coop, discussing the following resolution:

"' Resolved, That no member of Congress, representing a Southern
constituency, shall again take his seat until a resolution is passed
satisfactory to the South on the subject of Slavery.'

"I listened to his language, and when he had finished, I obtained the
floor, asking to be permitted to take part in the discussion.  I
determined at once to kill the Treasonable plot hatched by John C.
Calhoun, the Catiline of America, by asking questions.  I said to Mr.
Pickens, 'What next do you propose we shall do? are we to tell the
People that Republicanism is a failure?  If you are for that, I am not.
I came here to sustain and uphold American institutions; to defend the
rights of the North as well as the South; to secure harmony and good
fellowship between all Sections of our common Country.' They dared not
answer these questions.  The Southern temper had not then been gotten
up.  As my questions were not answered, I moved an adjournment of the
Caucus /sine die/.  Mr. Craig, of Virginia, seconded the motion, and the
company was broken up.  We returned to the House, and Mr. Ingersoll, of
Pennsylvania, a glorious patriot then as now, introduced a resolution
which temporarily calmed the excitement."

The remarks upon this statement, made November 4, 1861, by the National
Intelligencer, were as follows:

"However busy Mr. Pickens may have been in the Caucus after it met, the
most active man in getting it up and pressing the Southern members to go
into it, was Mr. R.  B. Rhett, also a member from South Carolina.  The
occasion, or alleged cause of this withdrawal from the House into secret
deliberation was an anti-Slavery speech of Mr. Slade, of Vermont, which
Mr. Rhett violently denounced, and proposed to the Southern members to
leave the House and go into Conclave in one of the Committee-rooms,
which they generally did, if not all of them.  We are able to state,
however, what may not have been known to Governor Thomas, that at least
three besides himself, of those who did attend it, went there with a
purpose very different from an intention to consent to any Treasonable
measure.  These three men were Henry A.  Wise, Balie Peyton, and William
Cost Johnson.  Neither of them opened his lips in the Caucus; they went
to observe; and we can assure Governor Thomas, that if Mr. Pickens or
Mr. Calhoun, (whom he names) or any one else had presented a distinct
proposition looking to Disunion, or Revolt, or Secession, he would have
witnessed a scene not soon to be forgotten.  The three whom we have
mentioned were as brave as they were determined.  Fortunately, perhaps,
the man whom they went particularly to watch, remained silent and
passive."

Let us, however, pursue the inquiry a little further.  On the 14th of
November, 1860, Alexander H. Stephens addressed the Legislature of
Georgia, and in a portion of that address--replying to a speech made
before the same Body the previous evening by Mr. Toombs, in which the
latter had "recounted the evils of this Government"--said:

"The first [of these evils] was the Fishing Bounties, paid mostly to the
sailors of New England.  Our friend stated that forty-eight years of our
Government was under the administration of Southern Presidents.  Well,
these Fishing Bounties began under the rule of a Southern President, I
believe.  No one of them, during the whole forty-eight years, ever set
his Administration against the principle or policy of them.  * * *

"The next evil which my friend complained of, was the Tariff.  Well, let
us look at that for a moment.  About the time I commenced noticing
public matters, this question was agitating the Country almost as
fearfully as the Slave question now is.  In 1832, when I was in college,
South Carolina was ready to Nullify or Secede from the Union on this
account.  And what have we seen?  The Tariff no longer distracts the
public counsels.  Reason has triumphed!  The present Tariff was voted
for by Massachusetts and South Carolina.  The lion and the lamb lay down
together--every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South
Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself.
And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend,
that every man in the North that works in iron, and brass and wood, has
his muscle strengthened by the protection of the Government, that
stimulant was given by his vote and I believe (that of) every other
Southern man.

"Mr. TOOMBS--The Tariff lessened the duties.

"Mr. STEPHENS--Yes, and Massachusetts with unanimity voted with the
South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men
asked them to be, and that is the rate they are now at.  If reason and
argument, with experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of
Massachusetts from 1832 to 1857, on the subject of the Tariff, may not
like changes be effected there by the same means--reason and argument,
and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question?  And who can
say that by 1875 or 1890, Massachusetts may not vote with South Carolina
and Georgia upon all those questions that now distract the Country and
threaten its peace and existence.

"Another matter of grievance alluded to by my honorable friend was the
Navigation Laws.  This policy was also commenced under the
Administration of one of these Southern Presidents who ruled so well,
and has been continued through all of them since. * * * One of the
objects (of these) was to build up a commercial American marine by
giving American bottoms the exclusive Carrying Trade between our own
ports.  This is a great arm of national power.  This object was
accomplished.  We have now an amount of shipping, not only coastwise,
but to foreign countries, which puts us in the front rank of the Nations
of the World.  England can no longer be styled the Mistress of the Seas.
What American is not proud of the result?  Whether those laws should be
continued is another question.  But one thing is certain; no President,
Northern or Southern, has ever yet recommended their repeal. * * *

"These then were the true main grievances or grounds of complaint
against the general system of our Government and its workings--I mean
the administration of the Federal Government.  As to the acts of the
federal States I shall speak presently: but these three were the main
ones used against the common head.  Now, suppose it be admitted that all
of these are evils in the system; do they overbalance and outweigh the
advantages and great good which this same Government affords in a
thousand innumerable ways that cannot be estimated?  Have we not at the
South, as well as the North, grown great, prosperous, and happy under
its operations?  Has any part of the World ever shown such rapid
progress in the development of wealth, and all the material resources of
national power and greatness, as the Southern States have under the
General Government, notwithstanding all its defects?

"Mr. TOOMBS--In spite of it.

"Mr. STEPHENS--My honorable friend says we have, in spite of the General
Government; that without it, I suppose he thinks, we might have done as
well, or perhaps better, than we have done in spite of it.  * * *
Whether we of the South would have been better off without the
Government, is, to say the least, problematical.  On the one side we can
only put the fact, against speculation and conjecture on the other.  * *
*  The influence of the Government on us is like that of the atmosphere
around us.  Its benefits are so silent and unseen that they are seldom
thought of or appreciated.

"We seldom think of the single element of oxygen in the air we breathe,
and yet let this simple, unseen and unfelt agent be withdrawn, this
life-giving element be taken away from this all-pervading fluid around
us, and what instant and appalling changes would take place in all
organic creation.

"It may be that we are all that we are 'in spite of the General
Government,' but it may be that without it we should have been far
different from what we are now.  It is true that there is no equal part
of the Earth with natural resources superior perhaps to ours.  That
portion of this Country known as the Southern States, stretching from
the Chesapeake to the Rio Grande, is fully equal to the picture drawn by
the honorable and eloquent Senator last night, in all natural
capacities.  But how many ages and centuries passed before these
capacities were developed to reach this advanced age of civilization.
There these same hills, rich in ore, same rivers, same valleys and
plains, are as they have been since they came from the hand of the
Creator; uneducated and uncivilized man roamed over them for how long no
history informs us.

"It was only under our institutions that they could be developed.  Their
development is the result of the enterprise of our people, under
operations of the Government and institutions under which we have lived.
Even our people, without these, never would have done it.  The
organization of society has much to do with the development of the
natural resources of any Country or any Land.  The institutions of a
People, political and moral, are the matrix in which the germ of their
organic structure quickens into life--takes root, and develops in form,
nature, and character.  Our institutions constitute the basis, the
matrix, from which spring all our characteristics of development and
greatness.  Look at Greece.  There is the same fertile soil, the same
blue sky, the same inlets and harbors, the same AEgean, the same
Olympus; there is the same land where Homer sung, where Pericles spoke;
it is in nature the same old Greece--but it is living Greece no more.

"Descendants of the same people inhabit the country; yet what is the
reason of this vast difference?  In the midst of present degradation we
see the glorious fragments of ancient works of art-temples, with
ornaments and inscriptions that excite wonder and admiration--the
remains of a once high order of civilization, which have outlived the
language they spoke--upon them all, Ichabod is written--their glory has
departed.  Why is this so?  I answer, their institutions have been
destroyed.  These were but the fruits of their forms of government, the
matrix from which their great development sprang; and when once the
institutions of a People have been destroyed, there is no earthly power
that can bring back the Promethean spark to kindle them here again, any
more than in that ancient land of eloquence, poetry and song.

"The same may be said of Italy.  Where is Rome, once the mistress of the
World?  There are the same seven hills now, the same soil, the same
natural resources; the nature is the same, but what a ruin of human
greatness meets the eye of the traveler throughout the length and
breadth of that most down-trodden land! why have not the People of that
Heaven-favored clime, the spirit that animated their fathers?  Why this
sad difference?

"It is the destruction of their institutions that has caused it; and, my
countrymen, if we shall in an evil hour rashly pull down and destroy
those institutions which the patriotic hand of our fathers labored so
long and so hard to build up, and which have done so much for us and the
World, who can venture the prediction that similar results will not
ensue?  Let us avoid it if we can.  I trust the spirit is among us that
will enable us to do it.  Let us not rashly try the experiment, for, if
it fails, as it did in Greece and Italy, and in the South American
Republics, and in every other place wherever liberty is once destroyed,
it may never be restored to us again.

"There are defects in our government, errors in administration, and
short-comings of many kinds; but in spite of these defects and errors,
Georgia has grown to be a great State.  Let us pause here a moment.

"When I look around and see our prosperity in everything, agriculture,
commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and
mental, as well as moral advancement--and our colleges--I think, in the
face of such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power, or any
essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to
ourselves and to posterity--let us not too readily yield to this
temptation--to do so.  Our first parents, the great progenitors of the
human race, were not without a like temptation, when in the Garden of
Eden.  They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered
--that their eyes would be opened--and that they would become as gods.
They in an evil hour yielded--instead of becoming gods they only saw
their own nakedness.

"I look upon this Country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the
World, the Paradise of the Universe.  It may be that out of it we may
become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere in
telling you that I fear if we rashly evince passion, and without
sufficient cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater
or more peaceful, prosperous, and happy--instead of becoming gods, we
will become demons, and at no distant day commence cutting one another's
throats.  This is my apprehension.

"Let us, therefore, whatever we do, meet those difficulties, great as
they are, like wise and sensible men, and consider them in the light of
all the consequences which may attend our action.  Let us see first
clearly where the path of duty leads, and then we may not fear to tread
therein."


Said Senator Wigfall, of Texas, March 4, 1861, in the United States
Senate, only a few hours before Mr. Lincoln's Inauguration:

"I desire to pour oil on the waters, to produce harmony, peace and quiet
here.  It is early in the morning, and I hope I shall not say anything
that may be construed as offensive.  I rise merely that we may have an
understanding of this question.

"It is not Slavery in the Territories, it is not expansion, which is the
difficulty.  If the resolution which the Senator from Wisconsin
introduced here, denying the right of Secession, had been adopted by
two-thirds of each branch of this department of the Government, and had
been ratified by three-fourths of the States, I have no hesitation in
saying that, so far as the State in which I live and to which I owe my
allegiance is concerned, if she had no other cause for a disruption of
the Union taking place, she would undoubtedly have gone out.

     [To insert as an additional article of amendment to the
     Constitution, the following: "Under this Constitution, as
     originally adopted, and as it now exists, no State has power to
     withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States: but this
     Constitution, and all laws passed in pursuance of its delegated
     powers, are the Supreme Law of the Land, anything contained in any
     constitution, ordinance, or act of any State, to the contrary
     notwithstanding."]

"The moment you deny the right of self-government to the free White men
of the South, they will leave the Government.  They believe in the
Declaration of Independence.  They believe that:

"'Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from
the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.'

"That principle of the Declaration of Independence is the one upon which
the free White men of the South predicated their devotion to the present
Constitution of the United States; and it was the denial of that, as
much as anything else, that has created the dissatisfaction in that
Section of the Country.

"There is no instrument of writing that has ever been written that has
been more misapprehended and misunderstood and misrepresented than this
same unfortunate Declaration of Independence, and no set of gentlemen
have ever been so slandered as the fathers who drew and signed that
Declaration.

"If there was a thing on earth that they did not intend to assert, it
was that a <DW64> was a White man.  As I said here, a short time ago, one
of the greatest charges they made against the British Government was,
that old King George was attempting to establish the fact practically
that all men were created Free and Equal.  They charged him in the
Declaration of Independence with inciting their Slaves to insurrection.
That is one of the grounds upon which they threw off their allegiance to
the British Parliament.

"Another great misapprehension is, that the men who drafted that
Declaration of Independence had any peculiar fancy for one form of
government rather than another.  They were not fighting to establish a
Democracy in this country; they were not fighting to establish a
Republican form of government in this Country.  Nothing was further from
their intention.

"Alexander Hamilton, after he had fought for seven years, declared that
the British form of government was the best that the ingenuity of man
had ever devised; and when John Adams said to him, 'without its
corruptions;'  'Why,' said he, 'its corruptions are its greatest
excellence; without the corruptions, it would be nothing.'

"In the Declaration of Independence, they speak of George III., after
this fashion.  They say:

"'A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define
a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.'

"Now, I ask any plain common-sense man what was the meaning of that?
Was it that they were opposed to a Monarchical form of government?  Was
it that they believed a Monarchical form of government was incompatible
with civil liberty?  No, sir; they entertained no such absurd idea.
None of them entertained it; but they say that George III, was a prince
whose character was 'marked by every act which may define a tyrant' and
that therefore he was 'unfit to be the ruler of a free People.'  Had his
character not been so marked by every quality which would define a
tyrant, he might have been the fit ruler of a free People; ergo, a
monarchical form of Government was not incompatible with civil liberty.

"That was clearly the opinion of those men.  I do not advocate it now;
for I have said frequently that we are wiser than our fathers, and our
children will be wiser than we are.  One hundred years hence, men will
understand their own affairs much better than we do.  We understand our
affairs better than those who preceded us one hundred years.  But what I
assert is, that the men of the Revolution did not believe that a
Monarchical form of Government was incompatible with civil liberty.

"What I assert is, that when they spoke of 'all men being created
equal,' they were speaking of the White men who then had unsheathed
their swords--for what purpose?  To establish the right of
self-government in themselves; and when they had achieved that, they
established, not Democracies, but Republican forms of Government in
the thirteen sovereign, separate and independent Colonies.  Yet the
Declaration of Independence is constantly quoted to prove <DW64>
equality.  It proves no such thing; it was intended to prove no such
thing.

"The 'glittering generalities' which a distinguished former Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Choate) spoke of, as contained in the Declaration of
Independence, one of them at least, about all men being created equal
--was not original with Mr. Jefferson.  I recollect seeing a pamphlet
called the Principles of the Whigs and Jacobites, published about the
year 1745, when the last of the Stuarts, called 'the Pretender,' was
striking a blow that was fatal to himself, but a blow for his crown, in
which pamphlet the very phraseology is used, word for word and letter
for letter.  I have not got it here to-night.  I sent the other day to
the Library to try and find it, but could not find it; it was burnt, I
believe, with the pamphlets that were burnt some time ago.

"That Mr. Jefferson copied it or plagiarized it, is not true, I suppose,
any more than the charge that the distinguished Senator from New York
plagiarized from the Federalist in preparing his celebrated compromising
speech which was made here a short time ago.  It was the cant phrase of
the day in 1745, which was only about thirty years previous to the
Declaration of Independence.  This particular pamphlet, which I have
read, was published; others were published at the same time.  That sort
of phraseology was used.

"There was a war of classes in England; there were men who were
contending for legitimacy; who were contending for the right of the
Crown being inherent and depending on the will of God, 'the divine right
of Kings,' for maintaining an hereditary landed-aristocracy; there was
another Party who were contending against this doctrine of legitimacy,
and the right of primogeniture.  These were called the Whigs; they
established this general phraseology in denouncing the divine right and
the doctrine of legitimacy, and it became the common phraseology of the
Country; so that in the obscure county of Mecklenburg, in North
Carolina, a declaration containing the same assertions was found as in
this celebrated Declaration of Independence, written by the immortal
Jefferson.

"Which of us, I ask, is there upon this floor who has not read and
re-read whatever was written within the last twenty-five or thirty years
by the distinguished men of this country?  But enough of that.

"As I said before, there ought not have been, and there did not
necessarily result from our form of Government, any irrepressible
conflict between the Slaveholding and the non-Slaveholding States.
Nothing of the sort was necessary.

"Strike out a single clause in the Constitution of the United States,
that which secures to each State a Republican form of Government, and
there is no reason why, under precisely such a Constitution as we have,
States that are Monarchical and States that are Republican, could not
live in peace and quiet.  They confederate together for common defense
and general welfare, each State regulating its domestic concerns in its
own way; those which preferred a Republican form of Government
maintaining it, and those which preferred a Monarchical form of
Government maintaining it.

"But how long could small States, with different forms of Government,
live together, confederated for common defense and general welfare, if
the people of one Section were to come to the conclusion that their
institutions were better than those of the other, and thereupon
straightway set about subverting the institutions of the other?"


In the reply of the Rebel "Commissioners of the Southern Confederacy"
to Mr. Seward, April 9, 1861, they speak of our Government as being
"persistently wedded to those fatal theories of construction of the
Federal Constitution always rejected by the statesmen of the South, and
adhered to by those of the Administration school, until they have
produced their natural and often-predicted result of the destruction of
the Union, under which we might have continued to live happily and
gloriously together, had the spirit of the ancestry who framed the
common Constitution animated the hearts of all their sons."

In the "Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in
Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United
States," by which the attempt was made to justify the passage of the
South Carolina Secession Ordinance of 1860, it is declared that:

"Discontent and contention have moved in the bosom of the Confederacy,
for the last thirty-five years.  During this time South Carolina has
twice called her people together in solemn Convention, to take into
consideration, the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs, perpetrated
by the people of the North on the people of the South.  These wrongs
were submitted to by the people of the South, under the hope and
expectation that they would be final.  But such hope and expectation
have proved to be vain.  Instead of producing forbearance, our
acquiescence has only instigated to new forms of aggressions and
outrage; and South Carolina, having again assembled her people in
Convention, has this day dissolved her connection with the States
constituting the United States.

"The one great evil from which all other evils have flowed, is the
overthrow of the Constitution of the United States.  The Government of
the United States, is no longer the Government of Confederated
Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy.  It is no longer a free
Government, but a Despotism.  It is, in fact, such a Government as Great
Britain attempted to set over our Fathers; and which was resisted and
defeated by a seven years struggle for Independence.

"The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle,
self-government,--and self-taxation, the criterion of self-government.

"The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position towards the
Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain.  The
Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power
of omnipotence in legislation as the British Parliament.  'The General
Welfare' is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the
majority in Congress, as in the British Parliament, are the sole judges
of the expediency of the legislation this 'General Welfare' requires.
Thus the Government of the United States has become a consolidated
Government; and the people of the Southern States are compelled to meet
the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

"The consolidation of the Government of Great Britain over the Colonies,
was attempted to be carried out by the taxes.  The British Parliament
undertook to tax the Colonies to promote British interests.  Our fathers
resisted this pretension.  They claimed the right of self-taxation
through their Colonial Legislatures.  They were not represented in the
British Parliament, and, therefore, could not rightly be taxed by its
legislation.  The British Government, however, offered them a
representation in Parliament; but it was not sufficient to enable them
to protect themselves from the majority, and they refused the offer.
Between taxation without any representation, and taxation without a
representation adequate to protection, there was no difference.  In
neither case would the Colonies tax themselves.  Hence, they refused to
pay the taxes laid by the British Parliament.

"And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the
vital matter of taxation.  They are in a minority in Congress.  Their
representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust
taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their
benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in
the British Parliament for their benefit.  For the last forty years, the
taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a
view of subserving the interests of the North.  The people of the South
have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object
inconsistent with revenue--to promote, by prohibitions, Northern
interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.

"There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern towards the
Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear towards Great
Britain.  Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes
collected from them were expended amongst them.  Had they submitted to
the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from
them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire.
They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing
the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who
receive the benefit of their expenditure.

"To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which
drove them on to Revolution, yet this British policy has been fully
realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States.  The
people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the
Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of
them are expended at the North.  This cause, with others, connected with
the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the
South provincial.  Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of
Northern cities.  The agricultural productions of the South are the
basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities
do not carry it on.  Our foreign trade is almost annihilated.  * * *

"No man can for a moment believe, that our ancestors intended to
establish over their posterity, exactly the same sort of Government they
had overthrown.  * * *  Yet by gradual and steady encroachments on the
part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the
South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the
Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of
limitless powers in its operations.  * * *

"A majority in Congress, according to their interested and perverted
views, is omnipotent.  * * *  Numbers with them, is the great element of
free Government.  A majority is infallible and omnipotent.  'The right
divine to rule in Kings,' is only transferred to their majority.  The
very object of all Constitutions, in free popular Government, is to
restrain the majority.  Constitutions, therefore, according to their
theory, must be most unrighteous inventions, restricting liberty.  None
ought to exist; but the body politic ought simply to have a political
organization, to bring out and enforce the will of the majority.  This
theory is a remorseless despotism.  In resisting it, as applicable to
ourselves, we are vindicating the great cause of free Government, more
important, perhaps, to the World, than the existence of all the United
States."


In his Special Message to the Confederate Congress at Montgomery, April
29, 1861, Mr. Jefferson Davis said:

"From a period as early as 1798, there had existed in all the States a
Party, almost uninterruptedly in the majority, based upon the creed that
each State was, in the last resort, the sole judge, as well of its
wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress.  * * *  The Democratic
Party of the United States repeated, in its successful canvas of 1836,
the declaration, made in numerous previous political contests, that it
would faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the
Kentucky and Virginia Legislatures of [1798 and] 1799, and that it
adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of
its political creed."

In a letter addressed by the Rebel Commissioners in London (Yancey, Rost
and Mann), August 14, 1861, to Lord John Russell, Secretary of Foreign
Affairs, it appears that they said: "It was from no fear that the Slaves
would be liberated, that Secession took place.  The very Party in power
has proposed to guarantee Slavery forever in the States, if the South
would but remain in the Union."  On the 4th of May preceding, Lord John
had received these Commissioners at his house; and in a letter of May
11, 1861, wrote, from the Foreign Office, to Lord Lyons, the British
Minister at Washington, a letter, in which, alluding to his informal
communication with them, he said: "One of these gentlemen, speaking for
the others, dilated on the causes which had induced the Southern States
to Secede from the Northern.  The principal of these causes, he said,
was not Slavery, but the very high price which, for the sake of
Protecting the Northern manufacturers, the South were obliged to pay for
the manufactured goods which they required.  One of the first acts of
the Southern Congress was to reduce these duties, and to prove their
sincerity he gave as an instance that Louisiana had given up altogether
that Protection on her sugar which she enjoyed by the legislation of the
United States.  As a proof of the riches of the South.  He stated that
of $350,000,000 of exports of produce to foreign countries $270,000,000
were furnished by the Southern States."  * * *  They pointed to the new
Tariff of the United States as a proof that British manufactures would
be nearly excluded from the North, and freely admitted in the South.


This may be as good a place as any other to say a few words touching
another alleged "cause" of Secession.  During the exciting period just
prior to the breaking out of the great War of the Rebellion, the
Slave-holding and Secession-nursing States of the South, made a terrible
hubbub over the Personal Liberty Bills of the Northern States.  And when
Secession came, many people of the North supposed these Bills to be the
prime, if not the only real cause of it.  Not so.  They constituted, as
we now know, only a part of the mere pretext.  But, none the less, they
constituted a portion of the history of that eventful time, and cannot
be altogether ignored.

In order then, that the reader may quickly grasp, not only the general
nature, but also the most important details of the Personal Liberty
Bills (in force, in 1860, in many of the Free States) so frequently
alluded to in the Debates of Congress, in speeches on the stump, and in
the fulminations of Seceding States and their authorized agents,
commissioners, and representatives, it may be well now, briefly to refer
to them, and to state that no such laws existed in California, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and Oregon.

Those of Maine provided that no officer of the State should in any way
assist in the arrest or detention of a Fugitive Slave, and made it the
duty of county attorneys to defend the Fugitive Slave against the claim
of his master.  A Bill to repeal these laws passed the Maine Senate, but
failed in the House.

That of Massachusetts provided for commissioners in each county to
defend alleged Fugitives from Service or Labor; for payment by the
Commonwealth of all expenses of defense; prohibited the issue or service
of process by State officers for arrest of alleged Fugitives, or the use
of any prisons in the State for their detention, or that of any person
aiding their escape; prohibited the kidnapping or removal of alleged
Fugitive Slaves by any person; prohibited all officers within the State,
down to Town officers, from arresting, imprisoning, detaining or
returning to Service "any Person for the reason that he is claimed or
adjudged to be a Fugitive from Service or Labor"--all such prohibitions
being enforced by heavy fines and imprisonment.  The Act of March 25,
1861, materially modified and softened the above provisions.

New Hampshire's law, provided that all Slaves entering the State with
consent of the master shall be Free, and made the attempt to hold any
person as a Slave within the State a felony.

Vermont's, prescribed that no process under the Fugitive Slave Law
should be recognized by any of her Courts, officers, or citizens; nor
any aid given in arresting or removing from the State any Person claimed
as a Fugitive Slave; provided counsel for alleged Fugitives; for the
issue of habeas corpus and trial by jury of issues of fact between the
parties; ordained Freedom to all within the State who may have been held
as Slaves before coming into it, and prescribed heavy penalties for any
attempt to return any such to Slavery.  A bill to repeal these laws,
proposed November, 1860, in the Vermont House of Representatives, was
beaten by two to one.

Connecticut's, provided that there must be two witnesses to prove that a
Person is a Slave; that depositions are not evidence; that false
testifying in Fugitive Slave cases shall be punishable by fine of $5,000
and five years in State prison.

In New Jersey, the only laws touching the subject, permitted persons
temporarily sojourning in the State to bring and hold their Slaves, and
made it the duty of all State officers to aid in the recovery of
Fugitives from Service.

In Pennsylvania, barring an old dead-letter Statute, they simply
prohibited any interference by any of the Courts, Aldermen, or Justices
of the Peace, of the Commonwealth, with the functions of the
Commissioner appointed under the United States Statute in Fugitive Slave
cases.

In Michigan, the law required States' attorneys to defend Fugitive
Slaves; prescribed the privileges of habeas corpus and jury trial for
all such arrested; prohibited the use of prisons of the State for their
detention; required evidence of two credible witnesses as to identity;
and provided heavy penalties of fine and imprisonment for the seizure of
any Free Person, with intent to have such Person held in Slavery.  A
Bill to repeal the Michigan law was defeated in the House by about two
to one.

Wisconsin's Personal Liberty law was similar to that of Michigan, but
with this addition, that no judgment recovered against any person in
that State for violating the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 should be
enforced by sale or execution of any real or personal property in that
State.

That of Rhode Island, forbade the carrying away of any Person by force
out of the State; forbade the official aiding in the arrest or detention
of a Fugitive Slave; and denied her jails to the United States for any
such detention.

Apropos of this subject, and before leaving it, it may be well to quote
remarks of Mr. Simons of Rhode Island, in the United States Senate.
Said he: "Complaint has been made of Personal Liberty Bills.  Now, the
Massachusetts Personal Liberty Bill was passed by a Democratic House, a
Democratic Senate, and signed by a Democratic Governor, a man who was
afterwards nominated by Mr. Polk for the very best office in New
England, and was unanimously confirmed by a Democratic United States
Senate.  Further than this, the very first time the attention of the
Massachusetts Legislature was called to the propriety of a repeal of
this law was by a Republican Governor.  Now, on the other hand, South
Carolina had repealed a law imprisoning British  sailors, but
retained the one imprisoning those coming from States inhabited by her
own brethren!"

These Personal Liberty Bills were undoubtedly largely responsible for
some of the irritation on the Slavery question preceding open
hostilities between the Sections.  But President Lincoln sounded the
real depths of the Rebellion when he declared it to be a War upon the
rights of the People.  In his First Annual Message, December 3, 1861, he
said:

"It continues to develop that the insurrection is largely, if not
exclusively, a War upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the People.  Conclusive evidence of this is found in the most
grave and maturely considered public documents, as well as in the
general tone of the insurgents.  In those documents we find the
abridgment of the existing right of suffrage, and the denial to the
People of all right to participate in the selection of public officers,
except the legislative, boldly advocated, with labored arguments to
prove that large control of the People in government is the source of
all political evil.  Monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a
possible refuge from the power of the People.

"In my present position, I could scarcely be justified were I to omit
raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism.

"It is not needed, nor fitting here, that a general argument should be
made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its
connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask brief
attention.  It is the effort to place Capital on an equal footing with,
if not above Labor, in the structure of the Government.

"It is assumed that Labor is available only in connection with Capital;
that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning Capital, somehow by the
use of it induces him to labor.  This assumed, it is next considered
whether it is best that Capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce
them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it
without their consent.  Having proceeded so far, it is naturally
concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers, or what we call
Slaves.  And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer
is fixed in that condition for life.

"Now, there is no such relation between Capital and Labor as assumed;
nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life, in the
condition of a hired laborer.  Both these assumptions are false, and all
inferences from them are groundless.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of Capital.  Capital is only the
fruit of Labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first
existed.  Labor is the superior of Capital, and deserves much the higher
consideration.  Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of
protection as any other rights.  Nor is it denied that there is, and
probably always will be, a relation between Labor and Capital, producing
mutual benefits.  The error is in assuming that the whole Labor of the
community exists within that relation.

"A few men own Capital, and that few, avoid labor themselves, and with
their Capital hire or buy another few to labor for them.  A large
majority belong to neither class--neither work for others, nor have
others working for them.

"In most of the Southern States, a majority of the whole people of all
colors are neither Slaves nor masters; while in the Northern, a large
majority are neither hirers nor hired.  Men with their families--wives,
sons, and daughters--work for themselves, on their farms, in their
houses, and in their shops, taking the whole product to themselves, and
asking no favors of Capital on the one hand, nor of hired laborers or
Slaves on the other.

"It is not forgotten that a considerable number of persons mingle their
own Labor with Capital--that is they labor with their own hands, and
also buy or hire others to labor for them; but this is only a mixed, and
not a distinct class.  No principle stated is disturbed by the existence
of this mixed class.

"Again, as has already been said, there is not, of necessity, any such
thing as the free hired-laborer being fixed to that condition for life.
Many independent men everywhere in these States, a few years back in
their lives, were hired laborers.

"The prudent, penniless beginner in the World, labors for wages awhile,
saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors
on his own account another while, and at length hires another new
beginner to help him.  This is the just and generous and prosperous
system, which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent
energy and progress, and improvement of condition to all.

"No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from
poverty--none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not
honestly earned.  Let them beware of surrendering a political power
which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be
used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix
new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of Liberty shall be
lost.  * * *  The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to-day-it is
a vast future also.  * * * "


So too, Andrew Johnson, in his speech before the Senate, January 31,
1862, spake well and truly when he said that "there has been a
deliberate design for years to change the nature and character and
genius of this Government."  And he added: "Do we not know that these
schemers have been deliberately at work, and that there is a Party in
the South, with some associates in the North, and even in the West, that
have become tired of Free Government, in which they have lost
confidence."

Said he: "They raise an outcry against 'Coercion,' that they may
paralyze the Government, <DW36> the exercise of the great powers with
which it was invested, finally to change its form and subject us to a
Southern despotism.  Do we not know it to be so?  Why disguise this
great truth?  Do we not know that they have been anxious for a change of
Government for years?  Since this Rebellion commenced it has manifested
itself in many quarters.

"How long is it since the organ of the Government at Richmond, the
Richmond Whig, declared that rather than live under the Government of
the United States, they preferred to take the Constitutional Queen of
Great Britain as their protector; that they would make an alliance with
Great Britain for the purpose of preventing the enforcement of the Laws
of the United States.  Do we not know this?"


Stephen A. Douglas also, in his great Union speech at Chicago, May 1,
1861--only a few days before his lamented death-said:

"The election of Mr. Lincoln is a mere pretext.  The present Secession
movement is the result of an enormous Conspiracy formed more than a year
since formed by leaders in the Southern Confederacy more than twelve
months ago.  They use the Slavery question as a means to aid the
accomplishment of their ends.  They desired the election of a Northern
candidate by a Sectional vote, in order to show that the two Sections
cannot live together.

"When the history of the two years from the Lecompton question down to
the Presidential election shall be written, it will be shown that the
scheme was deliberately made to break up this Union.

"They desired a Northern Republican to be elected by a purely Northern
vote, and then assign this fact as a reason why the Sections cannot live
together.  If the Disunion candidate--(Breckinridge) in the late
Presidential contest had carried the united South, their scheme was, the
Northern candidate successful, to seize the Capital last Spring, and by
a united South and divided North, hold it.

"Their scheme was defeated, in the defeat of the Disunion candidates in
several of the Southern States.

"But this is no time for a detail of causes.  The Conspiracy is now
known; Armies have been raised.  War is levied to accomplish it.  There
are only two sides to the question.

"Every man must be for the United States, or against it.  There can be
no Neutrals in this War; only Patriots or Traitors!  [Cheer after
Cheer]."


In a speech made in the United States Senate, January 31, 1862, Senator
McDougall of California--conceded to be intellectually the peer of any
man in that Body--said:

"We are at War.  How long have we been at War?  We have been engaged in
a war of opinion, according to my historical recollection, since 1838.
There has been a Systematic organized war against the Institutions
established by our fathers, since 1832.  This is known of all men who
have read carefully the history of our Country.  If I had the leisure,
or had consulted the authorities, I would give it year by year, and date
by date, from that time until the present, how men adversary to our
Republican Institutions have been organizing War against us, because
they did not approve of our Republican Institutions.

"Before the Mexican War, it is well known that General Quitman, then
Governor of Mississippi, was organizing to produce the same condition of
things (and he hoped a better condition of things, for he hoped a
successful Secession), to produce this same revolution that is now
disturbing our whole Land.  The War with Mexico, fighting for a Southern
proposition, for which I fought myself, made the Nation a unit until
1849; and then again they undertook an Organization to produce
Revolution.  These things are history.  This statement is true, and
cannot be denied among intelligent men anywhere, and cannot be denied in
this Senate.

"The great men who sat in Council in this Hall, the great men of the
Nation, men whose equals are not, and I fear will not be for many years,
uniting their judgments, settled the controversy in 1850.  They did not
settle it for the Conspirators of the South, for they were not parties
to the compact.  Clay and Webster, and the great men who united with
them, had no relation with the extremes of either extreme faction.  The
Compromise was made, and immediately after it had been effected, again
commenced the work of organization.  I had the honor to come from my
State on the Pacific into the other branch of the Federal Congress, and
there I learned as early as 1853, that the work of Treason was as
industriously pursued as it is being pursued to-day.  I saw it; I felt
it; I knew it.  I went home to the shores of the Pacific instructed
somewhat on this subject.

"Years passed by.  I engaged in my duties as a simple professional man,
not connected with public affairs.  The question of the last
Presidential election arose before the Country--one of those great
questions that are not appreciated, I regret from my heart, by the
American Nation, when we elect a President, a man who has more power for
his time than any enthroned Monarch in Europe.  We organize a Government
and place him in front as the head and the Chief of the Government.
That question came before the American People.

"At that time I was advised of this state of feeling--and I will state
it in as exact form of words as I can state it, that it may be
understood by Senators: Mr. Douglas is a man acceptable to the South.
Mr. Douglas is a man to whom no one has just cause of exception
throughout the South.  Mr. Douglas is more acceptable to Mississippi and
Louisiana than Mr. Breckinridge.  Mr. Breckinridge is not acceptable to
the South; or at least, if he is so, he is not in the same degree with
Mr. Douglas.  Mr. Douglas is the accepted man of a great National Party,
and if he is brought into the field he will be triumphantly elected.
THAT MUST NOT BE DONE, because THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECESSION IS
MATURED.  EVERYTHING IS PREPARED, and the election of Mr. Douglas would
only postpone it for four years; and Now when we are PREPARED to carry
out these things WE MUST INDULGE IN STRATAGEM, and the nomination of Mr.
Breckinridge is a mere strategic movement to divide the great
conservative Party of the Nation into two, so as to elect a Republican
candidate AND CONSOLIDATE THE SOUTH BY THE CRY OF 'ABOLITIONIST!'

"That is a mere simple statement of the truth, and it cannot be
contradicted.  Now, in that scheme all the men of counsel of that Party
were engaged.  * * *  I, on the far shores of the Pacific understood
those things as long ago as a year last September (1860).  I was advised
about this policy and well informed of it.  * * *

"I was at war, in California, in January (1861) last; in the maintenance
of the opinions that I am now maintaining, I had to go armed to protect
myself from violence.  The country, whenever there was controversy, was
agitated to its deepest foundations.  That is known, perhaps, not to
gentlemen who live up in Maine or Massachusetts, or where you are
foreign to all this agitation; but known to all people where disturbance
might have been effective in consequences.  I felt it, and had to carry
my life in my hand by the month, as did my friends surrounding me.

"I say that all through last winter (that of 1860-61) War had been
inaugurated in all those parts of the Country where disturbed elements
could have efficient result.  In January (1861), a year ago, I stood in
the hall of the House of Representatives of my State, and there was War
then, and angry faces and hostile men were gathered; and we knew then
well that the Southern States had determined to withdraw themselves from
the Federal Union.

"I happened to be one of those men who said, 'they shall not do it;' and
it appears to me that the whole argument is between that class of men
and the class of men who said they would let them do it.  * * *  When
this doctrine was started here of disintegrating the Cotton States from
the rest of the Confederacy, I opposed it at once.  I saw immediately
that War was to be invoked.  * * *

"I will not say these things were understood by gentlemen of the
Republican Party * * * but I, having been accepted and received as a
Democrat of the old school from the olden time, and HAVING FAST SOUTHERN
SYMPATHIES, I DID KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM. * * * I KNOW THAT SECESSION WAS A
THING DETERMINED UPON.  * * * I was advised of and understood the whole
programme, KNEW HOW IT WAS TO BE DONE IN ITS DETAILS; and I being
advised, made war against it.  * * *

"War had been, in fact, inaugurated.  What is War?  Was it the firing on
our flag at Sumter?  Was that the first adversary passage?  To say so,
is trifling with men's judgments and information.  No, sir; when they
organized a Government, and set us at defiance, they commenced War; and
the various steps they took afterwards, by organizing their troops, and
forming their armies, and advancing upon Sumter; all these were merely
acts of War; but War was inaugurated whenever they undertook to say they
would maintain themselves as a separate and independent government; and,
after that time, every man who gave his assistance to them was a
Traitor, according to the highest Law."

The following letter, written by one of the most active of the Southern
conspirators in 1858, during the great Douglas and Lincoln Debate of
that year, to which extended reference has already been made, is of
interest in this connection, not only as corroborative evidence of the
fact that the Rebellion of the Cotton States had been determined on long
before Mr. Lincoln was elected President, but as showing also that the
machinery for "firing the Southern heart" and for making a "solid South"
was being perfected even then.  The subsequent split in the Democratic
Party, and nomination of Breckinridge by the Southern wing of it, was
managed by this same Yancey, simply as parts of the deliberate programme
of Secession and Rebellion long before determined on by the Cotton Lords
of the Cotton States.


                         "MONTGOMERY, June 15, 1858.

"DEAR SIR:--Your kind favor of the 13th is received.

"I hardly agree with you that a general movement can be made that will
clean out the Augean Stable.  If the Democracy were overthrown it would
result in giving place to a greedier and hungrier swarm of flies.

"The remedy of the South is not in such a process.  It is in a diligent
organization of her true men for prompt resistance to the next
aggression.  It must come in the nature of things.  No National Party
can save us.  No Sectional Party can ever do it.  But if we could do as
our fathers did--organize 'Committees of Safety' all over the Cotton
States (and it is only in them that we can hope for any effective
movement), we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind,
give courage to each other, and at the proper moment, by one organized,
concerted action, we can precipitate the Cotton States into a
revolution.

"The idea has been shadowed forth in the South by Mr. Ruffin; has been
taken up and recommended in the Advertiser under the name of 'League of
United Southerners,' who, keeping up their old relations on all other
questions, will hold the Southern issues paramount, and influence
parties, legislatures and statesmen.  I have no time to enlarge, but to
suggest merely.

"In haste, yours, etc.
                         "W. L. YANCEY.

"To JAMES S. SLAUGHTER."


At Jackson, Mississippi, in the fall of the same year (1858) just after
the great Debate between Douglas and Lincoln had closed, Jefferson Davis
had already raised the standard of Revolution, Secession and Disunion,
during the course of a speech, in which he said: "If an Abolitionist be
chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you
the question of whether you will permit the Government to pass into the
hands of your avowed and implacable enemies?  Without pausing for an
answer, I will state my own position to be, that such a result would be
a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be
destroyed, and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect.
In that event, in such a manner as should be most expedient, I should
deem it your duty to provide for your safety, outside of the Union with
those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power
to deprive you of your birthright, and to reduce you to worse than the
Colonial dependence of your fathers."

The "birthright" thus referred to was of course, the alleged right to
have Slaves; but what was this "worse than Colonial dependence" to
which, in addition to the peril supposed to threaten the Southern
"birthright," the Cotton States of Mississippi were reduced?
"Dependence" upon whom, and with regard to what?  Plainly upon the
North; and with regard, not to Slavery alone--for Jefferson Davis held,
down to the very close of the War, that the South fought "not for
Slavery"--but as to Tariff Legislation also.  There was the rub! These
Cotton Lords believed, or pretended to believe, that the High Tariff
Legislation, advocated and insisted upon both by the Whigs and
Republicans for the Protection of the American Manufacturer and working
man, built up and made prosperous the North, and elevated Northern
laborers; at the expense of the South, and especially themselves, the
Cotton Lords aforesaid.

We have already seen from the utterances of leading men in the South
Carolina, Secession Convention, "that"--as Governor Hicks, himself a
Southern man, said in his address to the people of Maryland, after
the War broke out "neither the election of Mr. Lincoln, nor the
non-execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, nor both combined, constitute
their grievances.  They declare that THE REAL CAUSE of their discontent
DATES AS FAR BACK AS 1833."

And what was the chief cause or pretext for discontent at that time?
Nothing less than the Tariff.  They wanted Free Trade, as well as
Slavery.  The balance of the Union wanted Protection, as well as
Freedom.

The subsequent War, then, was not a War waged for Slavery alone, but for
Independence with a view to Free Trade, as set forth in the "Confederate
Constitution," as soon as that Independence could be achieved.  And the
War on our part, while for the integrity of the Union in all its parts
--for the life of the Nation itself, and for the freedom of man, should
also have brought the triumph of the American idea of a Protective
Tariff, whose chief object is the building up of American manufactures
and the Protection of the Free working-man, in the essential matters of
education, food, clothing, rents, wages, and work.

It is mentioned in McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 392, that in
a letter making public his reasons for going to Washington and taking
his seat in Congress, Mr. James L. Pugh, a Representative from Alabama,
November 24, 1860, said: "The sole object of my visit is to promote the
cause of Secession."

From the manner in which they acted after reaching Washington, it is not
unreasonable to suppose that most of those persons representing, in both
branches of Congress, the Southern States which afterwards seceded, came
to the National Capital with a similar object in view--taking their
salaries and mileages for services supposed to be performed for the
benefit of the very Government they were conspiring to injure, and
swearing anew the sacred oath to support and defend the very
Constitution which they were moving heaven and earth to undermine and
destroy!

     [As a part of the history of those times, the following letter is
     not without interest:

     "OXFORD, December 24, 1860.

     "MY DEAR SIR:--I regretted having to leave Washington without
     having with you a full conference as to the great events whose
     shadows are upon us.  The result of the election here is what the
     most sanguine among us expected; that is, its general result is so.
     It is as yet somewhat difficult to determine the distinctive
     complexion of the convention to meet on the 7th of January.  The
     friends of Southern Independence, of firm and bona fide resistance,
     won an overwhelming victory; but I doubt whether there is any
     precise plan.

     "No doubt a large majority of the Convention will be for separate
     Secession.  But unless intervening events work important changes of
     sentiment, not all of those elected as resistance men will be for
     immediate and separate Secession.  Our friends in Pontotoc, Tippah,
     De Soto and Pauola took grounds which fell far short of that idea,
     though their resolutions were very firm in regard to Disunion and
     an ultimate result.

     "In the meantime the Disunion sentiment among the people is growing
     every day more intense.

     "Upon the whole, you have great cause for gratification in the
     action of your State.

     "The submissionists are routed, horse, foot, and dragoons, and any
     concession by the North will fail to restore that sacred attachment
     to the Union which was once so deeply radicated in the hearts of
     our people.  What they want now, is wise and sober leading.  I
     think that there might be more of dignity and prudent foresight in
     the action of our State than have marked the proceedings of South
     Carolina.  I have often rejoiced that we have you to rest upon and
     confide in.  I do not know what we could do without you.  That God
     may preserve you to us, and that your mind may retain all its vigor
     to carry us through these perilous times, is my most fervent
     aspiration.

     "I am as ever, and forever, your supporter, ally and friend.

                              "L. Q. C. LAMAR.

     "COL. JEFF.  DAVIS, Washington, D. C."]


This was but a part of the deliberate, cold-blooded plan mapped out in
detail, early in the session succeeding the election of Mr. Lincoln, in
a secret Caucus of the Chief Plotters of the Treason.  It was a secret
conference, but the programme resolved on, soon leaked out.

The following, which appeared in the Washington National Intelligencer
on Friday, January 11, 1861, tells the story of this stage of the Great
Conspiracy pretty clearly:

"The subjoined communication, disclosing the designs of those who have
undertaken to lead the movement now threatening a permanent dissolution
of the Union, comes to us from a distinguished citizen of the South
[understood to be Honorable Lemuel D. Evans, Representative from Texas
in the 34th Congress, from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1857] who formerly
represented his State with great distinction in the popular branch of
Congress.

"Temporarily sojourning in this city he has become authentically
informed of the facts recited in the subjoined letter, which he
communicates to us under a sense of duty, and for the accuracy of which
he makes himself responsible.

"Nothing but assurances coming from such an intelligent, reliable source
could induce us to accept the authenticity of these startling
statements, which so deeply concern not only the welfare but the honor
of the Southern people.

"To them we submit, without present comment, the programme to which they
are expected to yield their implicit adhesion, without any scruples of
conscience as without any regard for their own safety.

                    "'WASHINGTON, January 9, 1861.

"'I charge that on last Saturday night (January 5th), a Caucus was held
in this city by the Southern Secession Senators from Florida, Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas.  It was then and
there resolved in effect to assume to themselves the political power of
the South, and, to control all political and military operations for the
present, they telegraphed to complete the plan of seizing forts,
arsenals, and custom-houses, and advised the Conventions now in session,
and soon to assemble, to pass Ordinances for immediate Secession; but,
in order to thwart any operations of the Government here, the
Conventions of the Seceding States are to retain their representations
in the Senate and the House.

"'They also advised, ordered, or directed the assembling of a Convention
of delegates from the Seceding States at Montgomery on the 13th of
February.  This can of course only be done by the revolutionary
Conventions usurping the powers of the people, and sending delegates
over whom they will lose all control in the establishment of a
Provisional Government, which is the plan of the dictators.

"'This Caucus also resolved to take the most effectual means to dragoon
the Legislatures of Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and
Virginia into following the Seceding States.  Maryland is also to be
influenced by such appeals to popular passion as have led to the
revolutionary steps which promise a conflict with the State and Federal
Governments in Texas.

"'They have possessed themselves of all the avenues of information in
the South--the telegraph, the press, and the general control of the
postmasters.  They also confidently rely upon defections in the army and
navy.

"'The spectacle here presented is startling to contemplate.  Senators
entrusted with the representative sovereignty of the States, and sworn
to support the Constitution of the United States, while yet acting as
the privy councillors of the President, and anxiously looked to by their
constituents to effect some practical plan of adjustment, deliberately
conceive a Conspiracy for the overthrow of the Government through the
military organizations, the dangerous secret order, the 'Knights of the
Golden Circle,' 'Committees of Safety,' Southern leagues, and other
agencies at their command; they have instituted as thorough a military
and civil despotism as ever cursed a maddened Country.

"'It is not difficult to foresee the form of government which a
Convention thus hurriedly thrown together at Montgomery will irrevocably
fasten upon a deluded and unsuspecting people.  It must essentially be
'a Monarchy founded upon military principles,' or it cannot endure.
Those who usurp power never fail to forge strong chains.

"'It may be too late to sound the alarm.  Nothing may be able to arrest
the action of revolutionary tribunals whose decrees are principally in
'secret sessions.'  But I call upon the people to pause and reflect
before they are forced to surrender every principle of liberty, or to
fight those who are becoming their masters rather than their servants.
                                   "' EATON"

"As confirming the intelligence furnished by our informant we may cite
the following extract from the Washington correspondence of yesterday's
Baltimore Sun:

"'The leaders of the Southern movement are consulting as to the best
mode of consolidating their interests into a Confederacy under a
Provisional Government.  The plan is to make Senator Hunter, of
Virginia, Provisional President, and Jefferson Davis Commander-in-Chief
of the army of defense.  Mr. Hunter possesses in a more eminent degree
the philosophical characteristics of Jefferson than any other statesman
now living.  Colonel Davis is a graduate of West Point, was
distinguished for gallantry at Buena Vista, and served as Secretary of
War under President Pierce, and is not second to General Scott in
military science or courage.'

"As further confirmatory of the above, the following telegraphic
dispatch in the Charleston Mercury of January 7, 1861, is given:

"'[From our Own Correspondent.]

"'WASHINGTON, January 6.--The Senators from those of the Southern States
which have called Conventions of their people, met in caucus last night,
and adopted the following resolutions:

"'Resolved, That we recommend to our respective States immediate
Secession.

"'Resolved, That we recommend the holding of a General Convention of the
said States, to be holden in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, at some
period not later than the 15th day of February, 1861.'

"These resolutions were telegraphed this evening to the Conventions of
Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida.  A third resolution is also known to
have been adopted, but it is of a confidential character, not to be
divulged at present.  There was a good deal of discussion in the caucus
on the question of whether the Seceding States ought to continue their
delegations in Congress till the 4th of March, to prevent unfriendly
legislation, or whether the Representatives of the Seceding States
should all resign together, and leave a clear field for the opposition
to pass such bills, looking to Coercion, as they may see fit.  It is
believed that the opinion that they should remain prevailed."

Furthermore, upon the capture of Fernandina, Florida, in 1862, the
following letter was found and published.  Senator Yulee, the writer,
was present and participated as one of the Florida Senators, in the
traitorous "Consultation" therein referred to--and hence its especial
value:


"WASHINGTON, January 7, 1861.

"My DEAR SIR:--On the other side is a copy of resolutions adopted at a
consultation of the Senators from the Seceding States--in which Georgia,
Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Florida were
present.

"The idea of the meeting was that the States should go out at once, and
provide for the early organization of a Confederate Government, not
later than 15th February.  This time is allowed to enable Louisiana and
Texas to participate.  It seemed to be the opinion that if we left here,
force, loan, and volunteer Bills might be passed, which would put Mr.
Lincoln in immediate condition for hostilities; whereas, by remaining in
our places until the 4th of March, it is thought we can keep the hands
of Mr. Buchanan tied, and disable the Republicans from effecting any
legislation which will strengthen the hands of the incoming
Administration.

"The resolutions will be sent by the delegation to the President of the
Convention.  I have not been able to find Mr. Mallory (his Senatorial
colleague) this morning.  Hawkins (Representative from Florida) is in
Connecticut.  I have therefore thought it best to send you this copy of
the resolutions.

               "In haste, yours truly
                                   "D. L. YULEE.

"JOSEPH FINEGAN, Esq.,
"'Sovereignty Convention,' Tallahassee, Fla."



The resolutions "on the other side" of this letter, to which he refers,
are as follows:

"Resolved, 1--That in our opinion each of the Southern States should, as
soon as may be, Secede from the Union.

"Resolved, 2--That provision should be made for a Convention to organize
a Confederacy of the Seceding States, the Convention to meet not later
than the 15th of February, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of
Alabama.

"Resolved, That in view of the hostile legislation that is threatened
against the Seceding States, and which may be consummated before the 4th
of March, we ask instructions whether the delegations are to remain in
Congress until that date for the purpose of defeating such legislation.

"Resolved, That a committee be and are hereby appointed, consisting of
Messrs. Davis, Slidell, and Mallory, to carry out the objects of this
meeting."


In giving this letter to the World--from its correspondent accompanying
the expedition--the New York Times of March 15, 1862, made these
forcible and clear-headed comments:

"The telegraphic columns of the Times of January 7, 1861, contained the
following Washington dispatch: 'The Southern Senators last night
(January 5th) held a conference, and telegraphed to the Conventions of
their respective States to advise immediate Secession.'  Now, the
present letter is a report by Mr. Yulee, who was present at this
'consultation' as he calls it, of the resolutions adopted on this
occasion, transmitted to the said Finegan, who by the way, was a member
of the 'Sovereign Convention' of Florida, then sitting in the town of
Tallahassee.

"It will thus be seen that this remarkable letter, which breathes
throughout the spirit of the Conspirator, in reality lets us into one of
the most important of the numerous Secret Conclaves which the Plotters
of Treason then held in the Capital.  It was then, as it appears, that
they determined to strike the blow and precipitate their States into
Secession.  But at the same time they resolved that it would be
imprudent for them openly to withdraw, as in that case Congress might
pass 'force, loan, and volunteer bills,' which would put Mr. Lincoln in
immediate condition for hostilities.  No, no!  that would not do.  (So
much patriotic virtue they half suspected, half feared, was left in the
Country.)  On the contrary, 'by remaining in our places until the 4th of
March it is thought we can keep the hands of Mr. Buchanan tied, and
disable the Republicans from effecting any legislation which will
strengthen the hands of the incoming Administration.'  Ah what a tragic
back-ground, full of things unutterable, is there!

"It appears, however, that events were faster than they, and instead of
being able to retain their seats up to the 4th of March, they were able
to remain but a very few weeks.  Mr. Davis withdrew on the 21st of
January, just a fortnight after this 'consultation.'  But for the rest,
mark how faithfully the programme here drawn up by this knot of Traitors
in secret session was realized.  Each of the named States represented by
this Cabal did, 'as soon as may be, Secede from the Union'--the
Mississippi Convention passing its Ordinance on the heels of the receipt
of these resolutions, on the 9th of January; Florida and Alabama on the
11th; Louisiana on the 26th, and Texas on the 1st of February; while the
'organization of the Confederate Government' took place at the very time
appointed, Davis being inaugurated on the 18th of February.

"And here is another Plot of the Traitors brought to light.  These very
men, on withdrawing from the Senate, urged that they were doing so in
obedience to the command of their respective States.  As Mr. Davis put
it, in his parting speech, 'the Ordinance of Secession having passed the
Convention of his State, he felt obliged to obey the summons, and retire
from all official connection with the Federal Government.'  This letter
of Mr. Yulee's clearly reveals that they had themselves pushed their
State Conventions to the adoption of the very measure which they had the
hardihood to put forward as an imperious 'summons' which they could not
disobey.  It is thus that Treason did its Work."




                              CHAPTER XII.

                  COPPERHEADISM  VS. UNION DEMOCRACY.

When we remember that it was on the night of the 5th of January, 1861,
that the Rebel Conspirators in the United States Senate met and plotted
their confederated Treason, as shown in the Yulee letter, given in the
preceding Chapter of this work, and that on the very next day, January
6, 1861, Fernando Wood, then Mayor of the great city of New York, sent
in to the Common Council of that metropolis, his recommendation that New
York city should Secede from its own State, as well as the United
States, and become "a Free City," which, said he, "may shed the only
light and hope of a future reconstruction of our once blessed
Confederacy," it is impossible to resist the conviction that this
extraordinary movement of his, was inspired and prompted, if not
absolutely directed, by the secret Rebel Conclave at Washington.  It
bears within itself internal evidences of such prompting.

Thus, when Mayor Wood states the case in the following words, he seems
to be almost quoting word for word an instruction received by him from
these Rebel leaders--in connection with their plausible argument,
upholding it.  Says he:

"Much, no doubt, can be said in favor of the justice and policy of a
separation.  It may be said that Secession or revolution in any of the
United States would be subversive of all Federal authority, and, so far
as the central Government is concerned, the resolving of the community
into its original elements--that, if part of the States form new
combinations and, Governments, other States may do the same.  Then it
may be said, why should not New York city, instead of supporting by her
contributions in revenue two-thirds of the expenses of the United
States, become also equally independent?  As a Free City, with but
nominal duty on imports, her local Government could be supported without
taxation upon her people.  Thus we could live free from taxes, and have
cheap goods nearly duty free.  In this she would have the whole and
united support of the Southern States, as well as all the other States
to whose interests and rights under the Constitution she has always been
true."

That is the persuasive casuistry peculiar to the minds of the Southern
Secession leaders.  It is naturally followed by a touch of that
self-confident bluster, also at that time peculiar to Southern lips
--as follows:

"It is well for individuals or communities to look every danger square
in the face, and to meet it calmly and bravely.  As dreadful as the
severing of the bonds that have hitherto united the States has been in
contemplation, it is now apparently a stern and inevitable fact.  We
have now to meet it, with all the consequences, whatever they may be.
If the Confederacy is broken up the Government is dissolved, and it
behooves every distinct community, as well as every individual, to take
care of themselves.

"When Disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York
disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master--to a
people and a Party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin
her commerce, taken away the power of self-government, and destroyed the
Confederacy of which she was the proud Empire City? * * *"

After thus restating, as it were, the views and "arguments" of the Rebel
Junta, as we may presume them to have been pressed on him, he becomes
suddenly startled at the Conclave's idea of meeting "all the
consequences, whatever they may be," and, turning completely around,
with blanching pen, concludes:

"But I am not prepared to recommend the violence implied in these views.
In stating this argument in favor of freedom, 'peaceably if we can,
forcibly if we must,' let me not be misunderstood.  The redress can be
found only in appeals to the magnanimity of the people of the whole
State." * * *

If "these views" were his own, and not those of the Rebel Conclave, he
would either have been "prepared to recommend the violence implied in
them," or else he would have suppressed them altogether.  But his
utterance is that of one who has certain views for the first time placed
before him, and shrinks from the consequences of their advocacy--shrinks
from "the violence implied" in them--although for some reason he dares
not refuse to place those views before the people.

And, in carrying out his promise to do so--"In stating this argument,"
presumably of the Rebel Conclave, "in favor of freedom, 'peaceably if we
can, forcibly if we must'"--the language used is an admission that the
argument is not his own.  Were it his own, would he not have said in
"making" it, instead of in "stating" it?  Furthermore, had he been
"making" it of his own accord, he would hardly have involved himself in
such singular contradictions and explanations as are here apparent.  He
was plainly "stating" the Rebel Conclave's argument, not making one
himself.  He was obeying orders, under the protest of his fears.  And
those fears forced his trembling pen to write the saving-clause which
"qualifies" the Conclave's second-hand bluster preceding it.

That the Rebels hoped for Northern assistance in case of Secession, is
very clear from many speeches made prior to and soon after the election
of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency--and from other sources of information.
Thus we find in a speech made by Representative L. M. Keitt, of South
Carolina, in Charleston, November, 1860, the following language,
reported by the Mercury:

"But we have been threatened.  Mr. Amos Kendall wrote a letter, in which
he said to Colonel Orr, that if the State went out, three hundred
thousand volunteers were ready to march against her.  I know little
about Kendall--and the less the better.  He was under General Jackson;
but for him the Federal treasury seemed to have a magnetic attraction.

"Jackson was a pure man, but he had too many around him who made
fortunes far transcending their salaries.  [Applause.]  And this Amos
Kendall had the same good fortune under Van Buren.  He (Kendall)
threatened us on the one side, and John Hickman on the other.  John
Hickman said, defiantly, that if we went out of the Union, eighteen
millions of Northern men would bring us back.

"Let me tell you, there are a million of Democrats in the North who,
when the Black Republicans attempt to march upon the South, will be
found a wall of fire in the front.  [Cries of 'that's so,' and
applause.]"

Harper's Weekly of May 28, 1864, commenting on certain letters of M. F.
Maury and others, then just come to light, said:

"How far Maury and his fellow-conspirators were justified in their hopes
of seducing New Jersey into the Rebellion, may be gathered from the
correspondence that took place, in the spring of 1861, between
Ex-Governor Price, of New Jersey, who was one of the representatives from
that State in the Peace Congress, and L. W. Burnet, Esq., of Newark.

"Mr. Price, in answering the question what ought New Jersey to do, says:
'I believe the Southern confederation permanent.  The proceeding has
been taken with forethought and deliberation--it is no hurried impulse,
but an irrevocable act, based upon the sacred, as was supposed, equality
of the States; and in my opinion every Slave State will in a short
period of time be found united in one Confederacy.  * * *  Before that
event happens, we cannot act, however much we may suffer in our material
interests.  It is in that contingency, then, that I answer the second
part of your question:--What position for New Jersey will best accord
with her interests, honor, and the patriotic instincts of her people?  I
say emphatically she would go with the South from every wise,
prudential, and patriotic reason.'

"Ex-Governor Price proceeds to say that he is confident the States of
Pennsylvania and New York will 'choose also to cast their lot with the
South, and after them, the Western and Northwestern States.'"

The following resolution,* was adopted with others, by a meeting of
Democrats held January 16, 1861, at National Hall, Philadelphia, and has
been supposed to disclose "a plan, of which ex-Governor Price was likely
aware:"

"Twelfth--That in the deliberate judgment of the Democracy of
Philadelphia, and, so far as we know it, of Pennsylvania, the
dissolution of the Union by the separation of the whole South, a result
we shall most sincerely lament, may release this Commonwealth to a large
extent from the bonds which now connect her with the Confederacy, except
so far as for temporary convenience she chooses to submit to them, and
would authorize and require her citizens, through a Convention, to be
assembled for that purpose, to determine with whom her lot should be
cast, whether with the North and the East, whose fanaticism has
precipitated this misery upon us, or with our brethren of the South,
whose wrongs we feel as our own; or whether Pennsylvania should stand by
herself, as a distinct community, ready when occasion offers, to bind
together the broken Union, and resume her place of loyalty and
devotion."

Senator Lane of Oregon, replying to Senator Johnson of Tennessee,
December 19, 1860, in the United States Senate, and speaking of and for
the Northern Democracy, said:

"They will not march with him under his bloody banner, or Mr. Lincoln's,
to invade the soil of the gallant State of South Carolina, when she may
withdraw from a Confederacy that has refused her that equality to which
she is entitled, as a member of the Union, under the Constitution.  On
the contrary, when he or any other gentleman raises that banner and
attempts to subjugate that gallant people, instead of marching with him,
we will meet him there, ready to repel him and his forces.  He shall not
bring with him the Northern Democracy to strike down a people contending
for rights that have been refused them in a Union that ought to
recognize the equality of every member of the Confederacy.  * * *  I now
serve notice that, when War is made upon that gallant South for
withdrawing from a Union which refuses them their rights, the Northern
Democracy will not join in the crusade.  THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WILL HAVE
WAR ENOUGH AT HOME.  THE DEMOCRACY OF THE NORTH NEED NOT CROSS THE
BORDER TO FIND AN ENEMY."

The following letter from Ex-President Pierce is in the same misleading
strain:

"CLARENDON HOTEL, January 6, 1860.--[This letter was captured, at Jeff.
Davis's house in Mississippi, by the Union troops.]

"MY DEAR FRIEND:--I wrote you an unsatisfactory note a day or two since.
I have just had a pleasant interview with Mr. Shepley, whose courage and
fidelity are equal to his learning and talents.  He says he would rather
fight the battle with you as the standard-bearer in 1860, than under the
auspices of any other leader.  The feeling and judgment of Mr. S. in
this relation is, I am confident, rapidly gaining ground in New England.
Our people are looking for 'the coming man,' one who is raised by all
the elements of his character above the atmosphere ordinarily breathed
by politicians, a man really fitted for this exigency by his ability,
courage, broad statesmanship, and patriotism.  Colonel Seymour (Thomas
H.) arrived here this morning, and expressed his views in this relation
in almost the identical language used by Mr. Shepley.

"It is true that, in the present state of things at Washington and
throughout the country, no man can predict what changes two or three
months may bring forth.  Let me suggest that, in the running debates in
Congress, full justice seems to me not to have been done to the
Democracy of the North.  I do not believe that our friends at the South
have any just idea of the state of feeling, hurrying at this moment to
the pitch of intense exasperation, between those who respect their
political obligations and those who have apparently no impelling power
but that which fanatical passion on the subject of Domestic Slavery
imparts.

"Without discussing the question of right, of abstract power to Secede,
I have never believed that actual disruption of the Union can occur
without blood; and if, through the madness of Northern Abolitionism,
that dire calamity must come, THE FIGHTING WILL NOT BE ALONG MASON'S AND
DIXON'S LINE MERELY.  IT [WILL] BE WITHIN OUR OWN BORDERS, IN OUR OWN
STREETS, BETWEEN THE TWO CLASSES OF CITIZENS TO WHOM I HAVE REFERRED.
Those who defy law and scout Constitutional obligations will, if we ever
reach the arbitrament of arms, FIND OCCUPATION ENOUGH AT HOME.

"Nothing but the state of Mrs. Pierce's health would induce me to leave
the Country now, although it is quite likely that my presence at home
would be of little service.

"I have tried to impress upon our people, especially in New Hampshire
and Connecticut, where the only elections are to take place during the
coming spring, that while our Union meetings are all in the right
direction, and well enough for the present, they will not be worth the
paper upon which their resolutions are written unless we can overthrow
political Abolitionism at the polls and repeal the Unconstitutional and
obnoxious laws which, in the cause of 'personal liberty,' have been
placed upon our statute-books.  I shall look with deep interest, and not
without hope, for a decided change in this relation.

                    "Ever and truly your friend,
                                        "FRANKLIN PIERCE.

"Hon. JEFF. DAVIS,
"Washington, D. C."


But let us turn from contemplating the encouragements to Southern
Treason and Rebellion, held out by Northern Democratic Copperheads, to
the more pleasing spectacle of Loyalty and Patriotism exhibited by the
Douglas wing of Democracy.

Immediately after Sumter, and while the President was formulating his
Message, calling for 75,000 volunteers, Douglas called upon him at the
White House, regretted that Mr. Lincoln did not propose to call for
thrice as many; and on the 18th of April, having again visited the White
House, wrote, and gave the following dispatch to the Associated Press,
for circulation throughout the Country:

"April 18, 1861, Senator Douglas called on the President, and had an
interesting conversation on the present condition of the Country.  The
substance of it was, on the part of Mr. Douglas, that while he was
unalterably opposed to the administration in all its political issues,
he was prepared to fully sustain the President in the exercise of all
his Constitutional functions, to preserve the Union, maintain the
Government, and defend the Federal Capital.  A firm policy and prompt
action was necessary.  The Capital was in danger and must be defended at
all hazards, and at any expense of men and money.  He spoke of the
present and future without any reference to the past."

It is stated of this meeting and its immediate results: "The President
was deeply gratified by the interview.  To the West, Douglas
telegraphed, 'I am for my Country and against all its assailants.'  The
fire of his patriotism spread to the masses of the North, and Democrat
and Republican rallied to the support of the flag.  In Illinois the
Democratic and Republican presses vied with each other in the utterance
of patriotic sentiments.  * * *  Large and numerously attended Mass
meetings met, as it were with one accord, irrespective of parties, and
the people of all shades of political opinions buried their party
hatchets.  Glowing and eloquent orators exhorted the people to ignore
political differences in the present crisis, join in the common cause,
and rally to the flag of the Union and the Constitution.  It was a noble
truce.  From the many resolutions of that great outpouring of patriotic
sentiment, which ignored all previous party ties, we subjoin the
following:

"'Resolved, that it is the duty of all patriotic citizens of Illinois,
without distinction of party or sect, to sustain the Government through
the peril which now threatens the existence of the Union; and of our
Legislature to grant such aid of men and money as the exigency of the
hour and the patriotism of our people shall demand.'

"Governor Yates promptly issued his proclamation, dated the 15th of
April, convening the Legislature for the 23rd inst. in Extraordinary
Session.

                     *  *  *  *  *  *  *

"On the evening of the 25th of April, Mr. Douglas, who had arrived at
the Capital the day before, addressed the General Assembly and a densely
packed audience, in the Hall of Representatives, in that masterly
effort, which must live and be enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen
so long as our Government shall endure.  Douglas had ever delighted in
the mental conflicts of Party strife; but now, when his Country was
assailed by the red hand of Treason, he was instantly divested of his
Party armor and stood forth panoplied only in the pure garb of a true
Patriot.

"He taught his auditory--he taught his Country, for his speeches were
telegraphed all over it--the duty of patriotism at that perilous hour of
the Nation's Life.  He implored both Democrats and Republicans to lay
aside their Party creeds and Platforms; to dispense with Party
Organizations and Party Appeals; to forget that they were ever divided
until they had first rescued the Government from its assailants.  His
arguments were clear, convincing, and unanswerable; his appeals for the
Salvation of his Country, irresistible.  It was the last speech, but
one, he ever made."

Among other pithy and patriotic points made by him in that great speech
--[July 9, 1861.]--were these: "So long as there was a hope of a
peaceful solution, I prayed and implored for Compromise.  I have spared
no effort for a peaceful solution of these troubles; I have failed, and
there is but one thing to do--to rally under the flag."   "The South has
no cause of complaint."  "Shall we obey the laws or adopt the Mexican
system of War, on every election."  "Forget Party--all remember only
your Country."  "The shortest road to Peace is the most tremendous
preparation for War."  "It is with a sad heart and with a grief I have
never before experienced, that I have to contemplate this fearful
Struggle.  * * *  But it is our duty to protect the Government and the
flag from every assailant, be he who he may."

In Chicago, Douglas repeated his patriotic appeal for the preservation
of the Union, and tersely declared that "There can be no Neutrals in
this War--only Patriots and Traitors."  In that city he was taken with a
mortal illness, and expired at the Tremont House, June 3, 1861--just one
month prior to the meeting of the called Session of Congress.

The wonderful influence wielded by Douglas throughout the North, was
well described afterward by his colleague, Judge Trumbull, in the
Senate, when he said: "His course had much to do in producing that
unanimity in support of the Government which is now seen throughout the
Loyal States.  The sublime spectacle of twenty million people rising as
one man in vindication of Constitutional Liberty and Free Government,
when assailed by misguided Rebels and plotting Traitors, is, to a
considerable extent due to his efforts.  His magnanimous and patriotic
course in this trying hour of his Country's destiny was the crowning act
of his life."

And Senator McDougall of California--his life-long friend--in describing
the shock of the first intelligence that reached him, of his friend's
sudden death, with words of even greater power, continued: "But, as,
powerless for the moment to resist the tide of emotions, I bowed my head
in silent grief, it came to me that the Senator had lived to witness the
opening of the present unholy War upon our Government; that, witnessing
it, from the Capital of his State, as his highest and best position, he
had sent forth a War-cry worthy of that Douglass, who, as ancient
legends tell, with the welcome of the knightly Andalusian King, was
told,

               '"Take thou the leading of the van,
               And charge the Moors amain;
               There is not such a lance as thine
               In all the hosts of Spain.'

"Those trumpet notes, with a continuous swell, are sounding still
throughout all the borders of our Land.  I heard them upon the mountains
and in the valleys of the far State whence I come.  They have
communicated faith and strength to millions.  * * *  I ceased to grieve
for Douglas.  The last voice of the dead Douglas I felt to be stronger
than the voice of multitudes of living men."

And here it may not be considered out of place for a brief reference to
the writer's own position at this time; especially as it has been much
misapprehended and misstated.  One of the fairest of these statements*
runs thus:

     [Lusk's History of the Politics of Illinois from 1856 to 1884, p.
     175.]

"It is said that Logan did not approve the great speech made by Senator
Douglas, at Springfield, in April, 1861, wherein he took the bold ground
that in the contest which was then clearly imminent to him, between the
North and the South, that there could be but two parties, Patriots and
Traitors.  But granting that there was a difference between Douglas and
Logan at that time, it did not relate to their adhesion to the Cause of
their Country Logan had fought for the Union upon the plains of Mexico,
and again stood ready to give his life, if need be, for his Country,
even amid the cowardly slanders that were then following his pathway.

"The difference between Douglas and Logan was this: Mr. Douglas was
fresh from an extended campaign in the dissatisfied Sections of the
Southern States, and he was fully apprised of their intention to attempt
the overthrow of the Union, and was therefore in favor of the most
stupendous preparations for War.

"Mr. Logan, on the other hand, believed in exhausting all peaceable
means before a resort to Arms, and in this he was like President
Lincoln; but when he saw there was no alternative but to fight, he was
ready and willing for armed resistance, and, resigning his seat in
Congress, entered the Army, as Colonel of the Thirty-first Illinois
Infantry, and remained in the field in active service until Peace was
declared."

This statement is, in the main, both fair and correct.

It is no more correct, however, in intimating that "Logan did not
approve the great speech made by Senator Douglas, at Springfield, in
April, 1861, wherein he took the bold ground that in the contest which
was then clearly imminent to him, between the North and the South, that
there could be but two parties, Patriots and Traitors," than others have
been in intimating that he was disloyal to the Union, prior to the
breaking out of hostilities--a charge which was laid out flat in the
Senate Chamber, April 19, 1881.

     [In Dawson's Life of Logan, pp. 348-353, this matter is thus
     alluded to:

     "In an early part of this work the base charge that Logan was not
     loyal before the War has been briefly touched on.  It may be well
     here to touch on it more fully.  As was then remarked, the only man
     that ever dared insinuate to Logan's face that he was a Secession
     sympathizer before the War, was Senator Ben Hill of Georgia, in the
     United States Senate Chamber, March 30, 1881; and Logan instantly
     retorted: 'Any man who insinuates that I sympathized with it at
     that time insinuates what is false,' and Senator Hill at once
     retracted the insinuation."

     "Subsequently, April 19, 1881, Senator Logan, in a speech,
     fortified with indisputable record and documentary evidence,
     forever set at rest the atrocious calumny.  From that record it
     appears that on the 17th December, 1860, while still a Douglas
     Democrat, immediately after Lincoln's election, and long before his
     inauguration, and before even the first gun of the war was fired,
     Mr. Logan, then a Representative in the House, voted affirmatively
     on a resolution, offered by Morris of Illinois, which declared an
     'immovable attachment' to 'our National Union,' and 'that it is our
     patriotic duty to stand by it as our hope in peace and our defense
     in war;' that on the 7th January, 1861, Mr. Adrian having offered
     the following 'Resolved, That we fully approve of the bold and
     patriotic act of Major Anderson in withdrawing from Fort Moultrie
     to Fort Sumter, and of the determination of the President to
     maintain that fearless officer in his present position; and that we
     will support the President in all constitutional measures to
     enforce the laws and preserve the Union'--Mr. Logan, in casting his
     vote, said: 'As the resolution receives my unqualified approval, I
     vote Aye;' and that further on the 5th of February, 1861, before
     the inauguration of President Lincoln, in a speech made by Logan in
     the House in favor of the Crittenden Compromise measures, he used
     the following language touching Secession:

     "'Sir, I have always denied, and do yet deny, the right of
     Secession.  There is no warrant for it in the Constitution.  It is
     wrong, it is unlawful, unconstitutional, and should be called by
     the right name--revolution.  No good, sir, can result from it, but
     much mischief may.  It is no remedy for any grievances.  I hold
     that all grievances can be much easier redressed inside the Union
     than out of it.'

     "In that same speech he also * * * said:

     "'I have been taught that the preservation of this glorious Union,
     with its broad flag waving over us as the shield for our protection
     on land and on sea, is paramount to all the parties and platforms
     that ever have existed or ever can exist.  I would, to day, if I
     had the power, sink my own party and every other one, with all
     their platforms, into the vortex of ruin, without heaving a sigh or
     shedding a tear, to save the Union, or even stop the revolution
     where it is.'

     "In this most complete speech of vindication--which Senator Logan
     said he put upon record, 'First, that my children, after me, may
     not have these slanders thrown in their faces without the power of
     dispelling or refuting them; and second, that they may endure in
     this Senate Chamber, so that it may be a notice to Senators of all
     parties and all creeds that hereafter, while I am here in the
     Senate, no insinuation of that kind will be submitted to by me,'
     --the proofs of the falsity of the charge were piled mountain-high,
     and among them the following voluntary statements from two
     Democratic Senators, who were with him before the War, in the House
     of Representatives:

                    "'United States Senate Chamber,
                         WASHINGTON, April 14, 1881.

     "'DEAR SIR: In a discussion in the Senate a few weeks since you
     referred to the fact that a Southern Senator, who had served with
     you in Congress before the War, could testify that during your term
     of service there you gave no encouragement to the Secession of the
     Southern States, adding, however, that you did not ask such
     testimony.  I was not sure at the time that your reference was to
     me, as Senator Pugh of Alabama, was also a member of that Congress.

     "'Since then, having learned that your reference was to me, I
     propose on the floor of the Senate, should suitable occasion offer,
     to state what I know of your position and views at the time
     referred to.  But, as I may be absent from the Senate for some
     time, I deem it best to give you this written statement, with full
     authority to use it in any way that seems proper to you.

     "'When you first came to Congress in ----, you were a very ardent
     and impetuous Democrat.  In the division which took place between
     Mr. Douglas and his friends, on the one hand, and the Southern
     Democrats, on the other, you were a warm and uncompromising
     supporter of Mr. Douglas; and in the course of that convention you
     became somewhat estranged from your party associates in the South.
     In our frequent discussions upon the subjects of difference, I
     never heard a word of sympathy from your lips with Secession in
     either theory or practice.  On the contrary, you were vehement in
     your opposition to it.'

     "'I remember well a conversation I had with you just before leaving
     Washington to become a candidate for the Secession convention.  You
     expressed the deep regret you felt at my proposed action, and
     deplored the contemplated movement in terms as strong as any I
     heard from any Republican.'
                              Yours truly,
                                   "'L. Q. C. LAMAR

     "'Hon. JOHN A. LOGAN.
     "United States Senate, Washington, D. C.'


                              "Senate Chamber, April 14, 1881.

     "'Having read the above statement of Senator Lamar, I fully concur
     with him in my recollection of your expressions and action in
     opposition to Secession.
                         Truly yours,  J. L. PUGH.'

     "At the conclusion of Senator Logan's speech of refutation, Senator
     Brown of Georgia (Democrat) said:

     "'Our newspapers may have misrepresented his position.  I am now
     satisfied they did.  I have heard the Senator's statement with
     great interest, and I take pleasure in saying--for I had some idea
     before that there was some shadow of truth in this report--that I
     think his vindication' is full, complete, and conclusive.'

     "'I recollect very well during the war, when I was Governor of my
     State and the Federal army was invading it, to have had a large
     force of militia aiding the Confederate army, and that Gen. Logan
     was considered by us as one of the ablest, most gallant, and
     skillful leaders of the Federal army.  We had occasion to feel his
     power, and we learned to respect him.'

     "Senator Beck, of Kentucky (Democrat), referring to the fact that
     he was kept out of the House at one time, and a great many
     suggestions had been made to him as to General Logan, continued:

     "'As I said the other day, I never proposed to go into such things,
     and never have done so; but at that time General Frank Blair was
     here, and I submitted many of the papers I received to him,--I
     never thought of using any of them,--and I remember the remark that
     he made to me: Beck, John Logan was one of the hardest fighters of
     the war; and when many men who were seeking to whistle him down the
     wind because of his politics when the war began, were snugly fixed
     in safe places, he was taking his life in his hand wherever the
     danger was greatest--and I tore up every paper I got, and burnt it
     in the fire before his eyes.'

     "Senator Dawes of Massachusetts (Republican), also took occasion to
     say:

     "Mr. President, I do not know that anything which can be said on
     this side would be of any consequence to the Senator from Illinois
     in this matter.  But I came into the House of Representatives at
     the same session that the Senator did.

     "'He was at that time one of the most intense of Democrats, and I
     was there with him when the Rebellion first took root and
     manifested itself in open and flagrant war; and I wish to say as a
     Republican of that day, when the Senator from Illinois was a
     Democrat, that at the earliest possible moment when the Republican
     Party was in anxiety as to the position of the Northern Democracy
     on the question of forcible assault on the Union, nothing did they
     hail with more delight than the early stand which the Senator from
     Illinois, from the Democratic side of the House, took upon the
     question of resistance to the Government of the United States.

     "I feel that it is right that I should state that he was among the
     first, if not the very first, of the Northern Democrats who came
     out openly and declared, whatever may have been their opinion about
     the doctrines of the Republican Party, that when it came to a
     question of forcible resistance, they should be counted on the side
     of the Government, and in co-operation with the Republican Party in
     the attempt to maintain its authority.'

     "'I am very glad, whether it be of any service or not, to bear this
     testimony to the early stand the Senator from Illinois took while
     he was still a Democrat, and the large influence he exerted upon
     the Northern Democracy, which kept it from being involved in the
     condition and in the work of the Southern Democracy at that
     time.'"]

So far from this being the case, the fact is--and it is here mentioned
in part to bring out the interesting point that, had he lived, Douglas
would have been no idle spectator of the great War that was about to be
waged--that when Douglas visited Springfield, Illinois, to make that
great speech in the latter part of April, 1861, the writer went there
also, to see and talk over with him the grave situation of affairs, not
only in the Nation generally, but particularly in Illinois.  And on that
occasion Mr. Douglas said to him, substantially: "The time has now
arrived when a man must be either for or against his Country.  Indeed so
strongly do I feel this, and that further dalliance with this question
is useless, that I shall myself take steps to join the Array, and fight
for the maintenance of the Union."

To this the writer replied that he was "equally well convinced that each
and every man must take his stand," and that he also "purposed at an
early day to raise a Regiment and draw the sword in that Union's
defense."

This was after Sumter, and only seventy days before Congress was to meet
in Called Session.  When that session met, Douglas had, weeks before,
gone down to the grave amid the tears of a distracted Nation, with the
solemn injunction upon his dying lips: "Obey the Laws and Defend the
Constitution"--and the writer had returned to Washington, to take his
seat in Congress, with that determination still alive in his heart.

In fact there had been all along, substantial accord between Mr. Douglas
and the writer.  There really was no "difference between Douglas and
Logan" as to "preparations for War," or in "exhausting all Peaceable
means before a resort to Arms," and both were in full accord with
President Lincoln on these points.

Let us see if this is not of record: Take the writer's speech in the
House of Representatives, February 5, 1861, and it will be seen that he
said: "I will go as far as any man in the performance of a
Constitutional duty to put down Rebellion, to suppress Insurrection, and
to enforce the Laws."  Again, he said, "If all the evils and calamities
that have ever happened since the World began, could be gathered in one
Great Catastrophe, its horrors could not eclipse, in their frightful
proportions, the Drama that impends over us."

From these extracts it is plain enough that even at this very early day
the writer fully understood the "frightful proportions" of the impending
struggle, and would "go as far as"--not only Mr. Douglas, but--"any man,
to put down Rebellion"--which necessarily involved War, and
"preparations for War."  But none the less, but rather the more, because
of the horrors which he foresaw must be inseparable from so terrible a
War, was he anxious by timely mutual Concessions--"by any sacrifice," as
he termed it--if possible, to avert it.

He was ready to sink Party, self, and to accept any of the Propositions
to that end--Mr. Douglas's among them.

     [See his speech of February 5, 1861, Congressional Globe]

In this attitude also he was in accord with Mr. Douglas, who, as well as
the writer, was ready to make any sacrifice, of Party or self; to
"exhaust every effort at peaceful adjustment," before resorting to War.
The fact is they were much of the time in consultation, and always in
substantial accord.

In a speech made in the Senate, March 15, 1861, Mr. Douglas had reduced
the situation to the following three alternative points:

"1. THE RESTORATION AND PRESERVATION OF THE UNION by such Amendments to
the Constitution as will insure the domestic tranquillity, safety, and
equality of all the States, and thus restore peace, unity, and
fraternity, to the whole Country.

"2. A PEACEFUL DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION by recognizing the Independence
of such States as refuse to remain in the Union without such
Constitutional Amendments, and the establishment of a liberal system of
commercial and social intercourse with them by treaties of commerce and
amity.

"3. WAR, with a view to the subjugation and military occupation of those
States which have Seceded or may Secede from the Union."

As a thorough Union man, he could never have agreed to a "Peaceful
Dissolution of the Union."  On the other hand he was equally averse to
War, because he held that "War is Disunion.  War is final, eternal
Separation."  Hence, all his energies and talents were given to carrying
out his first-stated line of policy, and to persuading the Seceders to
accept what in that line was offered to them by the dominant party.

His speech in the Senate, March 25, 1861, was a remarkable effort in
that respect.  Mr. Breckinridge had previously spoken, and had declared
that: "Whatever settlement may be made of other questions, this must be
settled upon terms that will give them [the Southern States] either a
right, in common with others, to emigrate into all the territory, or
will secure to them their rights on a principle of equitable division."

Mr. Douglas replied: "Now, under the laws as they stand, in every
Territory of the United States, without any exception, a Southern man
can go with his Slave-property on equal terms with all other property.
* * *  Every man, either from the North or South, may go into the
Territories with his property on terms of exact equality, subject to the
local law; and Slave-property stands on an equal footing with all other
kinds of property in the Territories of the United States.  It now
stands on an equal footing in all the Territories for the first time.

"I have shown you that, up to 1859, little more than a year ago, it was
prohibited in part of the Territories.  It is not prohibited anywhere
now.  For the first time, under Republican rule, the Southern States
have secured that equality of rights in the Territories for their
Slave-property which they have been demanding so long."

He held that the doctrine of Congressional prohibition in all the
Territories, as incorporated in the Wilmot proviso, had now been
repudiated by the Republicans of both Houses of Congress, who had "all
come over to Non-intervention and Popular Sovereignty;" that the "Wilmot
proviso is given up; that Congressional prohibition is given up; that
the aggressive policy is repudiated; and hereafter the Southern man and
the Northern man may move into the Territories with their Property on
terms of entire equality, without excepting Slaves or any other kind of
property."

Continuing, he said: "What more do the Southern States want?  What more
can any man demand?  Non-intervention is all you asked.  Will it be said
the South required in addition to this, laws of Congress to protect
Slavery in the Territories?  That cannot be said; for only last May, the
Senate, by a nearly unanimous vote--a unanimous vote of the Southern
men, with one or two exceptions--declared that affirmative legislation
was not needed at this time.  * * * What cause is there for further
alarm in the Southern States, so far as the Territories are concerned?
* * *

"I repeat, the South has got all they ever claimed in all the
Territories.  * * *  Then, sir, according to law, the Slaveholding
States have got equality in the Territories.  How is it in fact.  * * *
Now, I propose to show that they have got the actual equitable
partition, giving them more than they were disposed to demand.

"The Senator from Kentucky, * * *  Mr. Crittenden, introduced a
proposition for an equitable partition.  That proposition was, that
north of 36  30' Slavery should be prohibited, and South of it should be
protected, by Territorial law.  * * *  What is now the case?  It is true
the Crittenden proposition has not yet become part of the Constitution;
but it is also true that an equitable partition has been made by the
vote of the people themselves, establishing, maintaining, and protecting
Slavery in every inch of territory South of the thirty-seventh parallel,
giving the South half a degree more than the Crittenden Proposition.

"There stands your Slave-code in New Mexico protecting Slavery up to the
thirty-seventh degree as effectually as laws can be made to protect it.
There it stands the Law of the Land.  Therefore the South has all below
the thirty-seventh parallel, while Congress has not prohibited Slavery
even North of it.

                    *  *  *  *  *  *

"What more, then, is demanded?  Simply that a Constitutional Amendment
shall be adopted, affirming--what?  Precisely what every Republican in
both Houses of Congress has voted for within a month.  Just do, by
Constitutional Amendment, what you have voted in the Senate and House of
Representatives, that is all.  You are not even required to do that, but
merely to vote for a proposition submitting the question to the People
of the States whether they will make a Constitutional Amendment
affirming the equitable partition of the Territories which the People
have already made.  * * *

"You may ask, why does the South want us to do it by Constitutional
Amendment, when we have just done it voluntarily by Law?  The President
of the United States, in his Inaugural, has told you the reason.  He has
informed you that all of these troubles grow out of the absence of a
Constitutional provision defining the power of Congress over the subject
of Slavery.  * * *  He thinks that the trouble has arisen from the
absence of such a Constitutional Provision, and suggests a National
Convention to enable the People to supply the defect, leaving the People
to say what it is, instead of dictating to them what it shall be."

It may here be remarked that while Mr. Douglas held that "So far as the
doctrine of Popular Sovereignty and Nonintervention is concerned, the
Colorado Bill, the Nevada Bill, and the Dakota Bill, are identically the
same with the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and in its precise language"--these
former Bills having been passed at the last Session of the 36th
Congress--the Republicans, on the contrary, held that neither in these
nor other measures had they abandoned any distinctive Republican
principle; while Breckinridge declared that they had passed those
Territorial Bills, without the Wilmot proviso, because they felt
perfectly secure in those Territories, with all the Federal patronage in
Republican hands.

However that may be, we have here, brought out in strong contrast, the
conciliatory feeling which inspired such Union men as Douglas, and the
strong and persistent efforts they made in behalf of Concession and
Peace up to a period only a few weeks before the bombardment of Sumter;
and the almost total revulsion in their sentiments after that event, as
to the only proper means to preserve the Union.  For it was only then
that the truth, as it fell from Douglas's lips at Springfield, was fully
recognized, to wit: that there was no half-way ground betwixt Patriotism
and Treason; that War was an existing fact; and that Patriots must arm
to defend and preserve the Union against the armed Traitors assailing
it.

At last, July 4, 1861, the Congress met, and proceeded at once with
commendable alacrity and patriotism, to the consideration and enactment
of measures sufficient to meet the extraordinary exigency, whether as
regards the raising and equipment of the vast bodies of Union volunteers
needed to put down Rebellion, or in the raising of those enormous
amounts of money which the Government was now, or might thereafter be,
called upon to spend like water in preserving the Union.

It was at this memorable Session, of little over one month, that the
chief of the great "War Measures" as they were termed, were enacted.




                             CHAPTER XIII.

                          THE STORM OF BATTLE

We have seen how Fort Sumter fell; how the patriotic North responded to
President Lincoln's Call, for 75,000 three-months volunteers, with such
enthusiasm that, had there been a sufficiency of arms and accoutrements,
he might have had, within three months of that Call, an Army of 500,000
men in the field; how he had called for 42,000 three-years volunteers
early in May, besides swelling what little there was of a regular Army
by ten full regiments; and how a strict blockade of the entire Southern
Coast-line had not only been declared, but was now enforced and
respected.

General Butler, promoted Major-General for his Military successes at
Annapolis and Baltimore, was now in command of Fortress Monroe and
vicinity, with some 12,000 volunteers under him, confronted, on the
Peninsula, by a nearly equal number of Rebel troops, under Generals
Huger and Magruder--General Banks, with less than 10,000 Union troops,
occupying Baltimore, and its vicinage.

General Patterson, with some 20,000 Union troops--mostly Pennsylvania
militia--was at Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, with about an equal number
of the Enemy, under General Joseph E. Johnston, at Harper's Ferry, on
the Potomac, watching him.

Some 50,000 Union troops were in camp, in and about Washington, on the
Virginia side, under the immediate command of Generals McDowell and
Mansfield--Lieutenant General Scott, at Washington, being in
Chief-command of the Union Armies--and, confronting these Union forces,
in Virginia, near the National Capital, were some 30,000 Rebel troops
under the command of General Beauregard, whose success in securing the
evacuation of Fort Sumter by its little garrison of half-starved Union
soldiers, had magnified him, in the eyes of the rebellious South, into
the proportions of a Military genius of the first order.

There had been no fighting, nor movements, worthy of special note, until
June 7th, when General Patterson advanced from Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, to Hagerstown, Maryland.  General Johnston at once
evacuated Harper's Ferry, and retreated upon Winchester, Virginia.

General McClellan, in command of the Department of the Ohio, had,
however, crossed the Ohio river, and by the 4th of July, being at
Grafton, West Virginia, with his small Army of Union troops, to which a
greatly inferior Rebel force was opposed, commenced that successful
advance against it, which led, after Bull Run, to his being placed at
the head of all the Armies of the United States.

Subsequently Patterson crossed the Potomac, and after trifling away over
one month's time, at last, on the 15th of July, got within nine miles of
Winchester and Johnston's Army.  Barring a spiritless reconnaissance,
Patterson--who was a fervent Breckinridge-Democrat in politics, and
whose Military judgment, as we shall see, was greatly influenced, if not
entirely controlled, by his Chief of staff, Fitz John Porter--never got
any nearer to the Enemy!

Instead of attacking the Rebel force, under Johnston, or at least
keeping it "employed," as he was ordered to do by General Scott; instead
of getting nearer, and attempting to get between Winchester and the
Shenandoah River, as was suggested to him by his second in command,
General Sanford; and instead of permitting Sanford to go ahead, as that
General desired to, with his own 8,000 men, and do it himself; General
Patterson ordered him off to Charlestown--twelve miles to the Union left
and rear,--and then took the balance of his Army, with himself, to the
same place!

In other words, while he had the most positive and definite orders, from
General Scott, if not to attack and whip Johnston, to at least keep him
busy and prevent that Rebel General from forming a junction, via the
Manassas Gap railroad or otherwise, with Beauregard, Patterson
deliberately moved his Army further away from Winchester and gave to the
Enemy the very chance of escaping and forming that junction which was
essential to Rebel success in the vicinity of Manassas.

But for this disobedience of orders, Bull Run would doubtless have been
a great victory to the Union Arms, instead of a reverse, and the War,
which afterward lasted four years, might have been over in as many
months.

It is foreign to the design of this work, to present in it detailed
descriptions of the battles waged during the great War of the Rebellion
--it being the present intention of the writer, at some later day, to
prepare and publish another work devoted to such stirring Military
scenes.  Yet, as it might seem strange and unaccountable for him to pass
by, at this time, without any description or comment, the first pitched
battle of the Rebellion, he is constrained to pause and view that
memorable contest.  And first, it may be well to say a word of the
general topography of the country about the battle-field.

The Alleghany Mountains, or that part of them with which we have now to
do, stretch in three almost equidistant parallel ridges, from North-East
to South-West, through the heart of Old Virginia.  An occasional pass,
or "Gap," through these ridges, affords communication, by good roads,
between the enclosed parallel valleys and the Eastern part of that
State.

The Western of these Alleghany ridges bears the name of "Alleghany
Mountains" proper; the Eastern is called the "Blue Ridge;" while the
Middle Ridge, at its Northern end--which rests upon the Potomac, where
that river sweeps through three parallel ridges almost at right angles
to their own line of direction--is called the "Great North Mountain."

The valley, between the Middle Ridge and the Blue Ridge, is known as the
Shenandoah Valley, taking its name from the Shenandoah River, which, for
more than one hundred miles, flows along the Western foot of the Blue
Ridge, toward the North-East, until it empties into the Potomac, at
Harper's Ferry.

The Orange and Alexandria railroad runs from Alexandria,--on the
opposite bank of the Potomac from Washington, and a few miles below
the Capital,--in a general Southeasterly direction, to Culpepper
Court-House; thence Southerly to Gordonsville, where it joins the
Virginia Central--the Western branch of which runs thence through
Charlotteville, Staunton, and Covington, across the ridges and valleys
of the Alleghanies, while its Eastern branch, taking a general
South-easterly direction, crosses the Richmond and Fredricksburg
railroad at Hanover Junction, some twenty miles North of Richmond,
and thence sweeps Southerly to the Rebel capital.

It is along this Easterly branch of the Virginia Central that Rebel
re-enforcements will be hurried to Beauregard, from Richmond to
Gordonsville, and thence, by the Orange and Alexandria railroad, to
Manassas Junction.

Some twenty-five miles from Alexandria, a short railroad-feeder--which
runs from Strasburg, in the Shenandoah Valley, through the Blue Ridge,
at Manassas Gap, in an East-South-easterly direction--strikes the
Alexandria and Orange railroad.  The point of contact is Manassas
Junction; and it is along this Manassas-Gap feeder that Johnston, with
his Army at Winchester--some twenty miles North-North-East of Strasburg
--expects, in case of attack by Patterson, to be re-enforced by
Beauregard; or, in case the latter is assailed, to go to his assistance,
after shaking off Patterson.

This little link of railroad, known as the Manassas Gap railroad, is
therefore an important factor in the game of War, now commencing in
earnest; and it had, as we shall see, very much to do, not only with the
advance of McDowell's Union Army upon Bull Run, but also with the result
of the first pitched battle thereabout fought.

From Alexandria, some twelve miles to the Westward, runs a fine turnpike
road to Fairfax Court-House; thence, continuing Westward, but gradually
and slightly dipping award the South, it passes through Germantown,
Centreville, and Groveton, to Warrenton.

This "Warrenton Pike"--as it is termed--also plays a somewhat
conspicuous part, before, during, and after the Battle of Bull Run.  For
most of its length, from Fairfax Court-House to Warrenton, the Warrenton
Pike pursues a course almost parallel with the Orange and Alexandria
railroad aforesaid, while the stream of Bull Run, pursuing a
South-easterly course, has a general direction almost parallel with
that of the Manassas Gap railroad.

We shall find that it is the diamond-shaped parallelogram, formed by the
obtuse angle junction of the two railroads on the South, and the
similarly obtuse-angled crossing of the stream of Bull Run by the
Warrenton Pike on the North, that is destined to become the historic
battle-field of the first "Bull Run," or "Manassas;" and it is in the
Northern obtuse-angle of this parallelogram that the main fighting is
done, upon a spot not much more than one mile square, three sides of the
same being bounded respectively by the Bull Run stream, the Warrenton
Pike, which crosses it on a stone bridge, and the Sudley Springs road,
which crosses the Pike, at right-angles to it, near a stone house.

On the 3rd of June, 1861, General McDowell, in command of the Department
of North-Eastern Virginia, with head-quarters at Arlington, near
Washington, receives from Colonel Townsend, Assistant Adjutant-General
with Lieutenant-General Scott--who is in Chief command of all the Union
Forces, with Headquarters at Washington--a brief but pregnant
communication, the body of which runs thus: "General Scott desires you
to submit an estimate of the number and composition of a column to be
pushed toward Manassas Junction, and perhaps the Gap, say in four or
five days, to favor Patterson's attack on Harper's Ferry.  The rumor is
that Arlington Heights will be attacked to-night."

In response to this request, General McDowell submits, on the day
following, an estimate that "the actual entire force at the head of the
column should, for the purpose of carrying the position at Manassas and
of occupying both the road to Culpepper, and the one to the Gap, be as
much as 12,000 Infantry, two batteries of regular Artillery, and from
six to eight companies of Cavalry, with an available reserve, ready to
move forward from Alexandria by rail, of 5,000 Infantry and one heavy
field battery, rifled if possible; these numbers to be increased or
diminished as events may indicate."  This force of raw troops he
proposes to organize into field brigades under the command of "active
and experienced colonels" of the regular Army.  And while giving this
estimate as to the number of troops necessary, he suggestively adds that
"in proportion to the numbers used will be the lives saved; and as we
have such numbers pressing to be allowed to serve, might it not be well
to overwhelm and conquer as much by the show of force as by the use of
it?"

Subsequently McDowell presents to General Scott, and Mr. Lincoln's
Cabinet, a project of advance and attack, which is duly approved and
ordered to be put in execution.  In that project or plan of operations,
submitted by verbal request of General Scott, near the end of June,--the
success of which is made contingent upon Patterson's holding Johnston
engaged at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley, and also upon Butler's
holding the Rebel force near Fortress Monroe from coming to Beauregard's
aid at Manassas Junction,--McDowell estimates Beauregard's strength at
25,000, with a possible increase, bringing it up to 35,000 men.  The
objective point in McDowell's plan, is Manassas Junction, and he
proposes "to move against Manassas with a force of 30,000 of all arms,
organized into three columns, with a reserve of 10,000."

McDowell is fully aware that the Enemy has "batteries in position at
several places in his front, and defensive works on Bull Run, and
Manassas Junction."  These batteries he proposes to turn.  He believes
Bull Run to be "fordable at almost anyplace,"--an error which ultimately
renders his plan abortive,--and his proposition is, after uniting his
columns on the Eastern side of Bull Run, "to attack the main position by
turning it, if possible, so as to cut off communications by rail with
the South, or threaten to do so sufficiently to force the Enemy to leave
his intrenchments to guard them."

In other words, assuming the Enemy driven back, by minor flanking
movements, or otherwise, upon his intrenched position at Bull Run, or
Manassas, the plan is to turn his right, destroy the Orange and
Alexandria railroad leading South, and the bridge at Bristol, so as to
cut off his supplies.  This done, the Enemy--if nothing worse ensues for
him--will be in a "bad box."

McDowell, however, has no idea that the Enemy will stand still to let
this thing be done.  On the contrary, he is well satisfied that
Beauregard will accept battle on some chosen ground between Manassas
Junction and Washington.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, the 16th of July, the advance of McDowell's
Army commences.  That Army is organized into five divisions--four of
which accompany McDowell, while a fifth is left to protect the defensive
works of Washington, on the South bank of the Potomac.  This latter, the
Fourth Division, commanded by Brigadier-General Theodore Runyon,
comprises eight unbrigaded New Jersey regiments of (three months, and
three years) volunteers--none of which take part in the ensuing
conflicts-at-arms.

The moving column consists of the First Division, commanded by
Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler, comprising four brigades, respectively
under Brigadier-General R.  C. Schenck, and Colonels E. D. Keyes, W. T.
Sherman, and I. B. Richardson; the Second Division, commanded by Colonel
David Hunter, comprising two brigades, under Colonels Andrew Porter and
A. E. Burnside respectively; the Third Division, commanded by Colonel S.
P. Heintzelman, comprising three brigades, under Colonels W. B.
Franklin, O. B. Wilcox, and O. O. Howard, respectively; and the Fifth
Division, commanded by Colonel Dixon S. Miles, comprising two brigades,
under Colonels Lewis Blenker, and Thomas A.  Davies, respectively.

Tyler's Division leads the advance, moving along the Leesburg road to
Vienna, on our right, with orders to cross sharply to its left, upon
Fairfax Court House, the following (Wednesday) morning.  Miles's
Division follows the turnpike road to Annandale, and then moves, by the
Braddock road,--along which Braddock, a century before, had marched his
doomed army to disaster,--upon Fairfax Court House, then known to be
held by Bonham's Rebel Brigade of South Carolinians.  Hunter follows
Miles, to Annandale, and thence advances direct upon Fairfax, by the
turnpike road--McDowell's idea being to bag Bonham's Brigade, if
possible, by a simultaneous attack on the front and both flanks.  But
the advance is too slow, and the Enemy's outposts, both there and
elsewhere, have ample opportunity of falling safely back upon their main
position, behind the stream of Bull Run.

     [McDowell in his testimony before the "Committee on the Conduct of
     the War," said: "At Fairfax Court House was the South Carolina
     Brigade.  And I do not suppose anything would have had a greater
     cheering effect upon the troops, and perhaps upon the Country, than
     the capture of that brigade.  And if General Tyler could have got
     down there any time in the forenoon instead of in the afternoon,
     the capture of that brigade was beyond question.  It was about
     5,000 or 6,000 men, and Tyler had 12,000, at the same time that we
     were pressing on in front.  He did not get down there until in the
     afternoon; none of us got forward in time."]

This slowness is due to various causes.  There is a pretty general
dread, for example, among our troops, of threatened ambuscades, and
hence the advance is more cautious than it otherwise would be.  It is
thought the part of wisdom, as it were, to "feel the way."  The
marching, moreover, is new to our troops.  General Scott had checked
McDowell when the latter undertook to handle eight regiments together,
near Washington, by intimating that he was "trying to make a show."
Thus the very essential knowledge of how to manoeuvre troops in large
bodies, has been withheld from our Union generals, while the volunteer
regiments have either rusted in camp from inaction, or have been denied
the opportunity of acquiring that endurance and hardiness and discipline
which frequent movement of troops confers.  Hence, all unused to the
discipline of the march, every moment some one falls out of line to
"pick blackberries, or to get water."  Says McDowell, in afterward
reporting this march: "They would not keep in the ranks, order as much
as you pleased.  When they came where water was fresh, they would pour
the old water out of their canteens and fill them with fresh water; they
were not used to denying themselves much."

Meantime, Heintzelman's Division is also advancing, by cross-roads, more
to the left and South of the railroad line,--in accordance with
McDowell's plan, which comprehends not only the bagging of Bonham, but
an immediate subsequent demonstration, by Tyler, upon Centreville and
beyond, while Heintzelman, supported by Hunter and Miles, shall swoop
across Bull Run, at Wolf Run Shoals, some distance below Union Mills,
turn the Enemy's right, and cut off his Southern line of railroad
communications.  Thus, by the evening of Wednesday, the 17th,
Heintzelman is at Sangster's Station, while Tyler, Miles, and Hunter,
are at Fairfax.

It is a rather rough experience that now befalls the Grand Army of the
Union.  All unused, as we have seen, to the fatigues and other hardships
of the march, the raw levies, of which it almost wholly consists, which
started bright and fresh, strong and hopeful, full of the buoyant ardor
of enthusiastic patriotism, on that hot July afternoon, only some thirty
hours back, are now dust-begrimed, footsore, broken down, exhausted by
the scorching sun, hungry, and without food,--for they have wasted the
rations with which they started, and the supply-trains have not yet
arrived.  Thus, hungry and physically prostrated, "utterly played out,"
as many of them confess, and demoralized also by straggling and loss of
organization, they bivouac that night in the woods, and dream uneasy
dreams beneath the comfortless stars.

A mile beyond Fairfax Court House, on the Warrenton Turnpike, is
Germantown.  It is here that Tyler's Division has rested, on the night
of the 17th.  At 7 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the 18th, in
obedience to written orders from McDowell, it presses forward, on that
"Pike," to Centreville, five miles nearer to the Enemy's position behind
Bull Run--Richardson's Brigade in advance--and, at 9 o'clock, occupies
it.  Here McDowell has intended Tyler to remain, in accordance with the
plan, which he has imparted to him in conversation, and in obedience to
the written instructions to: "Observe well the roads to Bull Run and to
Warrenton.  Do not bring on an engagement, but keep up the impression
that we are moving on Manassas,"--this advance, by way of Centreville,
being intended solely as a "demonstration" to mask the real movement,
which, as we have seen, is to be made by the other divisions across Wolf
Run Shoals, a point on Bull Run, some five or six miles below Union
Mills, and some seven miles below Blackburn's Ford.

Upon the arrival of Richardson's Brigade, Thursday morning, at
Centreville, it is found that, under cover of the darkness of the
previous night, the Enemy has retreated, in two bodies, upon Bull Run,
the one along the Warrenton Pike, the other (the largest) down the
ridge-road from Centreville to Blackburn's Ford.  Richardson's Brigade
at once turns down the latter road and halts about a mile beyond
Centreville, at a point convenient to some springs of water.  Tyler soon
afterward rides up, and, taking from that brigade two companies of light
Infantry and a squadron of Cavalry, proceeds, with Colonel Richardson,
to reconnoitre the Enemy, finding him in a strong position on the
opposite bank of Bull Run, at Blackburn's Ford.

While this is going on, McDowell has ridden in a Southerly direction
down to Heintzelman's Division, at Sangster's Station, "to make
arrangements to turn the Enemy's right, and intercept his communications
with the South," but has found, owing to the narrowness and crookedness
of the roads, and the great distance that must be traversed in making
the necessary detour, that his contemplated movement is too risky to be
ventured.  Hence he at once abandons his original plan of turning the
Enemy's right, and determines on "going around his left, where the
country is more open, and the roads broad and good."

McDowell now orders a concentration, for that night, of the four
divisions, with two days cooked rations in their haversacks, upon and
about Centreville,--the movement to commence as soon as they shall
receive expected commissariat supplies.  But, later on the 18th,
--learning that his advance, under Tyler, has, against orders, become
engaged with the Enemy--he directs the concentration to be made at once.

Let us examine, for a moment, how this premature engagement comes about.
We left Tyler, accompanied by Richardson, with a squadron of Cavalry and
a battalion of light Infantry making a reconnaissance, on Thursday
morning the 18th, toward Blackburn's Ford.  They approach within a mile
of the ford, when they discover a Rebel battery on the farther bank of
Bull Run--so placed as to enfilade the road descending from their own
position of observation down to the ford,--strong Rebel infantry pickets
and skirmishing parties being in front.

Tyler at once orders up his two rifled guns, Ayres' Battery, and
Richardson's entire Brigade--and later, Sherman's Brigade as a reserve.
As soon as they come up,--about noon-he orders the rifled guns into
battery on the crest of the hill, about one mile from, and looking down
upon, the Rebel battery aforesaid, and opens upon the Enemy; giving him
a dozen shells,--one of them making it lively for a body of Rebel
Cavalry which appears between the ford and Manassas.

The Rebel battery responds with half a dozen shots, and then ceases.
Tyler now orders Richardson to advance his brigade and throw out
skirmishers to scour the thick woods which cover the Bull Run
bottom-land.  Richardson at once rapidly deploys the battalion of light
Infantry as skirmishers in advance of his brigade, pushes them forward
to the edge of the woods, drives in the skirmishers of the Enemy in fine
style, and supports their further advance into the woods, with the 1st
Massachusetts Regiment.

Meanwhile Tyler, discovering a favorable opening in the woods, "low down
on the bottom of the stream," for a couple of howitzers in battery,
sends Captain Ayres of the 5th U. S. Artillery, and a detached section
(two 12-pound howitzers) of his battery, with orders to post it himself
on that spot, and sends Brackett's squadron of the 2d Cavalry to his
support.

No sooner does Ayres open fire on the Enemy, than he awakens a Rebel
hornet's-nest.  Volley after volley of musketry shows that the Bull Run
bottom fairly swarms with Rebel troops, while another Rebel battery,
more to the Rebel right, opens, with that already mentioned, a
concentrated cross-fire upon him.

And now Richardson orders up the 12th New York, Colonel Walrath, to the
left of our battery.  Forming it into line-of-battle, Richardson orders
it to charge through the woods upon the Enemy.  Gallantly the regiment
moves forward, after the skirmishers, into the woods, but, being met by
a very heavy fire of musketry and artillery along the whole line of the
Enemy's position, is, for the most part, thrown back in confusion--a
mere fragment* remaining in line, and retreating,--while the howitzers,
and Cavalry also, are withdrawn.

Meantime, however, Richardson has ordered up, and placed in
line-of-battle, on the right of our battery, the 1st Massachusetts, the
2d Michigan (his own), and the 3d Michigan.  The skirmishers in the
woods still bravely hold their ground, undercover, and these three
regiments are plucky, and anxious to assault the Enemy.  Richardson
proposes to lead them in a charge upon the Enemy's position, and drive
him out of it; but Tyler declines to give permission, on the ground that
this being "merely a reconnaissance," the object of which--ascertaining
the strength and position of the Enemy--having been attained, a further
attack is unnecessary.  He therefore orders Richardson to "fall back in
good order to our batteries on the hill,"--which he does.

Upon reaching these batteries, Richardson forms his 2d Michigan, in
"close column by division," on their right, and the 1st Massachusetts
and 3d Michigan, in "line of battle," on their left--the 12th New York
re-forming, under cover of the woods at the rear, later on.  Then, with
our skirmishers thrown into the woods in front, their scattering fire,
and the musketry responses of the Rebels, are drowned in the volume of
sound produced by the deafening contest which ensues between our
Artillery, and that of the Enemy from his batteries behind Bull Run.

This artillery-duel continues about one hour; and then seems to cease by
mutual consent, about dusk--after 415 shots have been fired on the Union
side, and have been responded to by an equal number from the Rebel
batteries, "gun for gun"--the total loss in the engagement, on the Union
side, being 83, to a total loss among the Enemy, of Thursday night,
Richardson retires his brigade upon Centreville, in order to secure
rations and water for his hungry and thirsty troops,--as no water has
yet been found in the vicinity of the Union batteries aforesaid.  On the
morrow, however, when his brigade re-occupies that position, water is
found in abundance, by digging for it.

This premature attack, at Blackburn's Ford, by Tyler, against orders,
having failed, throws a wet blanket upon the martial spirit of
McDowell's Army.  In like degree is the morale of the Rebel Army
increased.

It is true that Longstreet, in command of the Rebel troops at
Blackburn's Ford, has not had things all his own way; that some of his
artillery had to be "withdrawn;" that, as he acknowledges in his report,
his brigade of three Virginia regiments (the 1st, 11th, and 17th) had
"with some difficulty repelled" the Union assault upon his position;
that he had to call upon General Early for re-enforcements; that Early
re-enforced him with two Infantry regiments (the 7th Louisiana and 7th
Virginia) at first; that one of these (the 7th Virginia) was "thrown
into confusion;" that Early then brought up his own regiment (the 24th
Virginia) under Lieutenant Colonel Hairston, and the entire seven guns
of the "Washington Artillery;" and that but for the active "personal
exertions" of Longstreet, in "encouraging the men under his command,"
and the great numerical superiority of the Rebels, there might have been
no Union "repulse" at all.  Yet still the attack has failed, and that
failure, while it dispirits the Patriot Army, inspires the Rebel Army
with renewed courage.

Under these circumstances, Friday, the 19th of July, is devoted to
reconnaissances by the Engineer officers of the Union Army; to the
cooking of the supplies, which have at last arrived; and to resting the
weary and road-worn soldiers of the Union.

Let us take advantage of this halt in the advance of McDowell's "Grand
Army of the United States"--as it was termed--to view the Rebel position
at, and about Manassas, and to note certain other matters having an
important and even determining bearing upon the issue of the impending
shock-at-arms.

Beauregard has received early information of McDowell's advance from
Arlington, and of his plans.

     [This he admits, in his report, when he says; "Opportunely informed
     of the determination of the Enemy to advance on Manassas, my
     advanced brigades, on the night of the 16th of July, were made
     aware, from these headquarters, of the impending movement,"]

On Tuesday the 16th, he notifies his advanced brigades.  On Wednesday,
he sends a dispatch from Manassas, to Jefferson Davis, at Richmond,
announcing that the Union troops have assailed his outposts in heavy
force; that he has fallen back before them, on the line of Bull Run; and
that he intends to make a stand at Mitchell's Ford (close to Blackburn's
Ford) on that stream,--adding: if his (McDowell's) force is
overwhelming, "I shall retire to the Rappahannock railroad bridge,
saving my command for defense there, and future operations.  Please
inform Johnston of this, via Staunton, and also Holmes.  Send forward
any re-enforcements at the earliest possible instant, and by every
possible means."

In the meantime, however, Beauregard loses no time in advantageously
posting his troops.  On the morning of the 18th of July, when the Union
advance enters Centreville, he has withdrawn all his advanced brigades
within the Rebel lines of Bull Run, resting them on the South side of
that stream, from Union Mills Ford, near the Orange and Alexandria
railroad bridge, up to the stone bridge over which the Warrenton Pike
crosses the Run,--a distance of some six to eight miles.

Between the Rebel left, at Stone Bridge, and the Rebel right, at Union
Mills Ford, are several fords across Bull Run--the general course of the
stream being from the North-West to South-East, to its confluence with
the Occoquan River, some twelve miles from the Potomac River.

Mitchell's Ford, the Rebel center, is about three miles to the
South-West of, and about the same distance North-East from, Manassas
Junction. But it may be well, right here, to locate all these fordable
crossings of the rocky, precipitous, and well-wooded Bull Run stream,
between the Stone Bridge and Union Mills Ford.  Thus, half a mile below
the Stone Bridge is Lewis's Ford; half a mile below that, Ball's Ford;
half a mile below that, Island Ford; one and one-half miles below that,
Mitchell's Ford--one mile below that.

Blackburn's Ford; three-quarters of a mile farther down, McLean's Ford;
and nearly two miles lower down the stream, Union Mills Ford.

By Thursday morning, the 18th of July, Beauregard has advantageously
posted the seven brigades into which he has organized his forces, at
these various positions along his extended front, as follows:

At the Stone Bridge, Brigadier-General N. G. Evans's Seventh Brigade, of
one regiment and one battalion of Infantry, two companies of Cavalry,
and a battery of four six-pounders.

At Lewis's, Balls, and Island Fords--Colonel P. St. George Cocke's
Fifth Brigade, of three regiments of Infantry, one battery of Artillery,
and one company of Cavalry.

At Mitchell's Ford, Brigadier-General M. L. Bonham's First Brigade, of
four Infantry regiments, two batteries, and six companies of Cavalry.

At Blackburn's Ford, Brigadier-General J. Longstreet's Fourth Brigade,
of four Infantry regiments, with two 6-pounders.

At McLean's Ford, Brigadier-General D. R. Jones's Third Brigade of three
Infantry regiments, one Cavalry company, and two 6-pounders.

At Union Mills Ford, Brigadier-General R. S. Ewell's Second Brigade, of
three Infantry regiments, three Cavalry companies, and four 12-powder
howitzers--Colonel Jubal A. Early's Sixth Brigade, of three Infantry
regiments and three rifled pieces of Walton's Battery, being posted in
the rear of, and as a support to, Ewell's Brigade.

     [Johnston also found, on the 20th, the Reserve Brigade of Brig.
     Gen. T. H. Holmes--comprising two regiments of Infantry, Walker's
     Battery of Artillery, and Scott's Cavalry-with Early's Brigade, "in
     reserve, in rear of the right."]

The disposition and strength of Beauregard's forces at these various
points along his line of defense on Bull Run stream, plainly shows his
expectation of an attack on his right; but he is evidently suspicious
that it may come upon his centre; for, as far back as July 8th, he had
issued special orders to the effect that:

"Should the Enemy march to the attack of Mitchell's Ford, via
Centreville, the following movements will be made with celerity:

"I. The Fourth Brigade will march from Blackburn's Ford to attack him on
the flank and centre.

"II. The Third Brigade will be thrown to the attack of his centre and
rear toward Centreville.

"III.  The Second and Sixth Brigades united will also push forward and
attack him in the rear by way of Centreville, protecting their own right
flanks and rear from the direction of Fairfax Station and Court House.

"IV.  In the event of the defeat of the Enemy, the troops at Mitchell's
Ford and Stone Bridge, especially the Cavalry and Artillery, will join
in the pursuit, which will be conducted with vigor but unceasing
prudence, and continued until he shall have been driven beyond the
Potomac."

And it is not without interest to note Beauregard's subsequent
indorsement on the back of these Special Orders, that: "The plan of
attack prescribed within would have been executed, with modifications
affecting First and Fifth Brigades, to meet the attack upon Blackburn's
Ford, but for the expected coming of General Johnston's command, which
was known to be en route to join me on [Thursday] the 18th of July."

The knowledge thus possessed on Thursday, the 18th, by Beauregard, that
Johnston's Army is on its way to join him, is of infinite advantage to
the former.  On the other hand, the complete ignorance, at this time, of
McDowell on this point,--and the further fact that he has been lulled
into a feeling of security on the subject, by General Scott's emphatic
assurance to him that "if Johnston joins Beauregard, he shall have
Patterson on his heels"--is a great disadvantage to the Union general.

Were McDowell now aware of the real Military situation, he would
unquestionably make an immediate attack, with the object of crushing
Beauregard before Johnston can effect a junction with him.  It would
then be a mere matter of detail for the armies of McDowell, McClellan,
and Patterson, to bag Johnston, and bring the armed Rebellion to an
inglorious and speedy end.  But Providence--through the plottings of
individuals within our own lines--wills it otherwise.

Long before this, Patterson has been informed by General Winfield Scott
of the proposed movement by McDowell upon Manassas,--and of its date.

On Saturday, July 13th, General Scott telegraphed to Patterson: "I
telegraphed to you yesterday, if not strong enough to beat the Enemy
early next week, make demonstrations so as to detain him in the Valley
of Winchester; but if he retreats in force toward Manassas, and it be
too hazardous to follow him, then consider the route via Keys Ferry,
Leesburg, etc."

On Wednesday, the 17th, Scott telegraphs to Patterson: "I have nothing
official from you since Sunday (14th), but am glad to learn, through
Philadelphia papers, that you have advanced.  Do not let the Enemy amuse
and delay you with a small force in front whilst he re-enforces the
Junction with his main body.  McDowell's first day's work has driven the
Enemy beyond Fairfax Court House.  The Junction will probably be carried
by to-morrow."

On Thursday, the 18th, Patterson replies that to attack "the greatly
superior force at Winchester "when the three months volunteers' time was
about up, and they were threatening to leave him--would be "most
hazardous" and then he asks: "Shall I attack?"

Scott answers the same day: "I have certainly been expecting you to beat
the Enemy.  If not, to hear that you had felt him strongly, or, at
least, had occupied him by threats and demonstrations.  You have been at
least his equal, and, I suppose, superior in numbers.  Has he not stolen
a march and sent re-enforcements toward Manassas Junction?  A week is
enough to win victories," etc.

Patterson retorts, on the same day: "The Enemy has stolen no march upon
me.  I have kept him actively employed, and by threats, and
reconnaissances in force, caused him to be re-enforced.  I have
accomplished in this respect more than the General-in-Chief asked, or
could well be expected, in face of an Enemy far superior in numbers,
with no line of communication to protect."

In another dispatch, to Assistant Adjutant-General Townsend (with
General Scott), he says, that same afternoon of Thursday, the 18th: "I
have succeeded, in accordance with the wishes of the General-in-Chief,
in keeping General Johnston's Force at Winchester.  A reconnaissance in
force, on Tuesday, caused him to be largely re-enforced from Strasburg."

Again, on Friday, the 19th, he informs Colonel Townsend that: "The
Enemy, from last information, are still at Winchester, and being
re-enforced every night."

It is not until Saturday, the 20th of July, that he telegraphs to
Townsend: "With a portion of his force, Johnston left Winchester, by the
road to Millwood, on the afternoon of the 18th."  And he adds the
ridiculous statement: "His whole force was about 35,200."

Thus, despite all the anxious care of General Scott, to have Johnston's
Army detained in the Shenandoah Valley, it has escaped Patterson so
successfully, and entirely, that the latter does not even suspect its
disappearance until the day before the pitched Battle of Bull Run is
fought!  Its main body has actually reached Manassas twenty-four hours
before Patterson is aware that it has left Winchester!

And how is it, that Johnston gets away from Patterson so neatly?  And
when does he do it?

     [The extraordinary conduct of General Patterson at this critical
     period, when everything seemed to depend upon his exertions, was
     afterward the subject of inquiry by the Joint-Committee on the
     Conduct of the War.  The testimony taken by that Committee makes it
     clear, to any unprejudiced mind, that while Patterson himself may
     have been loyal to the Union, he was weak enough to be swayed from
     the path of duty by some of the faithless and unpatriotic officers
     with whom he had partly surrounded himself--and especially by Fitz
     John Porter, his Chief-of-staff.  Let us examine the sworn
     testimony of two or three witnesses on this point.

     General CHARLES W. SANFORD, who was second in command under
     Patterson, and in command of Patterson's Left Wing, testified [see
     pages 54-66, Report on Conduct of the War, Vol. 3, Part 2,] that he
     was at a Council of War held at the White House, June 29th, when
     the propriety of an attack on the Rebel lines at Manassas was
     discussed; that he objected to any such movement until Patterson
     was in such a position as to prevent the junction between General
     Johnston's Army and the troops at Manassas; that on the 6th of
     July, he was sent by General Scott, with four picked New York
     regiments, to Patterson, and (waiving his own seniority rank)
     reported to that General, at Williamsport; that Patterson gave him
     command of a division of 8,000 men (and two batteries) out of a
     total in his Army of 22,000; that he "delivered orders from General
     Scott to General Patterson, and urged a forward movement as soon as
     possible;" that there was "Some delay at Martinsburg,
     notwithstanding the urgency of our matter," but they "left there on
     [Monday] the 15th of July, and went in the direction of
     Winchester,"--down to Bunker Hill,--Patterson with two divisions
     going down the turnpike, and Sanford taking his division a little
     in advance and more easterly on the side roads so as to be in a
     position to flank Johnston's right; that on that afternoon (Monday,
     July 15) General Patterson rode up to where Sanford was locating
     his camp.

     Continuing his testimony, General Sanford said: "I was then within
     about nine miles of Johnston's fortified camp at Winchester.
     Patterson was complimenting me upon the manner in which my
     regiments were located, and inquiring about my pickets, which I had
     informed him I had sent down about three miles to a stream below.
     I had driven out the Enemy's skirmishers ahead of us.  They had
     some cavalry there.  In answer to his compliments about the
     comfortable location I had made, I said: 'Very comfortable,
     General, when shall we move on?' * * *  He hesitated a moment or
     two, and then said: 'I don't know yet when we shall move.  And if I
     did I would not tell my own father.' I thought that was rather a
     queer speech to make to me under the circumstances.  But I smiled
     and said: 'General, I am only anxious that we shall get forward,
     that the Enemy shall not escape us.'  He replied: 'There is no
     danger of that.  I will have a reconnaissance to-morrow, and we
     will arrange about moving at a very early period.'  He then took
     his leave.

     "The next day [Tuesday, July 16th], there was a reconnaissance on
     the Winchester turnpike, about four or five miles below the
     General's camp.  He sent forward a section of artillery and some
     cavalry, and they found a post-and-log fence across the Winchester
     turnpike, and some of the Enemy's cavalry on the other side of it.
     They gave them a round of grape.  The cavalry scattered off, and
     the reconnaissance returned.  That was the only reconnaissance I
     heard of while we were there.  My own pickets went further than
     that.  But it was understood, the next afternoon, that we were to
     march forward at daylight.  I sent down Col. Morell, with 40 men,
     to open a road down to Opequan Creek, within five miles of the camp
     at Winchester, on the side-roads I was upon, which would enable me,
     in the course of three hours, to get between Johnston and the
     Shenandoah River, and effectually bar his way to Manassas.  I had
     my ammunition all distributed, and ordered my men to have 24 hours'
     rations in their haversacks, independent of their breakfast.  We
     were to march at 4 o'clock the next morning.  I had this road to
     the Opequan completed that night.  I had then with me, in addition
     to my eight regiments amounting to about 8,000 men and a few
     cavalry, Doubleday's heavy United States battery of 20 and 30
     pounders, and a very good Rhode Island battery.  And I was willing
     to take the risk, whether Gen. Patterson followed me up or not, of
     placing myself between Johnston and the Shenandoah River, rather
     than let Johnston escape.  And, at 4 o'clock [July 17th] I should
     have moved over that road for that purpose, if I had had no further
     orders.  But, a little after 12 o'clock at night [July 16th-17th,]
     I received a long order of three pages from Gen. Patterson,
     instructing me to move on to Charlestown, which is nearly at right
     angles to the road I was going to move on, and twenty-two miles
     from Winchester.  This was after I had given my orders for the
     other movement."

               *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     'Question [by the Chairman].--And that left Johnston free?
     "Answer--Yes, Sir; left him free to make his escape, which he did.
     * * *"

     'Question.--In what direction would Johnston have had to move to
     get by you?
     "Answer--Right out to the Shenandoah River, which he forded.  He
     found out from his cavalry, who were watching us, that we were
     actually leaving, and he started at 1 o'clock that same day, with
     8,000 men, forded the Shenandoah where it was so deep that he
     ordered his men to put their cartridge-boxes on their bayonets, got
     out on the Leesburg road, and went down to Manassas."

     "Question [by the Chairman].--Did he [Patterson] assign any reason
     for that movement?
     "Answer.--I was, of course, very indignant about it, and so were
     all my officers and men; so much so that when, subsequently, at
     Harper's Ferry, Patterson came by my camp, there was a universal
     groan--against all discipline, of course, and we suppressed it as
     soon as possible.  The excuse given by Gen. Patterson was this:
     that he had received intelligence that he could rely upon, that
     Gen. Johnston had been re-enforced by 20,000 men from Manassas,
     and was going to make an attack upon him; and in the order which I
     received that night--a long order of three pages--I was ordered to
     occupy all the communicating roads, turning off a regiment here,
     and two or three regiments there, and a battery at another place,
     to occupy all the roads from Winchester to the neighborhood of
     Charlestown, and all the cross-roads, and hold them all that day,
     until Gen. Patterson's whole army went by me to Charlestown; and I
     sat seven hours in the saddle near a place called Smithfield, while
     Patterson, with his whole army, went by me on their way to
     Charlestown, he being apprehensive, as he said, of an attack from
     Johnston's forces."

     "Question [by Mr. Odell].--You covered his movement?
     "Answer--Yes, Sir.  Now the statement that he made, which came to
     me through Colonel Abercrombie, who was Patterson's brother-in-law,
     and commanded one division in that army, was, that Johnston had
     been re-enforced; and Gen. Fitz-John Porter reported the same thing
     to my officers.  Gen. Porter was then the chief of Patterson's
     staff, and was a very excellent officer, and an accomplished
     soldier.  They all had got this story, which was without the
     slightest shadow of foundation; for there had not a single man
     arrived at the camp since we had got full information that their
     force consisted of 20,000 men, of whom 1,800 were sick with the
     measles.  The story was, however, that they had ascertained, by
     reliable information, of this re-enforcement.  Where they got their
     information, I do not know.  None such reached me; and I picked up
     deserters and other persons to get all the information I could; and
     we since have learned, as a matter of certainty, that Johnston's
     forces never did exceed 20,000 men there.  But the excuse Patterson
     gave was, that Johnson had been re-enforced by 20,000 men from
     Manassas, and was going to attack him.  That was the reason he gave
     then for this movement.  But in this paper he has lately published,
     he hints at another reason--another excuse--which was that it was
     by order of Gen. Scott.  Now, I know that the peremptory order of
     Gen. Scott to Gen. Patterson, repeated over and over again, was
     this--I was present on several occasions when telegraphic
     communications went from Gen. Scott to Gen. Patterson: Gen. Scott's
     orders to Gen. Patterson were that, if he were strong enough, he
     was to attack and beat Johnston.  But if not, then he was to place
     himself in such a position as to keep Johnston employed, and
     prevent him from making a junction with Beauregard at Manassas.
     That was the repeated direction of Gen. Scott to Gen. Patterson;
     and it was because of Patterson's hesitancy, and his hanging back,
     and keeping so far beyond the reach of Johnston's camp, that I was
     ordered to go up there and re-enforce him, and assist him in any
     operations necessary to effect that object.  The excuse of Gen.
     Patterson now is, that he had orders from Gen. Scott to move to
     Charlestown.  Now, that is not so.  But this state of things
     existed: Before the movement was made from Martinsburg, General
     Patterson suggested to General Scott that Charlestown would be a
     better base of operations than Martinsburg and suggested that he
     had better move on Charlestown, and thence make his approaches to
     Winchester; that it would be better to do that than to move
     directly to Winchester from Martinsburg; and General Scott wrote
     back to say that, if he found that movement a better one, he was at
     liberty to make it.  But Gen. Patterson had already commenced his
     movement on Winchester direct from Martinsburg, and had got as far
     as Bunker Hill; so that the movement which he had formerly
     suggested, to Charlestown, was suppressed by his own act.  But that
     is the pretence now given in his published speech for making the
     movement from Bunker Hill to Charlestown, which was a retreat,
     instead of the advance which the movement to Charlestown he first
     proposed to Gen. Scott was intended to be."

                   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     "Question [by the Chairman].--Was not that change of direction and
     movement to Charlestown a total abandonment of the object which you
     were pursuing?
     "Answer.--Entirely an abandonment of the main principles of the
     orders he was acting under."

     "Question.--And of course an abandonment of the purpose for which
     you were there?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir.

     "Question [by Mr. Odell].-Was it not your understanding in leaving
     here, and was it not the understanding also of Gen. Scott, that
     your purpose in going there was to check Johnston with direct
     reference to the movement here?
     "Answer--Undoubtedly.  It was in consequence of the suggestion made
     by me at the Council at the President's house.  * * *  And upon the
     suggestion of General Scott they wanted me to go up there and
     assist Patterson in this movement against Johnston, so as to carry
     out the point I had suggested of first checkmating Johnston before
     the movement against Manassas was made here."

                    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     Question [by the Chairman].--Would there have been any difficulty
     in preventing Johnston from going to Manassas?
     "Answer.--None whatever."

                    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     "Question [by the Chairman.]--I have heard it suggested that he
     (Patterson) undertook to excuse this movement on the ground that
     the time of many of his troops had expired, and they refused to
     accompany him.
     "Answer.--That to my knowledge, is untrue.  The time of none of
     them had expired when this movement was made.  All the troops that
     were there were in the highest condition for the service.  These
     three-months' men, it may be well to state to you who are not
     Military men, were superior to any other volunteer troops that we
     had, in point of discipline.  They were the disciplined troops of
     the Country.  The three-months' men were generally the organized
     troops of the different States--New York, Pennsylvania, etc.  We
     had, for instance, from Patterson's own city, Philadelphia, one of
     the finest regiments in the service, which was turned over to me,
     at their own request; and the most of my regiments were disciplined
     and organized troops.  They were all in fine condition, anxious,
     zealous, and earnest for a fight.  They thought they were going to
     attack Johnston's camp at Winchester.  Although I had suggested to
     Gen. Patterson that there was no necessity for that, the camp being
     admirably fortified with many of their heavy guns from Norfolk, I
     proposed to him to place ourselves between Johnston and the
     Shenandoah, which would have compelled him to fight us there, or to
     remain in his camp, either of which would have effected General
     Scott's object.  If I had got into a fight, it was very easy, over
     this road I had just been opening, for Patterson to have
     re-enforced me and to have come up to the fight in time.  The
     proposition was to place ourselves between Johnston's fortified
     camp and the Shenandoah, where his fortified camp would have been
     of no use to him."

     "Question.--Even if you had received a check there, it would have
     prevented his junction with the forces at Manassas?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir; I would have risked a battle with my own
     division rather than Johnston should have escaped.  If he had
     attacked me, I could have taken a position where I could have held
     it, while Patterson could have fallen upon him and repulsed him."

     "Question [by Mr. Odell].--Had you any such understanding with
     Patterson?
     "Answer.--I told him I would move down on this side-road in
     advance, leaving Gen. Patterson to sustain me if I got into a
     fight.  So, on the other hand, if he should attack Patterson, I was
     near enough to fall upon Johnston's flank and to support Patterson.
     By using this communication of mine to pass Opequan Creek--where, I
     had informed Patterson, I had already pushed forward my pickets,
     [200 men in the day and 400 more at night,] to prevent the Enemy
     from burning the bridge--it would have enabled me to get between
     Johnston and the Shenandoah River.  On the morning [Wednesday, July
     17th] of our march to Charlestown, Stuart's cavalry, which figured
     so vigorously at Bull Run, was upon my flank all day.  They were
     apparently about 800 strong.  I saw them constantly on my flank for
     a number of miles.  I could distinguish them, with my glass, with
     great ease.  Finally, they came within about a mile of the line of
     march I was pursuing and I sent a battery around to head them off,
     and the 12th Regiment across the fields in double-quick time to
     take them in the rear.  I thought I had got them hemmed in.  But
     they broke down the fences, and went across the country to
     Winchester, and I saw nothing more of them.  They were then about
     eight miles from Winchester, and must have got there in the course
     of a couple of hours.  That day [Wednesday, the 17th] at 10
     o'clock--as was ascertained from those who saw him crossing the
     Shenandoah--Johnston started from Winchester with 8,000 men, forded
     the Shenandoah, and got to Manassas on Friday night; and his second
     in command started the next day with all the rest of the available
     troops--something like 9,000 men; leaving only the sick, and a few
     to guard them, in the camp at Winchester--and they arrived at the
     battle-field in the midst of the fight, got out of the cars, rushed
     on the battle-field, and turned the scale.  I have no doubt that,
     if we had intercepted Johnston, as we ought to have done, the
     battle of Bull Run would have been a victory for us instead of a
     defeat.  Johnston was undoubtedly the ablest general they had in
     their army."

     Colonel CRAIG BIDDLE, testified that he was General Patterson's
     aide-de-camp at the time.  In answer to a question by the Chairman,
     he continued:

     "Answer.--I was present, of course, at all the discussions.  The
     discussion at Martinsburg was as to whether or not General
     Patterson should go on to Winchester.  General Patterson was very
     full of that himself.  He was determined to go to Winchester; but
     the opinions of all the regular officers who were with him, were
     against it.  The opinions of all the men in whose judgment I had
     any confidence, were against it.  They seemed to have the notion
     that General Patterson had got his Irish blood up by the fight we
     had had at Falling Waters, and was bound to go ahead.  He decided
     upon going ahead, against the remonstrances of General [Fitz John]
     Porter, who advised against it.  He told me he considered he had
     done his duty, and said no more.  The movement was delayed in
     consequence of General Stone's command not being able to move right
     away.  It was then evident that there was so much opposition to it
     that the General was induced to call a council of the general
     officers in his command, at which I was present.  They were
     unanimously opposed to the advance.  That was at Martinsburg."

                   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     "Question.--While at Bunker Hill, the night before you left there,
     were any orders issued to march in the evening?
     "Answer.--I think there were such orders."

     "Question.--Did not General Patterson issue orders at Bunker Hill,
     the night before you marched to Charlestown, for an attack on the
     Enemy?
     "Answer.-I think such orders were written.  I do not think they
     were issued.  I think General Patterson was again persuaded not to
     make an advance."

     Colonel R. BUTLER PRICE, Senior aide to Patterson, testified as
     follows:

                    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

     "Question [by Mr. Gooch].--Was it not the intention to move from
     Bunker Hill to Winchester?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir.  At one time General Patterson had given an
     order to move from Bunker Hill to Winchester.  He was very
     unwilling to leave Johnston even at Winchester without attacking
     him; and on the afternoon before we left Bunker Hill he decided to
     attack him, notwithstanding his strong force."

     "Question.--Behind his intrenchments?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir; it went so far that his order was written by
     his adjutant, General [Fitz John] Porter.  It was very much against
     the wishes of General [Fitz John] Porter; and he asked General
     Patterson if he would send for Colonel Abercrombie and Colonel
     Thomas and consult them on the movement.  General Patterson
     replied: No, Sir; for I know they will attempt to dissuade me from
     it, and I have made up my mind to fight Johnston under all
     circumstances.  That was the day before we left Bunker Hill.  Then
     Colonel [Fitz John] Porter asked to have Colonel Abercrombie and
     Colonel Thomas sent for and consulted as to the best manner to
     carry out his wishes.  He consented, and they came, and after half
     an hour they dissuaded him from it."

     "Question.--At that time General Patterson felt it was so important
     to attack Johnston that he had determined to do it?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir; the order was not published, but it was
     written."

     "Question.--You understood General Patterson to be influenced to
     make that attempt because he felt there was a necessity for
     detaining Johnston?
     "Answer.--Yes, Sir; to detain him as long as he possibly could."

     "Question.--That order was not countermanded until late on Tuesday,
     the 16th, was it?
     "Answer.--That order never was published.  It was written; but, at
     the earnest solicitation of Colonel [Fitz John] Porter, it was
     withheld until he could have a consultation with Colonel
     Abercrombie and Colonel Thomas."]

It is about 1 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, July 18th,--that same
day which witnesses the preliminary Battle of Blackburn's Ford--that
Johnston, being at Winchester, and knowing of Patterson's peculiarly
inoffensive and timid movement to his own left and rear, on Charlestown,
receives from the Rebel Government at Richmond, a telegraphic dispatch,
of July 17th, in these words: "General Beauregard is attacked.  To
strike the Enemy a decisive blow, a junction of all your effective force
will be needed.  If practicable, make the movement.  * * *  In all the
arrangements exercise your discretion."

Johnston loses no time in deciding that it is his duty to prevent, if
possible, disaster to Beauregard's Army; that to do this he must effect
a junction with him; and that this necessitates either an immediate
fight with, and defeat of, Patterson,--which may occasion a fatal
delay--or else, that Union general must be eluded.  Johnston determines
on the latter course.

Leaving his sick, with some militia to make a pretense of defending the
town in case of attack, Johnston secretly and rapidly marches his Army,
of 9,000 effective men, Southeasterly from Winchester, at noon of
Thursday, the 18th; across by a short cut, wading the Shenandoah River,
and then on through Asby's Gap, in the Blue Ridge, that same night;
still on, in the same direction, to a station on the Manassas Gap
railroad, known as Piedmont, which is reached by the next (Friday)
morning,--the erratic movements of Stuart's Cavalry entirely concealing
the manoeuvre from the knowledge of Patterson.

From Piedmont, the Artillery and Cavalry proceed to march the remaining
twenty-five miles, or so, to Manassas Junction, by the roads.  The 7th
and 8th Georgia Regiments of Bartow's Brigade, with Jackson's Brigade,
--comprising the 2d, 4th, 5th, 27th and 33d Virginia Regiments--are
embarked on the cars, and hurriedly sent in advance, by rail, to
Manassas, reaching there on that same (Friday) afternoon and evening.
These are followed by General Johnston, with Bee's Brigade--comprising
the 4th Alabama, 2d Mississippi, and a battalion of the 11th
Mississippi--which arrive at Manassas about noon of Saturday, the 20th
of July, the balance of Johnston's Infantry being billed for arrival
that same day, or night.

Upon Johnston's own arrival at Manassas, Saturday noon,--the very day
that Patterson ascertains that "the bird has flown,"--after assuming
command, by virtue of seniority, he proceeds to examine Beauregard's
position.  This he finds "too extensive, and the ground too densely
wooded and intricate," to be learned quickly, and hence he is impelled
to rely largely upon Beauregard for information touching the strength
and positions of both the Rebel and Union Armies.

Beauregard has now 21,833 men, and 29 pieces of artillery of his own
"Army of the Potomac."  Johnston's and Holmes's junction with him has
raised the Rebel total to 32,000 effectives, and 55 guns.  McDowell, on
the other hand, who started with 30,000 effectives, finds himself on the
19th--owing to the departure of one of his regiments and a battery of
Artillery, because of the expiration of their term of enlistment,--with
but "28,000 men at the utmost."--[Comte de Paris.]

On the evening of Saturday, the 20th of July, Johnston and Beauregard
hold an important consultation.  The former feels certain that
Patterson, with his more than 20,000 effectives, will now lose no time
in essaying a junction with McDowell's Army, and that such junction will
probably be effected by July 22nd.  Hence he perceives the necessity of
attacking McDowell, and if possible, with the combined Rebel Forces,
whipping him before Patterson can come up to his assistance.

At this consultation it is agreed by the two Rebel generals to assume
the offensive, at once.  Beauregard proposes a plan of battle--which is
an immediate general advance of the Rebel centre and left,
concentrating, from all the fords of Bull Run, upon Centreville, while
the Rebel right advances toward Sangster's cross-roads, ready to fall
either on Centreville, or upon Fairfax Court House, in its rear,
according to circumstances.

The plan proposed, is accepted at once by Johnston.  The necessary order
is drawn up by Beauregard that night; and at half past four o'clock on
Sunday morning, July 21st, Johnston signs the written order.  Nothing
now remains, apparently, but the delivery of the order to the Rebel
brigade commanders, a hurried preparation for the forward movement, and
then the grand attack upon McDowell, at Centreville.

Already, no doubt, the fevered brain of Beauregard pictures, in his
vivid imagination, the invincible thunders of his Artillery, the
impetuous advance of his Infantry, the glorious onset of his Cavalry,
the flight and rout of the Union forces, his triumphal entry into
Washington--Lincoln and Scott and the Congress crouching at his feet
--and the victorious South and conquered North acclaiming him Dictator!
The plan is Beauregard's own, and Beauregard is to have command.  Hence
all the glory of capturing the National Capital, must be Beauregard's.
Why not?  But "man proposes, and God disposes."  The advance and attack,
are, in that shape, never to be made.

McDowell, in the meantime, all unconscious of what has transpired in the
Shenandoah Valley, and between there and Manassas; never dreaming for an
instant that Patterson has failed to keep Johnson there--even if he has
not attacked and defeated him; utterly unsuspicious that his own
lessened Union Army has now to deal with the Forces of Johnston and
Beauregard combined--with a superior instead of an inferior force; is
executing a plan of battle which he has decided upon, and announced to
his general officers, on that same Saturday evening, at his Headquarters
in Centreville.

Instead of attempting to turn the Enemy's right, and cut off his
communications with Richmond and the South, McDowell has now determined
to attack the Enemy's left, cut his communication, via the Manassas Gap
railroad, with Johnston's Army,--still supposed by him to be in the
Valley of the Shenandoah--and, taking him in the left flank and rear,
roll him upon Manassas, in disorder and defeat--with whatever might
follow.

That is the plan--in its general features.  In executing it, Blenker's
Brigade of Miles's Division is to remain at Centreville as a reserve,
throwing up intrenchments about its Heights, upon which to fall back, in
case of necessity; Davies's Brigade of the same Division, with
Richardson's Brigade of Tyler's Division--as the Left Wing--are to
demonstrate at Blackburn's Ford, toward the Enemy's right; Tyler's other
three brigades, under Keyes, Schenck, and Sherman, are to feign an
attack on the Enemy's left, posted behind the strongly-defended Stone
Bridge over which the Warrenton turnpike, running Westward, on its way
from Centreville to Warrenton, crosses Bull Run stream; while the strong
divisions under Hunter and Heintzelman--forming McDowell's Right Wing
--are to follow Tyler's Division Westward down the turnpike to a point
within one mile and a half of the Stone Bridge, thence, by cross-road,
diverge several miles to the North, then sweep around gradually to the
West, and then Southwardly over Bull Run at Sudley Springs Ford,
swooping down the Sudley road upon the Enemy's left flank and rear, near
Stone Bridge, rolling it back toward his center, while Tyler's remaining
three brigades cross the bridge and join in the assault.  That is the
whole plan in a nutshell.

It has been McDowell's intention to push forward, from Centreville along
the Warrenton Pike a few miles, on the evening of this Military
conference; but he makes his first mistake, in allowing himself to be
dissuaded from that, by those, who, in his own words, "have the greatest
distance to go," and who prefer "starting early in the morning and
making but one move."

The attacking divisions now have orders to march at 2:30 A. M., in order
"to avoid the heat," which is excessive.  Tyler's three immediate
brigades--or some of them--are slow in starting Westward, along the
Warrenton Pike, to the Stone Bridge; and this leads to a two or three
hours delay of the divisions of Hunter and Heintzelman, before they can
follow that Pike beyond Centreville, and commence the secret detour to
their right, along the cross-road leading to Sudley Springs.

At 6:30 A.M., Tyler's Artillery gets into position, to cannonade the
Enemy's batteries, on the West Bank of Bull Run, commanding the Stone
Bridge, and opens fire.  Half an hour before this, (at 6 A.M.), the
Rebel artillerists, posted on a hill South of the Pike, and 600 yards
West of the bridge, have caught sight of Tyler's Union blue-jackets.
Those of the Rebel gunners whose eyes are directed to the North-East,
soon see, nearly a mile away, up the gradual <DW72>, a puff of blue
smoke.  Immediately the bang of a solitary rifle cannon is heard, and
the scream of a rifled shot as it passes over their heads.  At
intervals, until past 9 A.M., that piece and others in the same
position, keep hammering away at the Rebel left, under Evans, at Stone
Bridge.

The Rebel response to this cannonade, is very feeble.  McDowell observes
this.  He suspects there has been a weakening of the Enemy's force at
the bridge, in order to strengthen his right for some purpose.  And what
can that purpose be, but to throw his augmented right upon our left, at
Blackburn's Ford, and so, along the ridge-road, upon Centreville?  Thus
McDowell guesses, and guesses well.  To be in readiness to protect his
own left and rear, by reenforcing Miles's Division, at Centreville and
along the ridge to Blackburn's Ford, he temporarily holds back Howard's
Brigade of Heintzelman's Division at the point where the cross-road to
Sudley Springs Ford-along which Hunter's Division, followed by the
Brigades of Franklin and Wilcox, of Heintzelman's Division, have already
gone-intersects the Warrenton Pike.

It is 9 o'clock.  Beauregard, as yet unaware of McDowell's new plan,
sends an order to Ewell, on his right, to hold himself ready "to take
the offensive, at a moment's notice,"--and directing that Ewell be
supported in his advance, toward Sangster's cross-roads and the rear of
Centreville, by Holmes's Brigade.  In accordance with that order, Ewell,
who is "at Union Mills and its neighborhood," gets his brigade ready,
and Holmes moves up to his support.  After waiting two hours, Ewell
receives another order, for both Ewell and Holmes "to resume their
places."  Something must have occurred since 9 o'clock, to defeat
Beauregard's plan of attack on Centreville--with all its glorious
consequences!  What can it be?  We shall see.

While Tyler's Artillery has been cannonading the Rebel left, under
Evans, at Stone Bridge,--fully impressed with the prevailing Union
belief that the bridge is not only protected by strong masked batteries,
heavy supports of Infantry, and by abatis as well as other defenses, but
is also mined and ready to be blown up at the approach of our troops,
when in reality the bridge is not mined, and the Rebel force in men and
guns at that point has been greatly weakened in anticipation of
Beauregard's projected advance upon Centreville,--the Union column,
under Hunter and Heintzelman, is advancing from Centreville, in the
scorching heat and suffocating dust of this tropical July morning,
slowly, but surely, along the Warrenton Pike and the cross-road to
Sudley Springs Ford--a distance of some eight miles of weary and
toilsome marching for raw troops in such a temperature--in this order:
Burnside's Brigade, followed by Andrew Porter's Brigade,--both of
Hunter's Division; then Franklin's Brigade, followed by Willcox's
Brigade,--both of Heintzelman's Division.

It is half past 9 o'clock; before Burnside's Brigade has crossed the
Bull Run stream, at Sudley's Ford, and the head of Andrew Porter's
Brigade commences to ford it.  The troops are somewhat slow in crossing.
They are warm, tired, thirsty, and as to dust,--their hair and eyes and
nostrils and mouths are full of it, while most of the uniforms, once
blue, have become a dirty gray.  The sky is clear.  The sun already is
fiercely hot.  The men stop to drink and fill their canteens.  It is
well they do.

McDowell, who has been waiting two or three hours at the turn, impatient
at the delay, has ridden over to the front of the Flanking column, and
now reaches Sudley's Ford.  He feels that much valuable time is already
lost.  His plan has, in a measure, been frustrated by delay.  He had
calculated on crossing Bull Run, at Sudley's Ford, and getting to the
rear of the Enemy's position, at Stone Bridge, before a sufficient Rebel
force could be assembled to contest the Union advance.  He sends back an
aide with orders to the regimental commanders in the rear, to "break
from column, and hurry forward separately, as fast as possible."
Another aide he sends, with orders to Howard to bring his brigade
across-fields.  To Tyler he also sends orders to "press forward his
attack, as large bodies of the Enemy are passing in front of him to
attack the division (Hunter's) which has passed over."

It may here be explained, that the Sudley road, running about six miles
South-Southeasterly from Sudley Springs Ford to Manassas Junction, is
crossed at right angles, about two miles South of the Springs, by the
Warrenton Pike, at a point about one mile and a half West of the Stone
Bridge.  For nearly a mile South of Sudley Ford, the Sudley road passes
through thick woods on the left, and alternate patches of wooded and
cleared lands on the right.  The country farther South, opens into
rolling fields, occasionally cut by transverse gullies, and patched with
woods.  This is what Burnside's Brigade beholds, as it marches
Southward, along the Sudley road, this eventful morning.

Thus far, the cannonade of Tyler's batteries, and the weak return-fire
of the Rebel Artillery, at Stone Bridge, over two miles South-East of
Sudley Ford, is about the only music by which the Union march has kept
time.

But now, as Burnside's foremost regiment emerges from the woods, at half
past 10 o'clock, the Artillery of the Enemy opens upon it.

Let us see how this happens.  Evans's Brigade, defending the Stone
Bridge, and constituting the Enemy's extreme left, comprises, as has
already been mentioned, Sloan's 4th South Carolina Regiment, Wheat's
Louisiana battalion, Terry's squadron of Virginia Cavalry, and
Davidson's section of Latham's Battery of six-pounders.

Earlier in the morning Evans has supposed, from the cannonade of Tyler's
batteries among the pines on the hills obliquely opposite the Enemy's
left, as well as from the sound of the cannonade of the Union batteries
away down the stream on the Enemy's right, near Blackburn's Ford, that
McDowell is about to make an attack upon the whole front of the Rebel
line of defense along Bull Run-by way of the Stone Bridge, and the
various fords below it, which cross that stream.  But by 10 o'clock,
that Rebel general begins to feel doubtful, suspicious, and uneasy.
Despite the booming of Tyler's guns, he has caught in the distance the
rumbling sounds of Hunter's Artillery wheels.

Evans finds himself pondering the meaning of those long lines of dust,
away to his left; and then, like a flash, it bursts upon him, that all
this Military hubbub in his front, and far away to his right, is but a
feint; that the real danger is somehow connected with that mysterious
far-away rumble, and those lines of yellow dust; that the main attack is
to be on the unprepared left and rear of the Rebel position!

No sooner has the Rebel brigade-commander thus divined the Union plan of
attack, than he prepares, with the limited force at his command, to
thwart it.  Burnside and he are about equidistant, by this time, from
the intersection of the Sudley road, running South, with the Warrenton
Pike, running West.  Much depends upon which of them shall be the first
to reach it,--and the instinctive, intuitive knowledge of this, spurs
Evans to his utmost energy.  He leaves four of his fifteen companies,
and Rogers's section of the Loudoun Artillery,--which has come up from
Cocke's Brigade, at the ford below--to defend the approaches to the
Stone Bridge, from the East side of Bull Run,--and, with the other
eleven companies, and Latham's half-battery, he hurries Westward, along
the Warrenton Pike, toward the Sudley road-crossing, to resist the
impending Union attack.

It is now 10:30 o'clock, and, as he hurries along, with anxious eyes,
scanning the woods at the North, he suddenly catches the glitter of
Burnside's bayonets coming down through them, East of the Sudley road,
in "column of regiments" toward Young's Branch--a small stream turning,
in a Northern and Southern loop, respectively above and below the
Warrenton Pike, much as the S of a prostrate dollar-mark twines above
and below its horizontal line, the vicinity of which is destined to be
hotly-contested ground ere night-fall.

     [Says Captain D.  P.  Woodbury, U.  S.  corps of engineers, and
     who, with Captain Wright, guided the divisions of Hunter and
     Heintzelman in making the detour to the upper part of Bull Run: "At
     Sudley's Mills we lingered about an hour to give the men and horses
     water and a little rest before going into action, our advance guard
     in the mean time going ahead about three quarters of a mile.
     Resuming our march, we emerged from the woods about one mile South
     of the ford, and came upon a beautiful open valley about one and a
     quarter miles square, bounded on the right or West by a wooded
     ridge, on the Fast by the rough spurs or bluffs of Bull Run, on the
     North by an open plain and ridge, on which our troops began to
     form, and on the South by another ridge, on which the Enemy was
     strongly posted, with woods behind their backs.  The Enemy was also
     in possession of the bluffs of Bull Run on our left."]

Sending word to Headquarters, Evans pushes forward and gaining Buck
Ridge, to the North of the Northern loop of Young's Branch, forms his
line-of-battle upon that elevation--which somewhat compensates him for
the inferiority of his numbers--nearly at right angles to the Bull Run
line; rapidly puts his Artillery in position; the Rebel guns open on
Burnside's advance--their hoarse roar soon supplemented by the rattle of
Rebel musketry, and the answering roar and rattle of the Union onset;
and the Battle of Bull Run has commenced!

It is after 10:30 A.M., and Beauregard and Johnston are upon an eminence
in the rear of the centre of the Enemy's Bull Run line.  They have been
there since 8 o'clock.  An hour ago, or more, their Signal Officer has
reported a large body of Union troops crossing the Bull Run Valley, some
two or three miles above the Stone Bridge; upon the strength of which,
Johnston has ordered Bee's Brigade from near Cocke's position, with
Hampton's Legion and Stonewall Jackson's Brigade from near Bonham's
left, to move to the Rebel left, at Stone Bridge; and these troops are
now hastening thither, guided by the sound of the guns.

The artillery-firing is also heard by Johnston and Beauregard, but
intervening wooded <DW72>s prevent them from determining precisely whence
it comes.  Beauregard, with a badly-organized staff, is chaffing over
the delay that has occurred in carrying out his own plan of battle.  He
is waiting to hear of the progress of the attack which he has ordered
upon the Union Army,--supposed by him to be at Centreville,--and
especially as to the advance of his right toward Sangster's Station.  In
the meantime also,--from early morning,--the Rebel commanders have heard
heavy firing in the direction of Blackburn's Ford, toward their right,
where the Artillery attached to the brigades of Davies and Richardson,
constituting McDowell's Left Wing, is demonstrating in a lively manner,
in accordance with McDowell's plan.

It is 11 o'clock.  Beauregard has become satisfied that his orders for
the Rebel advance and attack on Centreville, have failed or miscarried.
His plan is abandoned, and the orders countermanded.  At the same time
the growing volume of artillery-detonations upon the left of the Bull
Run line of defense--together with the clouds of dust which indicate the
route of march of Hunter's and Heintzelman's Divisions from near
Centreville to the point of conflict, satisfies both Johnston and
Beauregard, that a serious attack is imperilling the Rebel left.

Beauregard at once proposes to Johnston "a modification of the abandoned
plan," viz.: "to attack with the" Rebel "right, while the left stands on
the defensive."  But rapidly transpiring events conspire to make even
the modified plan impracticable.

Johnston, convinced by the still growing volume of battle-sounds on the
Rebel left, that the main attack of McDowell is being made there, urges
Beauregard to strengthen the left, as much as possible; and, after that
general has sent orders to this end,--to Holmes and Early to come up
with their Brigades from Union Mills Ford, moving "with all speed to the
sound of the firing," and to Bonham to promptly send up, from Mitchell's
Ford, a battery and two of his regiments--both he and Beauregard put
spurs to their horses, and gallop at full speed toward the firing, four
miles away on their left,--stopping on the way only long enough for
Johnston to order his Chief-of-artillery, Colonel Pendleton, to "follow,
with his own, and Alburtis's Batteries."

Meanwhile let us return and witness the progress of the battle, on the
Rebel left,--where we were looking on, at 10:30 o'clock.  Evans had then
just posted his eleven companies of Infantry on Buck Ridge, with one of
his two guns on his left, near the Sudley road, and the other not far
from the Robinson House, upon the Northern spur of the elevated plateau
just South of Young's Branch, and nearly midway between the Sudley road
and Stone Bridge.

The battle, as we have seen, has opened.  As Burnside's Brigade appears
on the <DW72>, to the North of Buck Ridge (or Hill), it is received by a
rapid, well-sustained, and uncomfortable, but not very destructive fire,
from Evans's Artillery, and, as the Union regiments press forward, in
column, full of impulsive ardor, the Enemy welcomes the head of the
column with a hot musketry-fire also, delivered from the crest of the
elevation behind which the Rebel Infantry lie flat upon the ground.

This defense by Evan's demi-Brigade still continues, although half an
hour, or more, has elapsed.  Burnside has not yet been able to dislodge
the Enemy from the position.  Emboldened to temerity by this fact, Major
Wheat's Louisiana battalion advances through the woods in front, upon
Burnside, but is hurled back by a galling fire, which throws it into
disorder and flight.

At this moment, however, the brigades of Bee and Bartow--comprising the
7th and 8th Georgia, 2nd Mississippi, 4th Alabama, 6th North Carolina,
and two companies of the 11th Mississippi, with Imboden's Battery of
four pieces--recently arrived with Johnston from Winchester, come up,
form on the right of Sloan's 4th South Carolina Regiment, while Wheat
rallies his remnant on Sloan's left, now resting on the Sudley road, and
the whole new Rebel line opens a hot fire upon Burnside's Brigade.

Hunter, for the purpose of better directing the Union attack, is at this
moment rapidly riding to the left of the Union line,--which is advancing
Southwardly, at right angles to Bull Run stream and the old line of
Rebel defense thereon.  He is struck by the fragment of a shell, and
carried to the rear.

Colonel John S. Slocum's, 2nd Rhode Island, Regiment, with Reynold's
Rhode Island Battery (six 13-pounders), having been sent to the front of
Burnside's left, and being closely pressed by the Enemy, Burnside's own
regiment the 1st Rhode Island, is gallantly led by Major Balch to the
support of the 2nd, and together they handsomely repulse the Rebel
onset.  Burnside now sends forward Martin's 71st New York, with its two
howitzers, and Marston's 2nd New Hampshire,--his whole Brigade, of four
regiments and a light artillery battery, being engaged with the heavy
masked battery (Imboden's and two other pieces), and nearly seven full
regiments of the Enemy.

The regiments of Burnside's Brigade are getting considerably cut up.
Colonels Slocum and Marston, and Major Balch, are wounded.  There is
some confusion in the ranks, and the Rhode Island Battery is in danger
of capture, when General Andrew Porter--whose own brigade has just
reached the field and is deploying to the right of Burnside's--succeeds
Hunter in command of the division, and rides over to his left.  Burnside
asks him for Sykes's battalion of regulars, which is accordingly
detached from the extreme right of Andrew Porter's Division, rapidly
forms on the left, in support of the Rhode Island Battery, and opens a
hot and effective fire which, in connection with the renewed fire of
Burnside's rallied regiments, and the opening artillery practice of
Griffin's Battery--that has just come up at a gallop and gone into a
good position upon an eminence to the right of Porter's Division, and to
the right of the Sudley road looking South--fairly staggers the Enemy.

And now the brigades of Sherman and Keyes, having been ordered across
Bull Run by General Tyler, are seen advancing from Poplar Ford, at the
rear of our left,--Sherman's Brigade, headed by Corcoran's 69th New York
Regiment, coming up on Burnside's left, while Keves's Brigade is
following, to the left again of, Sherman.

     [Sherman, in his Official Report, after mentioning the receipt by
     him of Tyler's order to "cross over with the whole brigade to the
     assistance of Colonel Hunter"--which he did, so far as the Infantry
     was concerned, but left his battery under Ayres behind, on account
     of the impassability of the bluff on the Western bank of Bull Run
     --says: "Early in the day, when reconnoitering the ground, I had seen
     a horseman descend from a bluff in our front, cross the stream, and
     show himself in the open field, and, inferring we could cross over
     at the same point, I sent forward a company as skirmishers, and
     followed with the whole brigade, the New York Sixty-ninth leading."

     This is evidently the ford at the elbow of Bull Run, to the right
     of Sherman's front, which is laid down on the Army-maps as "Poplar
     Ford," and which McDowell's engineers had previously discovered and
     mapped; and to which Major Barnard of the U. S.  Engineer Corps
     alludes when, in his Official Report, he says: "Midway between the
     Stone Bridge and Sudley Spring our maps indicated another ford,
     which was said to be good."

     The Comte de Paris, at page 241, vol. I. of his admirable "History
     of the Civil War in America," and perhaps other Military
     historians, having assumed and stated--upon the strength of this
     passage in Sherman's Report--that "the Military instinct" of that
     successful soldier had "discovered" this ford; and the impression
     being thus conveyed, however undesignedly, to their readers, that
     McDowell's Engineer corps, after spending two or three days in
     reconnaissances, had failed to find the ford which Sherman had in a
     few minutes "discovered" by "Military instinct;" it is surely due
     to the truth of Military history, that the Engineers be fairly
     credited with the discovery and mapping of that ford, the existence
     of which should also have been known to McDowell's brigade
     commanders.

     If, on the other hand, the Report of the Rebel Captain Arthur L.
     Rogers, of the Loudoun Artillery, to General Philip St. George
     Cocke, be correct, it would seem that Sherman attempted to cross
     Bull Run lower down than Poplar Ford, which is "about one mile
     above the Stone Bridge," but was driven back by the fire of
     Rogers's guns to cross at that particular ford; for Rogers, in that
     Report, says that about 11 o'clock A. M., the first section of the
     Loudoun Artillery, under his command, "proceeded to the crest of
     the hill on the West Side of Bull Run, commanding Stone Bridge.  *
     * * Here."  continues he, "I posted my section of Artillery, and
     opened a brisk fire upon a column of the Enemy's Infantry, supposed
     to be two regiments, advancing towards me, and supported by his
     battery of rifled cannon on the hills opposite.  These poured into
     my section a steady fire of shot and shell.  After giving them some
     fifty rounds, I succeeded in heading his column, and turned it up
     Bull Run to a ford about one mile above Stone Bridge, where, with
     the regiments which followed, they crossed, and proceeded to join
     the rest of the Enemy's forces in front of the main body of our
     Army."]

Before this developing, expanding, and advancing attack of the Union
forces, the Rebel General Bee, who--since his coming up to support
Evans, with his own and Bartow's Brigades, to which had since been added
Hampton's Legion,--has been in command of this new Rebel line of defense
upon the left of the Bull Run line, concludes that that attack is
getting too strong for him, and orders his forces to retreat to the
Southward, and re-form on a second line, parallel to their present line,
and behind the rising ground at their rear.  They do so, somewhat faster
than he desires.  The whole line of the Rebel centre gives way, followed
by the wings, as far as the victorious Union troops can see.

We must be blind if we cannot perceive that thus far, the outlook, from
the Union point of view,--despite numberless mistakes of detail, and
some, perhaps, more general in their character--is very good.  The "Boys
in Blue" are irresistibly advancing, driving the "Rebel Gray" back and
back, without let or hindrance, over the Buck Hill ridge, over Young's
Branch, back to, and even over, the Warrenton Pike.  Time, to be sure,
is flying--valuable time; but the Enemy also is retiring.--There is some
slight confusion in parts of our own ranks; but there is much more in
his.  At present, we have decidedly the best of it.  McDowell's plan has
been, thus far, successful.  Will that success continue?  We shall see.

Heintzelman's Division is coming, up from the rear, to the Union right
--Franklin's Brigade, made up of the 5th and 11th Massachusetts, and 1st
Minnesota, with Ricketts's splendid battery of six 10-pounder Parrotts,
forming on the right of Andrew Porter's Brigade and Division; while
Willcox's demi-Brigade, with its 11th ("Fire Zouaves") and 38th New
York--having left Arnold's Battery of four pieces, with the 1st Michigan
as its support, posted on a hill commanding Sudley's Ford--comes in, on
the right of Franklin, thus forming the extreme right of the advancing
Union line of attack.

As our re-enforcing brigades come up, on our right, and on our left, the
Enemy falls back, more and more discouraged and dismayed.  It seems to
him, as it does to us, "as though nothing can stop us."  Jackson,
however, is now hurrying up to the relief of the flying and disordered
remnants of Bee's, Bartow's, and Evans's Brigades; and these
subsequently rally, with Hampton's Legion, upon Jackson's strong brigade
of fresh troops, so that, on a third new line, to which they have been
driven back, they soon have--6,500 Infantry, 13 pieces of Artillery, and
Stuart's cavalry-posted in a belt of pines which fringes the Southern
skirt of the Henry House plateau--in a line-of-battle which, with its
left resting upon the Sudley road, three-quarters of a mile South of its
intersection with the Warrenton Pike, is the irregular hypothenuse of a
right-angled triangle, formed by itself and those two intersecting
roads, to the South-East of such intersection.  It is within this
right-angled triangular space that the battle, now proceeding, bids
fair to rage most fiercely.

Johnston and Beauregard, riding up from their rear, reach this new
(third) line to which the Rebel troops have been driven, about noon.
They find the brigades of Bee, Bartow, and Evans, falling back in great
disorder, and taking shelter in a wooded ravine, South of the Robinson
House and of the Warrenton Pike.  Hampton's Legion, which has just been
driven backward over the Pike, with great loss, still holds the Robinson
House.  Jackson, however, has reached the front of this line of defense,
with his brigade of the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, and 33rd Virginia Infantry,
and Pendleton's Battery--all of which have been well rested, since their
arrival, with other brigades of Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah, from
Winchester, a day or two back.

As Jackson comes up, on the left of "the ravine and woods occupied by
the mingled remnants of Bee's, Bartow's and Evans's commands," he posts
Imboden's, Stanard's, and Pendleton's Batteries in line, "below the brim
of the Henry House plateau," perhaps one-eighth of a mile to the
East-Southeastward of the Henry House, at his centre; Preston's 4th
Virginia, and Echol's 27th Virginia, at the rear of the battery-line;
Harper's 5th Virginia, with Radford's Cavalry, at its right; and, on its
left, Allen's 2nd Virginia; with Cumming's 33rd Virginia to the left of
that again, and Stuart's Cavalry covering the Rebel left flank.

It is about this time that the chief Rebel generals find their position
so desperate, as to necessitate extraordinary measures, and personal
exposure, on their part.  Now it is, that Jackson earns the famous
sobriquet which sticks to him until he dies.


     [Bee approaches Jackson--so goes the story, according to Swinton;
     he points to the disordered remnants of his own brigade mingled
     with those of the brigades of Bartow and Evans huddled together in
     the woods, and exclaims: "General, they are beating us back!"
     "Sir," responds Jackson, drawing himself up, severely, "We'll give
     them the bayonet!" And Bee, rushing back among his confused troops,
     rallies them with the cry: "There is Jackson, standing like a Stone
     wall!  Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer."]

Now it is, that Johnston and Beauregard, accompanied by their staffs,
ride backward and forward among the Rebel ranks, rallying and
encouraging them.  Now it is, that, Bee and Bartow and Hampton being
wounded, and the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Hampton Legion killed,
Beauregard leads a gallant charge of that legion in person.  And now it
is, that Johnston himself, finding all the field-officers of the 4th
Alabama disabled, "impressively and gallantly charges to the front" with
the colors of that regiment at his side!

These conspicuous examples of bravery, inspire the Rebel troops with
fresh courage, at this admittedly "critical" moment.

Johnston now assigns to Beauregard the chief "command of the left" of
the Bull Run line,--that is to say, the chief command of the Enemy's new
line of defense, which, as we have seen, is on the left of, and at right
angles to, the old Bull Run line--while he himself, riding back to the
Lewis House, resumes "the command of the whole field."

On his way to his rear, Johnston orders Cocke to send reenforcements to
Beauregard.  He also dispatches orders to hurry up to that Rebel
general's support, the brigades of Holmes and Early from near the Union
Mills Ford, and that of Bonham  from Mitchell's Ford,--Ewell with his
brigade,  being also directed to "follow with all speed" from Union
Mills Ford-making a total of over 10,000 fresh troops.

From the "commanding elevation" of the Lewis House, Johnston can observe
the position of the Union forces beyond Bull Run, at Blackburn's Ford
and Stone Bridge; the coming of his own re-enforcing brigades from far
down the valley, toward Manassas; and the manoeuvres of our advancing
columns under McDowell.

As the battle proceeds, the Enemy's strength on the third new line of
defense increases, until he has 22 guns, 260 Cavalry, and 12 regiments
of Infantry, now engaged.  It is interesting to observe also, that, of
these, 16 of the guns, 9 of the regiments, and all of the Cavalry
(Stuart's), belong to Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah, while only 6
guns and 3 Infantry regiments thus engaged, belong to Beauregard's Army
of the Potomac.  Thus the burden of the battle has been, and is being,
borne by Johnston's, and not Beauregard's troops--in the proportion of
about three of the former, to one of the latter,--which, for over two
hours, maintain their position despite many successive assaults we make
upon them.

It is after 2 o'clock P.M., when Howard's Brigade, of Heintzelman's
Division, reaches the battle-field, almost broken down with exhaustion.
By order of Heintzelman it has moved at double-quick for a mile of the
way, until, under the broiling heat, it can do so no longer.  The last
two miles of the weary tramp, while the head of the brigade has moved at
quick time, the rear, having lost distances, moves, much of the time, at
a double-quick.  As a consequence, many of Howard's men drop out, and
absolutely faint from exhaustion.

As Howard's Brigade approaches the field, besides the ambulances and
litters, conveying to the rear the wounded and dying, crowds of
retreating stragglers meet and tell it to hurry along; that the Enemy
has been driven back a mile; but, as it marches along, its regiments do
not feel particularly encouraged by the disorganization so prevalent;
and the fact that as they come into action, the thunders of the Rebel
Artillery do not seem to meet an adequately voluminous response--from
the Union side, seems to them, a portent of evil.  Weary and fagged out,
they are permitted to rest, for a while, under cover.

Up to this time, our line, increased, as it has been, by the brigades of
Sherman and Keyes, on the left of Burnside, and of Franklin and Wilcox,
on the right of Porter, has continued to advance victoriously.  Our
troops are, to be sure, considerably scattered, having been "moved from
point to point" a good deal.  On our left, the Enemy has been driven
back nearly a mile, and Keyes's Brigade is pushing down Bull Run, under
shelter of the bluffs, trying to turn the right of the Enemy's new line,
and give Schenck's Brigade a better chance for crossing the Stone
Bridge, still commanded by some of the Rebel guns.

Having "nothing to do" there, "several of the Union regiments" are
coming over, from our left toward our right, with a view of overlapping,
and turning, the Enemy's left.

It is about half past 2 o'clock.  The batteries of Griffin and Ricketts
have already been advanced as far as the eminence, upon our right, upon
which stands the Dogan House.  Supported by Lyons's gallant 14th New
York Chasseurs, Griffin's and Ricketts's Batteries are still pouring a
terribly destructive fire into the batteries and columns of the Enemy,
now behind the brow of the Henry House hill, wherever exposed, while
Palmer's seven companies of Union Cavalry are feeling the Enemy's left
flank, which McDowell proposes to turn.  The flags of eight Union
regiments, though "borne somewhat wearily" now point toward the hilly
Henry House plateau, beyond which "disordered masses of Rebels" have
been seen "hastily retiring."

There is a lull in the battle.  The terrible heat is exhausting to the
combatants on both sides.  Griffin and Ricketts have wrought such havoc
with their guns, that "nothing remains to be fired at."  Victory seems
most surely to be ours.

Away down at his headquarters at the Lewis House, the Rebel General
Johnston stands watching the progress of the battle, as it goes against
him.  Nervously he glances, every now and then, over his left shoulder,
as if expecting something.  An officer is galloping toward him, from
Manassas.  He comes from the office of Beauregard's Adjutant-General, at
that point.  He rides up and salutes.  "General," says he, breathlessly,
"a United States Army has reached the line of the Manassas Gap railroad,
and is now but three or four miles from our left flank!"

Johnston clenches his teeth nervously.  Thick beads of perspiration
start from his forehead.  He believes it is Patterson's Army that has
followed "upon his heels" from before Winchester, faster than has been
anticipated; and, as he thinks of Kirby Smith, who should long since
have arrived with Elzey's Brigade--all, of his own "Army of the
Shenandoah," that has not yet followed him to Manassas,--the exclamation
involuntarily bursts from his lips: "Oh, for four regiments!"

     [Says a correspondent and eye-witness of the battle, writing to the
     Richmond Dispatch, from the battle-field, July 23d: "Between two
     and three o'clock large numbers of men were leaving the field, some
     of them wounded, others exhausted by the long struggle, who gave us
     gloomy reports; but, as the firing on both sides continued
     steadily, we felt sure that our brave Southerners had not been
     conquered by the overwhelming hordes of the North.  It is, however,
     due to truth to say that the result at this hour hung trembling in
     the balance.  We had lost numbers of our most distinguished
     officers.  Gens. Barlow and Bee had been stricken down; Lieut; Col.
     Johnson of the Hampton Legion had been killed; Col. Hampton had
     been wounded.  But there was at hand a fearless general whose
     reputation was staked on this battle: Gen. Beauregard promptly
     offered to lead the Hampton Legion into action, which he executed
     in a style unsurpassed and unsurpassable.  Gen. Beauregard rode up
     and down our lines, between the Enemy and his own men, regardless
     of the heavy fire, cheering and encouraging our troops.  About this
     time, a shell struck his horse, taking its head off, and killing
     the horses of his aides, Messrs. Ferguson and Hayward.  * * *  Gen.
     Johnston also threw himself into the thickest of the fight, seizing
     the colors of a Georgia (Alabama) regiment, and rallying then to
     the charge.  * * *  Your correspondent heard Gen. Johnston exclaim
     to Gen. Cocke, just at the critical moment, 'Oh, for four
     regiments!'  His wish was answered; for in the distance our
     re-enforcements appeared.  The tide of battle was turned in our favor
     by the arrival of Gen. Kirby Smith, from Winchester, with 4,000 men
     of Gen. Johnston's Division.  Gen. Smith heard, while on the
     Manassas Railroad cars, the roar of battle.  He stopped the train,
     and hurried his troops across the fields to the point just where he
     was most needed.  They were at first supposed to be the Enemy,
     their arrival at that point of the field being entirely unexpected.
     The Enemy fell back, and a panic seized them.  Cheer after cheer
     from our men went up, and we knew the battle had been won."

     Another Rebel correspondent who, as an officer of the Kentucky
     battalion of General Johnston's Division of the Rebel Army,
     participated in the battle, wrote to the Louisville Courier from
     Manassas, July 22, an account of it, in which, after mentioning
     that the Rebel Army had been forced back for two miles, he
     continues; "The fortunes of the day were evidently against us.
     Some of our best officers had been slain, and the flower of our
     Army lay strewn upon the field, ghastly in death or gaping with
     wounds.  At noon, the cannonading is described as terrific.  It was
     an incessant roar for more than two hours, the havoc and
     devastation at this time being fear ful.  McDowell * * * had nearly
     outflanked us, and they were just in the act of possessing
     themselves of the Railway to Richmond.  Then all would have been
     lost.  But most opportunely--I may say Providentially--at this
     juncture, Gen. Johnston, [Kirby Smith it should be] with the
     remnant of Johnston's Division--our Army, as we fondly call it, for
     we have been friends and brothers in camp and field for three
     months--reappeared, and made one other desperate struggle to obtain
     the vantage-ground.  Elzey's Brigade of Marylanders and Virginians
     led the charge; and right manfully did they execute the work,"]

"The prayer of the wicked availeth not," 'tis said; yet never was the
prayer of the righteous more quickly answered than is that of the Rebel
General-in-chief!  Johnston himself, alluding to this exigent moment,
afterward remarks, in his report: "The expected reenforcements appeared
soon after."  Instead of Patterson's Union Army, it is Kirby Smith,
coming up, with Elzey's Brigade, from Winchester!

Satisfied of the safe arrival of Kirby Smith, and ordering him up, with
Elzey's Brigade, Johnston directs Kershaw's 2nd and Cash's 8th South
Carolina Regiments, which have just come up, with Kemper's Battery, from
Bonham's Brigade, to strengthen the Rebel left, against the attempt
which we are still making to reach around it, about the Sudley road, to
take it in reverse.  Fisher's 6th North Carolina Regiment arriving about
the same time, is also hurried along to help Beauregard.

But during the victorious lull, heretofore alluded to, something is
happening on our side, that is of very serious moment.  Let us see what
it is:

The batteries of Griffin and Ricketts, at the Dogan House, having
nothing to fire at, as we have seen, are resting, pleased with the
consciousness of their brilliant and victorious service against the
Rebel batteries and Infantry columns, when they are ordered by McDowell
--who, with his staff, is upon elevated ground to the rear of our
right,--to advance 1,000 yards further to the front, "upon a hill near
the Henry House."

Ricketts considers this a perilous job--but proceeds to execute the
order as to his own battery.  A small ravine is in his front.  With
Ricketts gallantly leading, the battery dashes across the ravine at full
gallop, breaking one wheel as it goes, which is at once replaced.  A
fence lies across the way.  The cannoniers demolish it.  The battery
ascends the hill near the Henry House, which is full of the Enemy's
sharpshooters.

     [For this, and what immediately follows, see the testimony of
     Ricketts and others, before the Committee on the Conduct of the
     War.]

Soon as Ricketts gets his guns in battery, his men and horses begin to
fall, under the fire of these sharpshooters.  He turns his guns upon the
Henry House,--and "literally riddles it."  Amid the moans of the
wounded, the death scream of a woman is heard!  The Enemy had permitted
her to remain in her doomed house!

But the execution is not all on one side, by any means.  Ricketts is in
a very hot place--the hottest, he afterward declares, that he has ever
seen in his life--and he has seen fighting before this.

The Enemy is behind the woods, at the front and right of Ricketts's
Battery.  This, with the added advantage of the natural <DW72> of the
ground, enables him to deliver upon the brave Union artillerists a
concentrated fire, which is terribly destructive, and disables so many
of Rickett's horses that he cannot move, if he would.  Rickett's own
guns, however, are so admirably served, that a smooth-bore battery of
the Enemy, which has been stubbornly opposing him, is driven back,
despite its heavy supports.

And Griffin's Battery now comes rapidly up into position on the left of,
and in line with, Ricketts.  For Griffin also has been ordered from the
Dogan House hill, to this new, and dangerously exposed, position.

But when Major Barry, General McDowell's Chief of Artillery, brings him
the order, Griffin hesitates--for he has no Infantry support.

"The Fire Zouaves--[The 11th New York]--will support you," says Barry,"
They are just ready to follow you at the double-quick!"

"Then why not let them go and get in position on the hill," says
Griffin; "then, let Ricketts's and my batteries come into battery
behind; and then, let them (the Zouaves) fall back?"

Griffin advises, also, as a better position for his own battery, a hill
500 yards in the rear of the Henry House hill.  But advice is thrown
away.  His artillery-chief is inflexible.

"I tell you," says Griffin again, "the Fire Zouaves won't support us."

"They will," replies Barry.  "At any rate it is General McDowell's order
to go there!"

That settles the business.  "I will go," responds Griffin; "but mark my
words, they will not support us!"

Griffin's Battery, indeed, starts first, but, owing to the mistake of
one of his officers, it has to be countermarched, so that Ricketts's is
thrown to the front, and, as we have seen, first reaches the crest of
the Henry House hill.

Griffin, as he comes up with his guns, goes into battery on the left of
Ricketts, and at once opens briskly on the Enemy.  One of Griffin's guns
has a ball lodged in the bore, which cannot be got in or out.  His other
five guns, with the six guns of Ricketts, make eleven pieces, which are
now side by side-all of them driving away at the Enemy's (Stonewall
Jackson's) strong batteries, not more than 300 yards away.

They have been at it half an hour perhaps, when Griffin moves two of his
pieces to the right of Ricketts, and commences firing with them.  He has
hardly been there five minutes, when a Rebel regiment coming out of the
woods at Griffin's right front, gets over a rail fence, its Colonel
steps out between his regiment (now standing up to the knees in rank
grass) and the battery, and commences a speech to his men!

Griffin orders one of his officers to load with canister, and let
drive at them.  The guns are loaded, and ready to fire, when up gallops
Barry, exclaiming: "Captain, don't fire there; those are your
battery-supports!"

At this supreme moment, Reynolds's gorgeous looking Marines are sitting
down in close column, on the ground, to the left of the Union batteries.
The showy 11th New York "Fire Zouaves" are a little to the rear of the
right of the guns.  The gallant 14th New York Chasseurs, in their
dust-covered red uniforms, who had followed Griffin's Battery, at some
distance, have, only a little while since, pushed finely up, from the
ravine at the rear of our batteries, into the woods, to the right of
Griffin and Ricketts, at a double-quick.  To the left of the batteries,
close to the battalion of Marines, Heintzelman bestrides his horse, near
some of his own Division.

To Major Barry's startling declaration, Captain Griffin excitedly
shouts: "They are Confederates!  Sure as the world, they are
Confederates!"

But Barry thinks he knows better, and hastily responds: "I know they are
your battery-support."

Griffin spurs toward his pieces, countermands his previous order,
and firing is resumed in the old direction.

Andrew Porter, has just ridden up to Heintzelman's side, and now catches
sight of the Rebel regiment.  "What troops are those?" he asks of
General Hientzelman, pointing in their direction.

While Heintzelman is replying, and just as Averell drops his reins and
levels his field-glass at them, "down come their pieces-rifles and
muskets,--and probably," as Averell afterward said, "there never was
such a destructive fire for a few minutes.  It seemed as though every
man and horse of that battery just laid right down, and died right off!"

It is a dreadful mistake that has been made.  And there seems to have
been no excuse for it either.  The deliberateness of the Rebel colonel
has given Barry abundant time to have discovered his error.  For Griffin
subsequently declared, under oath, that, "After the officer who had been
talking to the regiment had got through, he faced them to the left,
marched them about fifty yards to the woods, then faced them to the
right again, marched them about forty yards toward us, then opened fire
upon us--and that was the last of us!"

It is a terrible blunder.  For, up to this moment, the battle is
undeniably ours.  And, while the Rebel colonel has been haranguing his
brave men, there has been plenty of time to have "passed the word" along
the line of our batteries, and poured canister into the Rebel regiment
from the whole line of eleven guns, at point-blank range, which must
inevitably have cut it all to pieces.  The fate of the day hung balanced
right there and then--with all the chances in favor of McDowell.  But
those chances are now reversed.  Such are the fickle changes in the
fortunes of battle!

Instead of our batteries cutting to pieces the Rebel Infantry regiment,
the Rebel Infantry regiment has mowed down the gallant artillerists of
our batteries.  Hardly a man of them escapes.  Death and destruction
reap a wondrous and instant harvest.  Wounded, dying, or dead, lie the
brave cannoniers at their guns, officers and men alike hors du combat,
while wounded horses gallop wildly back, with bounding caissons, down
the gentle declivity, carrying disorder, and further danger, in their
mad flight.

The supporting Fire Zouaves and Marines, on the right and left of our
line of guns, stand, with staring eyes and dumb open-mouths, at the
sudden turn of affairs.  They are absolutely paralyzed with
astonishment.  They do not run at first.  They stand, quaking and
panic-stricken.  They are urged to advance upon the Rebel regiment
--"to give them a volley, and then try the bayonet."  In vain!  They
fire perhaps 100 scattering shots; and receive in return, as they break
and run down the hill to the rear, volley after volley, of deadly lead,
from the Rebel muskets.

But, as this Rebel regiment (Cummings's 33rd Virginia) advances to seize
the crippled and defenceless guns, it is checked, and driven back, by
the 1st Michigan Regiment of Willcox's Brigade, which has pushed forward
in the woods at our extreme right.

Meanwhile, having been ordered by McDowell to support Ricketts's
Battery, Howard has formed his four tired regiments into two lines
--Berry's 4th Maine, and Whitney's 2nd Vermont, on the right and left of
the first; and Dunnell's 5th, and his own 3rd Maine, under Staples, in
the second line.  Howard himself leads his first line up the elevated
plateau of the Henry House.  Reaching the crest, the line delivers its
fire, volley after volley, despite the concentrated hail of the Enemy's
Artillery and muskets.  As the second line advances, a Rebel
cannon-ball, and an unfortunate charge of our own Cavalry, scatters most
of the 5th Maine.  The 2nd Vermont, which has advanced 200 yards beyond
the crest, rapidly firing, while the Enemy retires, is now, in turn,
forced back by the Enemy's hot fire, and is replaced by the 3rd Maine,
while the remnant of the 5th moves up to the extreme right of Howard's
now single line.  But the Rebel fire grows hotter and hotter, and owing
to this, and a misunderstood order, Howard's line begins to dissolve,
and then retires in confusion,--Howard and others vainly striving to
rally his own utterly exhausted men.

Sherman's Brigade, too, has come over from our left, and now advances
upon the deadly plateau, where lie the disabled Union batteries--the
prizes, in full sight of both Armies, for which each seems now to be so
desperately striving.

Quinby's 13th New York Rifles, in column of companies, leads the
brigade, followed by Lieutenant-Colonel Peck's 2d Wisconsin, Cameron's
79th New York (Highlanders), and Corcoran's 69th New York (Irish), "in
line of battle."  Down the <DW72>, across the ravine, and up, on the
other side, steadily presses Quinby, till he reaches the crest.  He
opens fire.  An advancing Rebel regiment retires, as he pushes up to
where the Union batteries and cannoniers lie wounded and dying--the
other three regiments following in line-of-battle until near the crest,
when the fire of the Enemy's rifles and musketry, added to his heavy
cannonading, grows so severe that the brigade is forced back to shelter
in a roadway leading up the plateau.

Peck's 2nd Wisconsin, now emerges from this sheltered roadway, and
steadily mounts the elevation, in the face of the Enemy's severe fire
--returning it, with spirit, as it advances.  But the Rebel fire becomes
too galling.  The gray-clad Wisconsin boys return to the sheltered road
again, while the cry goes up from Sherman's ranks: "Our own men are
firing at them!"  Rallying at the road, the 2nd Wisconsin again returns,
with desperate courage, to the crest of the hill, delivers its fire, and
then, unable to withstand the dreadful carnage, falls back once more, in
disorder.

At this, the 79th (Highland) Regiment springs forward, to mount the brow
of the fatal hill, swept as it is, with this storm of shot and shell and
musket-balls.  Up, through the lowering smoke, lit with the Enemy's
incessant discharges in the woods beyond, the brave Highlanders jauntily
march, and, with Cameron and their colors at their head, charge
impetuously across the bloody hill-crest, and still farther, to the
front.  But it is not in human nature to continue that advance in the
teeth of the withering fire from Jackson's batteries, strengthened, as
they are, by Pelham's and Kemper's.  The gallant fellows fall back,
rally again, advance once more, retire again, and at last,--the heroic
Cameron being mortally wounded,--fall back, in confusion, under the
cover of the hill.

And now, while Quinby's Regiment, on another ridge, more to the left, is
also again engaging the Enemy, the 69th New York, led by the fearless
Corcoran, dashes forward, up the Henry House hill, over the forbidding
brow, and beyond.  As the brave Irishmen reach the abandoned batteries,
the hoarse roar of cannon, the sharp rattle of musketry-volleys, the
scream of shot and shell, and the whistling of bullets, is at once
deafening and appalling, while the air seems filled with the iron and
leaden sleet which sweeps across the scorched and blasted plateau of the
Henry House.  Nobly the Irish Regiment holds its ground for a time; but,
at last, it too falls back, before the hurtling tempest.

The fortunes of the day are plainly turning against us.  Time is also
against us--as it has been all along--while it is with the Enemy.  It is
past 3 o'clock.

Since we last looked at Beauregard's third new defensive line, there
have been material accessions to it.  The remains of the brigades of
Bee, Evans, and Bartow, have been reformed on the right of Jackson's
Brigade--Bee on his immediate right, Evans to the right of Bee, and
Bartow to the right of Evans, with a battery which has been engaging
Schenck's Brigade on the other side of Bull Run near the Stone Bridge;
while Cocke's Brigade watches Bull Run to the rear of Bartow.  On the
left of Jackson's.  Brigade, is now to be seen a part of Bonham's
Brigade (Kershaw's 2nd South Carolina, and Cash's 8th South Carolina)
with Kemper's Battery on its left.  Kirby Smith has reached the front,
from Manassas, and--in advancing from his position on the left of
Bonham's demi-Brigade, just West of the Sudley road, with Elzey's
Brigade, in a counter-attack upon our right-is wounded, and carried to
the rear, leaving his command to Elzey.  Stuart's Cavalry are in the
woods, still farther to the Enemy's left, supporting Beckham's Battery.
Early's Brigade is also coming up, from Union Mills Ford, not far to the
rear of the Enemy's left, with the design of coming into line between
Elzey's Brigade and Beckham's Battery, and out-flanking and attacking
our right.  But let us bring our eyes back to the bloody contest, still
going on, for the possession of the batteries of Griffin and Ricketts.

Arnold's Battery has raced up on our right, and is delivering shot,
shell, spherical case, and canister, with effect, although exposed to a
severe and accurate fire from the Enemy.  Wilcox, with what is left of
the 1st Michigan, after once retaking the batteries on the plateau, from
the 7th Georgia, has got around the Enemy's left flank and is actually
engaged with the Enemy's rear, while that Enemy's front is engaged with
Franklin and Sherman!  But Hobart Ward's 38th New York, which Wilcox has
ordered up to support the 1st Michigan, on our extreme right, in this
flanking movement, has been misdirected, and is now attacking the
Enemy's centre, instead of his left; and Preston's 28th Virginia--which,
with Withers's 18th Virginia, has come up to the Rebel left, from
Cocke's Brigade, on the Enemy's right--finding the 1st Michigan broken,
in the woods, attacks it, and wounds and captures Wilcox.  Withers's
Regiment has, with a yell--the old "Rebel yell," now rising everywhere
from Rebel throats, and so often heard afterward,--charged the 14th New
York Chasseurs, in the woods; and the Chasseurs, though retiring, have
fired upon it with such precision as to throw some of their assailants
into disorder.

     [Says General Keyes, who had kept on down the Run, "on the extreme
     left of our advance--having separated from Sherman on his right:--I
     thought the day was won about 2 o'clock; but about half past 3
     o'clock a sudden change in the firing took place, which, to my ear,
     was very ominous.  I knew that the moment the shout went up from
     the other side, there appeared to be an instantaneous change in the
     whole sound of the battle.  * * *  That, as far as I can learn, was
     the shout that went up from the Enemy's line when they found out
     for certain that it was Johnston [Kirby Smith] and not Patterson,
     that had come."]

Meanwhile McDowell is making one more effort to retrieve the misfortunes
of the day.  Lawrence's 5th, and Clark's 11th Massachusetts, with
Gorman's 1st Minnesota,--all belonging to Franklin's Brigade--together
with Corcoran's 69th New York, of Sherman's Brigade, have been brought
into line-of-battle, by the united efforts of Franklin, Averell, and
other officers, at our centre, and with the remnants of two or three
other regiments, are moving against the Enemy's centre, to support the
attack of the Chasseurs-rallied and led forward again by Heintzelman
upon the Rebel left, and that of the 38th New York upon the Rebel left
centre,--in another effort to recapture the abandoned batteries.

Charge after charge, is made by our gallant regiments, and
counter-charge after counter-charge, is made by the fresh troops of the
Enemy. For almost half an hour, has the contest over the batteries
rolled backward and forward.  Three several times have the batteries
been taken, and re-taken,--much of the determined and desperate struggle
going on, over the prostrate and bleeding bodies of the brave Union
artillerists,--but without avail.  Regiment after regiment, has been
thrown back, by the deadly fusillade of the Enemy's musketry from the
skirt of woods at his front and left, and the canister, case, and
bursting shells, of his rapidly-served Artillery.

It is now near upon 4 o'clock.  Our last effort to recapture the
batteries has failed.  The Union line of advance has been seriously
checked.  Some of our own guns in those batteries are turned on us.  The
Enemy's Infantry make a rush over the blood-soaked brow of the fatal
plateau, pouring into our men a deadly fire, as they advance,--while
over to our right and rear, at the same moment, are seen the fresh
regiments of Early's Brigade coming out of the woods--deploying rapidly
in several lines--with Stuart's handful of Rebel Cavalry, while
Beckham's guns, in the same quarter, open an oblique enfilading reverse
fire upon us, in a lively manner.

At once the minds of the fagged-out Union troops become filled with the
dispiriting idea that the exhausting fight which they have made all day
long, has been simply with Beauregard's Army of the Potomac, and that
these fresh Rebel troops, on the Union right and rear, are the vanguard
of Johnston's Army of the Shenandoah!  After all the hard marching and
fighting they have done during the last thirteen hours,--with empty
stomachs, and parched lips, under a scorching sun that still, as it
descends in the West, glowers down upon them, through the murky air,
like a great, red, glaring eye,--the very thought is terrible!

Without fear, yet equally without hope, the Union troops crumble to
groups, and then to individuals.  The attempt of McDowell to turn the
left of the Enemy's Bull Run line, has failed.

McDowell and his officers heroically but vainly strive, at great
personal risk to themselves, to stem the tide of confusion, and
disorder.  Sykes's battalion of regulars, which has been at our left,
now steadily moves obliquely across the field of battle toward our
right, to a hill in the midground, which it occupies, and, with the aid
of Arnold's Battery and Palmer's Cavalry, holds, while the exhausted and
disorganized troops of the Union Army doggedly and slowly retire toward
Sudley Ford, their rear covered by an irregular square of Infantry,
which, mainly by the exertions of Colonel Corcoran, has been formed to
resist a threatened charge of Stuart's Cavalry.

     [At the rate of "not more than two, or two and a half, miles an
     hour," and not "helter-skelter," as some narrators state.]

It is not fear, that has got the better of our Union troops.  It is
physical exhaustion for one thing; it is thirst for another.  Men must
drink,--even if they have foolishly thrown away their canteens,--and
many have retired to get water.  It is the moral effect also--the
terrible disappointment--of seeing what they suppose are Johnston's
fresh troops from the Shenandoah Valley, without Patterson "on their
heels," suddenly appear on their flank and rear.  It is not fear; though
some of them are panic-stricken, and, as they catch sight of Stuart's
mounted men,--no black horse or uniform among them,--raise the cry of
"The Black Horse Cavalry!--The Black Horse Cavalry!"

The Union attack has been repulsed, it is true; but the Union soldiers,
though disorganized, discouraged, and disappointed, are not dismayed.
Their officers not yet having learned how to fight, and themselves
lacking the cohesion of discipline, the men have lost their regimental
organizations, and owing to the causes mentioned, slowly retire across
Sudley Ford of Bull Run, in a condition of disintegration, their retreat
being bravely covered by the 27th and 69th New York, (which have rallied
and formed there), Sykes's Infantry battalion, Arnold's Battery, and
Palmer's Cavalry.

     [In his report to Major Barnard, Capt. D. P.  Woodbury, of the
     corps of Engineers, says: "It is not for me to give a history of
     the battle.  The Enemy was driven on our left, from cover to cover,
     a mile and a half.  Our position for renewing the action the next
     morning was excellent; whence, then, our failure?  It will not be
     out of place, I hope, for me to give my own opinion of the cause of
     this failure.  An old soldier feels safe in the ranks, unsafe out
     of the ranks, and the greater the danger the more pertinaciously he
     clings to his place.  The volunteer of three months never attains
     this instinct of discipline.  Under danger, and even under mere
     excitement, he flies away from his ranks, and looks for safety in
     dispersion.  At four o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st, there
     were more than twelve thousand volunteers on the battle-field of
     Bull Run, who had entirely lost their regimental organizations.
     They could no longer be handled as troops, for the officers and men
     were not together.  Men and officers mingled together
     promiscuously; and it is worthy of remark that this disorganization
     did not result from defeat or fear, for up to four o'clock we had
     been uniformly successful.  The instinct of discipline, which keeps
     every man in his place, had not been acquired.  We cannot suppose
     that the troops of the Enemy had attained a higher degree of
     discipline than our own, but they acted on the defensive, and were
     not equally exposed to disorganization."]

While the divisions of Hunter and Heintzelman, which came down in the
morning across Sudley Ford, are now, with one brigade (Sherman's) of
Tyler's Division, retiring again, in this disordered condition, by that
ford; two other brigades of Tyler's Division, viz., that of Schenck
--which, at 4 o'clock, was just in the act of advancing upon, and across,
the Stone Bridge, to join in the Union attack, and of Keyes, which was,
at the same time, just succeeding in its effort to turn the right flank
of the Enemy's third new line,--are withdrawing from the field, across
Bull Run stream, by the Warrenton Pike, and other roads leading them
directly toward Centreville.  The brigades of both Keyes and Schenck are
retiring in good order; that of Keyes, at "an ordinary pace," following
close after McDowell, who, with his staff, has ridden across the
battlefield and Bull Run; while part of that of Schenck, united with the
2nd Maine (of Keyes' Brigade) and Ayres's Battery, "promptly and
effectively" repulses a charge of the Enemy's Cavalry, and covers the
rear of Tyler's Division.  Both of these brigades reach Centreville,
hungry and weary, but otherwise, for the most part, in good shape.

But during this grand all-day attack, by two of McDowell's divisions,
directly aided by part of a third, upon the left of the Enemy's original
Bull Run line of defense--which attack, while it has failed in its
purpose, has also utterly upset and defeated the Enemy's purpose to
carry out Beauregard's plan of attacking Centreville that same morning
--what has the Left Wing of McDowell's Army been doing?  Let us go back
to Sunday morning, and ascertain:

All the Army of McDowell, save his Left Wing--which, comprising the two
brigades (Blenker's and Davies's) of Miles's Division, and Richardson's
Brigade of Tyler's Division that fought the preliminary battle of
Blackburn's Ford, is now under the command of Miles,--moved away from
Centreville, down the Warrenton Pike, as we have seen, very early in the
morning.

Blenker remains with his brigade as a reserve, on the heights a little
East of Centreville, to throw up intrenchments; which, however, he does
not do, for lack of trenching implements.  Richardson and Davies are to
make a feint, at Blackburn's Ford, so as to draw the Enemy's troops
there, while the heavy blow of McDowell's Right Wing and Centre falls
upon the left flank and rear of the Enemy's Bull Run line.

Richardson's Brigade is already down the ridge, in his old position at
Blackburn's Ford, when Davies with his brigade reaches it, from
Centreville, and, by virtue of seniority, takes command of the two
brigades.  Leaving Richardson's Brigade and Greene's Battery exactly on
the battle-ground of the 18th July, Davies posts two regiments (the 18th
and 32nd New York) of his own brigade, with Hunt's Battery, on the brow
of a hill, in an open wheat field, some eighty yards to the
South-Eastward of Richardson, distant some 1,500 yards from Longstreet's
batteries on the Western side of Bull Run,--and commences a rapid fire,
upon the Enemy's position at Blackburn's Ford, from both of the Union
batteries.

At 10 o'clock, there is a lull in this Union fire.  The Artillery
ammunition is running short.  The demonstration, however, seems, thus
far, to be successful--judging by the movement of Rebel troops toward
Blackburn's Ford.  The lull continues until 11 o'clock.  At that time
Miles arrives at his front, in a towering rage.

On his way down the ridge, that morning, early, Davies had made a
discovery.  While passing a roadway, his guide had casually remarked:
"There is a road that leads around to the Enemy's camp, direct."  "Ah!"
--said Davies--"and can they get through that road?"  "Oh, yes," replied
the guide.  Davies had at once halted, and, after posting his 16th and
31st New York Regiments, with two guns of Hunt's Battery, near this
road, at its junction with the ridge road running up to Centreville and
Black burn's Ford, had proceeded, with the rest of his regiments and
guns, to the position where Miles finds him.

But Miles has discovered what Davies has done, in this matter of the
flanking roadway; and--without knowing, or apparently caring to know,
the reason underlying the posting of the two regiments and two guns in
its vicinity,--flies into "a terrible passion" because of it; in "no
very measured language," gives Davies "a severe dressing down;" and
orders him to bring both regiments and guns down to the front.  Davies
complies, and says nothing.  Miles also orders him to continue the
firing from his batteries, without regard to the quantity of ammunition.
This order, also, Davies obeys--and the firing proceeds, for two solid
hours, until another order comes, about 1 o'clock P.M., to stop firing.

The fact is, that Miles is not at all himself--but is suffering under
such a strain of mental excitement, he afterward claims, that he is not
responsible.

Miles, however, returns to Centreville about noon; and no sooner is he
gone, than Davies at once sends back pioneers to obstruct that road
which would bring the Enemy around his left flank and rear, to
Centreville.  These, work so industriously, that they cut down a quarter
of a mile of trees, and block the road up completely.  Davies also posts
a few pickets there, in case of accidents.  It is well he does so.  It
is not long before the Enemy makes an attempt to get around to his rear,
by that road; but, finding it both obstructed and picketed, retires
again.  Davies does not see the Rebels making that attempt, but catches
sight of them on their return, and gives them a severe shelling for
their pains.

Davies keeps up his firing, more or less-according to the condition of
the Enemy and of his own ammunition--until 4 o'clock, when the firing
occasioned by the Union flanking movement, six miles to his right,
ceases.  Then there reaches him a note from Richardson, so badly
penciled that he can only make out the one word "beaten,"--but cannot,
for the life of him, make out, whether the beaten one is our Right Wing,
or the Enemy!

Of what followed, he tells the story himself,--under oath, before the
Committee on the Conduct of the War--so graphically, that the temptation
to give it, in his own words, is irresistible.  "I saw unmistakable
evidence," said he, "that we were going to be attacked on our Left Wing.
I got all ready for the attack, but did not change my front.

"About 5 o'clock, I think, the Rebels made their appearance back upon
this very road up which they had gone before; but instead of keeping up
the road, they turned past a farm-house, went through the farm-yard, and
came down and formed right in front of me, in a hollow, out of my sight.
Well, I let them all come down there, keeping a watch upon their
movements.  I told the Artillery not to fire any shot at them until they
saw the rear column go down, so as to get them all down in the little
hollow or basin, there.  There was a little basin there, probably a
quarter of a mile every way.  I should think that, maybe, 3,000 men
filed down, before I changed front.

"We lay there, with two regiments back, and the Artillery in front,
facing Bull Run.  As soon as about 3,000 of the Enemy got down in this
basin, I changed the front of the Artillery around to the left, in face
of the Enemy, and put a company of Infantry between each of the pieces
of Artillery, and then deployed the balance of the regiments right and
left, and made my line-of-battle.

"I gave directions to the Infantry not to fire a shot, under any
circumstances, until they got the word of command from me.  I
furthermore said I would shoot the first man that fired a shot before I
gave the command to do so.

"I gave them orders all to lie down on their faces.  They, (the Rebels)
were just over the brow of the hill, so that, if they came up in front
of us, they could not hit a man.

"As soon as I saw the rear column, I told * * * Lieutenant Benjamin to
fire.  * * *  He fired the first shot when the rear column presented
itself.  It just went over their heads, and hit a horse and rider in
their rear.  As soon as the first shot was fired, I gave the order for
the whole six pieces of Artillery to open with grape and canister.  The
effect was terrible.  They were all there, right before us, about 450
yards off, and had not suspected that we were going to fire at all,
though they did not know what the reason was.  Hunt's Battery (belonging
to Richardson--who had by mistake got Greene's) performed so well, that,
in thirty minutes, we dispersed every one of them!

"I do not know how many were killed, but we so crippled their entire
force that they never came after us an inch.  A man, who saw the effect
of the firing, in the valley, said it was just like firing into a wheat
field; the column gave way at once, before the grape and canister; they
were just within available distance.  I knew very well that if they but
got into that basin, the first fire would cut them all to pieces; and it
did.  We continued to fire for thirty minutes, when there was nothing
more to fire at, and no more shots were returned."

At a later hour--while remaining victorious at their well defended
position, with the Enemy at their front, dispersed and silenced,--these
two brigades of the Left Wing, receive orders to fall back on
Centreville, and encamp.  With the brigade of Richardson, and Greene's
Battery in advance, Davies's own brigade and Hunt's Battery following,
they fall back on the heights of Centreville "without the least
confusion and in perfect order"--reaching them at 7 P.M.

Meantime Miles has been relieved from command, and McDowell has ordered
Blenker's Brigade to take position a mile or more in advance of
Centreville, toward Bull Run, on both sides of the Warrenton Pike, to
protect the retreat, now being made, in "a few collected bodies," but
mainly in great disorder--owing partly to the baggage-wagons choking the
road, along which both venturesome civilians and fagged-out troops are
retreating upon Centreville.  This confused retreat passes through
Blenker's lines until 9 o'clock P.M.--and then, all is secure.

At midnight, McDowell has decided to make no stand at Centreville, but
to retire upon the defensive works at Washington.  The order to retreat,
is given, and, with the rear well guarded by Richardson's and Blenker's
Brigades, is carried out, the van of the retreat, with no Enemy
pursuing, degenerating finally into a "mob," which carries more or less
panic into Washington itself, as well as terrible disappointment and
chagrin to all the Loyal States of the Union.

Knowing what we now do, concerning the Battle of Bull Run, it is
somewhat surprising, at this day, to read the dispatches sent by
McDowell to General Scott's headquarters at Washington, immediately
after it.  They are in these words:

               "CENTREVILLE, July 21, 1861--5:45 P.M.

"We passed Bull Run, engaged the Enemy, who, it seems, had just been
re-enforced by General Johnston.  We drove them for several hours, and
finally routed them."

     ["No one who did not share in the sad experience will be able to
     realize the consternation which the news of this discomfiture
     --grossly exaggerated--diffused over the loyal portion of our
     Country.  Only the tidings which had reached Washington up to four
     o'clock--all presaging certain and decisive victory--were permitted
     to go North by telegraph that day and evening; so that, on Monday
     morning, when the crowd of fugitives from our grand Army was
     pouring into Washington, a heedless, harmless, worthless mob, the
     Loyal States were exulting over accounts of a decisive triumph.
     But a few hours brought different advices; and these were as much
     worse than the truth as the former had been better: our Army had
     been utterly destroyed-cut to pieces, with a loss of twenty-five to
     thirty thousand men, besides all its artillery and munitions, and
     Washington lay at the mercy of the Enemy, who were soon to advance
     to the capture and sack of our great commercial cities.  Never
     before had so black a day as that black Monday lowered upon the
     loyal hearts of the North; and the leaden, weeping skies reflected
     and heightened, while they seemed to sympathize with, the general
     gloom.  It would have been easy, with ordinary effort and care, to
     have gathered and remanded to their camps or forts around
     Alexandria or Arlington, all the wretched stragglers to whom fear
     had lent wings, and who, throwing away their arms and equipments,
     and abandoning all semblance of Military order or discipline, had
     rushed to the Capital to hide therein their shame, behind a cloud
     of exaggerations and falsehoods.  The still effective batteries,
     the solid battalions, that were then wending their way slowly back
     to their old encampments along the South bank of the Potomac,
     depressed but unshaken, dauntless and utterly unassailed, were
     unseen and unheard from; while the panic-stricken racers filled and
     distended the general ear with their tales of impregnable
     intrenchments and masked batteries, of regiments slaughtered,
     brigades utterly cut to pieces, etc., making out their miserable
     selves to be about all that was left of the Army.  That these men
     were allowed thus to straggle into Washington, instead of being
     peremptorily stopped at the bridges and sent back to the
     encampments of their several regiments, is only to be accounted for
     on the hypothesis that the reason of our Military magnates had been
     temporarily dethroned, so as to divest them of all moral
     responsibility," Greeley's Am. Conflict, pp.  552-53., vol. I.]

"They rallied and repulsed us, but only to give us again the victory,
which seemed complete.  But our men, exhausted with fatigue and thirst,
and confused by firing into each other, were attacked by the Enemy's
reserves, and driven from the position we had gained, overlooking
Manassas.  After this, the men could not be rallied, but slowly left the
field.  In the meantime the Enemy outflanked Richardson at Blackburn's
Ford, and we have now to hold Centreville till our men can get behind
it.  Miles's Division is holding the town.  It is reported that Colonel
Cameron is killed, Hunter and Heintzelman wounded, neither dangerously.
                         "IRWIN MCDOWELL,
                    "Brigadier-General, Commanding.

"Lieutenant-Colonel TOWNSEND."


                    "FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, July 21, 1861.

"The men having thrown away their haversacks in the battle, and left
them behind, they are without food; have eaten nothing since breakfast.
We are without artillery ammunition.  The larger part of the men are a
confused mob, entirely demoralized.  It was the opinion of all the
commanders that no stand could be made this side of the Potomac.  We
will, however, make the attempt at Fairfax Court House.  From a prisoner
we learn that 20,000 from Johnston joined last night, and they march on
us to-night.
                              "IRWIN MCDOWELL.

"Colonel TOWNSEND"


               "FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, [July] 22, 1861.

"Many of the volunteers did not wait for authority to proceed to the
Potomac, but left on their own decision.  They are now pouring through
this place in a state of utter disorganization.  They could not be
prepared for action by to-morrow morning even were they willing.  I
learn from prisoners that we are to be pressed here to-night and
tomorrow morning, as the Enemy's force is very large, and they are
elated.  I think we heard cannon on our rear-guard.  I think now, as all
of my commanders thought at Centreville, there is no alternative but to
fall back to the Potomac, and I shall proceed to do so with as much
regularity as possible.
                                   "IRWIN MCDOWELL.

"Colonel TOWNSEND."


                    "ARLINGTON, July 22, 1861.

"I avail myself of the re-establishing of telegraph to report my
arrival.  When I left the forks of the Little River turnpike and
Columbia turnpike, where I had been for a couple of hours turning
stragglers and parties of regiments upon this place and Alexandria, I
received intelligence that the rear-guard, under Colonel Richardson, had
left Fairfax Court House, and was getting along well.  Had not been
attacked.  I am now trying to get matters a little organized over here.
                         "IRWIN MCDOWELL.
                         "Brigadier-General.
"E. D. TOWNSEND."


McDowell had unquestionably been repulsed, in his main attack, with his
Right Wing, and much of his Army was badly demoralized; but, on the
other hand, it may be well to repeat that the Enemy's plan of attack
that same morning had been frustrated, and most of his forces so badly
shattered and demoralized that he dared not follow up the advantage
which, more by our own blunders than by his prowess, he had gained.

If the Union forces--or at least the Right Wing of them--were whipped,
the Enemy also was whipped.  Jackson himself confesses that while he
had, at the last moment, broken our centre, our forces had turned both
of his flanks.  The Enemy was, in fact, so badly used up, that he not
only dared not pursue us to Washington--as he would have down had he
been able--but he was absolutely afraid McDowell would resume the
attack, on the right of the original Bull Run line, that very night!
For, in a letter to General Beauregard; dated Richmond, Virginia, August
4, 1861, Jefferson Davis,--who was on the ground at Bull Run, July
21st,--alluding to the Battle of Bull Run, and Beauregard's excuses for
not pursuing the Union troops, says:

"I think you are unjust to yourself in putting your failure to pursue
the Enemy to Washington, to the account of short supplies of subsistence
and transportation.  Under the circumstances of our Army, and in the
absence of the knowledge since acquired--if, indeed, the statements be
true--it would have been extremely hazardous to have done more than was
performed.  You will not fail to remember that, so far from knowing that
the Enemy was routed, a large part of our forces was moved by you, in
the night of the 21st, to repel a supposed attack upon our right, and
the next day's operations did not fully reveal what has since been
reported of the Enemy's panic."

And Jefferson Davis's statement is corroborated by the Report of Colonel
Withers, of the 18th Virginia, who, after starting with other regiments,
in an attempt to cut off the Union retreat, was recalled to the Stone
Bridge,--and who says: "Before reaching the point we designed to occupy
(near the Stone Bridge) we were met by another order to march
immediately to Manassas Junction, as an attack was apprehended that
night.  Although it was now after sunset, and my men had had no food all
day, when the command to march to Manassas was given, they cheerfully
took the route to that place."

Colonel Davies, who, as we have seen, commanded McDowell's stubborn Left
Wing, was after all, not far wrong, when, in his testimony before the
Committee on the Conduct of the War, he declared, touching the story of
the Bull Run Battle: "It ought to have read that we were victorious with
the 13,000 troops of the Left Wing, and defeated in the 18,000 of the
Right Wing.  That is all that Bull Run amounts to."

In point of fact, the Battle of Bull Run--the first pitched battle of
the War--was a drawn battle.

War was now fully inaugurated--Civil War--a stupendous War between two
great Sections of one common Country; those of our People, on the one
side, fighting for the dissolution of the Union--and incidentally for
Free Trade, and for Slavery; those on the other side, fighting for the
preservation of the Union--and incidentally for Protection to our Free
Industries, and for the Freedom of the Slave.

As soon as the Republican Party controlled both Houses of Congress it
provided Protection to our Free Industries, and to the Free Labor
engaged in them, by the Morill Tariff Act of 1860--the foundation Act of
all subsequent enactments on the subject.  In subsequent pages of this
work we shall see how the Freedom of the Slave was also accomplished by
the same great Party.





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Conspiracy, Part 3.
by John Alexander Logan

*** 