52 THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. Manassas Junction.* At that hour a Union victory seemed assured. Beauregard's plan to make a ccunter at tack from his right flank against flank against Centreville had failed through the miscarriage of orders and, leaving Johnston at headquarters to watch the entire field of action, Beauregard hastened in person toward the field of battle in order to check the tide of defeat. As the troops retreated before the Union forces up the slope of the plateau about the Hunter house, they came upon T. J. Jackson's brigade standing in line calmly waiting the onset. It is stated by some that at this time Jackson won his sobriquet of "Stonewall."t Johnston, however, did not stay at headquarters, but rode furiously to the scene of action and impressively and gallantly charged to the front Iwith the colors of the 4th Alabama regiment at his side. It was high noon when the two Confederate generals appeared on the field, and from this time until 3 o'clock the battle 66 oppor Beauregard, who, as he says, was tunely informed" of McDowell's purpose to advance upon Manassas, claims it as a stroke of policy that his men retreated and thereby deceived McDowell as to his ulterior designs at Bull Run. Major Barnard, chief-engineer of the Army of the Potomac, has criticised this costly reconnaissance by General Tyler in severe terms, and pronounces that the affair had a bad effect upon the morale of the Union troops. Swinton (Army of the Potomac, p. 47) terms it "silly ambition on the part of Tyler to do as he did. It is so stated by Daniels, Dabney, Cooke and Mrs. Jackson, and by Henderson (Stonewall Jackson, vol. i., p. 178), but General D. H. Hill in the Century Magazine (February, 1894) says the tale is a sheer fabrication. In a letter to the surged. The troops on the line of Bull Run that had been held there by the demonstrations of two Union brigades designed to mask McDowell's turning movement, were ordered in haste to the new line which was at right angles to the first. The hottest part of the contest was for the possession of the Henry plateau. The Union troops had seized it, brought forward James B. Ricketts' and Charles Griffin's batteries of regulars, and placed them in an effective position. The Confederates tried to capture these batteries in two charges, but were repulsed. At 2 o'clock Beauregard gave the order to advance to recover the plateau. Jackson's brigade pierced the centre and the forward lines were broken and swept back from the open ground of the plateau. The Union troops rallied, however, recovered their ground, and drove the Confederates entirely from the plateau and beyond it out of sight. In this position the troops were, at 3 o'clock. At this time E. Kirby Smith's brigade of Johnston's army, editors, the Rev. James Power Smith, president of the Jackson Monument Association, says: "I was a private at my gun in the Rockbridge Artillery at the First Battle of Manassas with Jackson's command. I did not of course hear General Bee utter the famous words that gave Jackson his imperishable name. But I heard of it soon after. When the troops were broken and falling back, Gen. Bee cried, See, there stands Jackson like a stone wall- rally behind the Virginians!' I have always supposed that the appearance of Jackson's Virginia regiment, a long gray linestanding firm over the grassy slope suggested the word 'Stonewall' they looked like a stone wall." - From the original Brady negative. SECTION OF THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE FIRST BULL RUN OR MANASSAS, SHOWING THE ENTANGLEMENTS IN WHICH THE TROOPS FOUGHT. THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN. 2,300 strong, arrived on the field and was hurled at McDowell's right. Jubal A. Early's brigade of Beauregard's force, from the extreme right of his line, hastened beyond Smith's brigade now under the command of Colonel Arnold Elzey and, supported by J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry, appeared directly on the Union right flank. At the same time two regiments from Bonham and two from Cocke arrived upon the Union right, these being a part of Beauregard's army also. This turned the check which that portion of the Union line had received first into a retreat and then into a disorganized withdrawal. In vain did McDowell's officers attempt to rally the Union soldiers. The battalion of regular infantry alone obeyed commands, covering the volunteers' retreat until the columns were well off the field, the right retracing its long detour by Sudley Spring. The Confederates proceeded as far as Cub Run, half way to Centreville, where one of their batteries broke up the wagons and batteries on the bridge, compelling the abandonment of 13 guns. From this point the movement to the rear was still farther disorganized, to which condition the vehicles of many visitors, Congressmen, correspondents, and officials largely contributed. An attempt to rally the troops at Centreville failed, as did the attempt at Fairfax Court House. From the latter place McDowell telegraphed, "The larger part of the men are a confused mob, entirely demoral 53 ized.***. They are pouring through this place in a state of utter disorganization."'* The flight of the troops continued until they reached the fortifications south of the Potomac, and many soldiers retreated as far as Washington.† After the severe stress in which the Confederate leaders found themselves from 11 o'clock till about 3, the sudden change from a dashing assault to a general retreat and widespread panic was as much a surprise to the Confederate as to the Union commanders. Not until the second day after the battle did the Confederates ascertain the full extent of the Union stampede. Upon this point President Davis wrote Beauregard: "You will not fail to remember, so far from knowing that the enemy was routed, a * Official Records, vol. ii., p. 316. McDowell's strength at Centreville appears to have been about 28,000 men and 49 guns, but his report says he crossed Bull Run with about 18,000 men. A very careful estimate made from official records in 1884 by General James B. Fry, McDowell's adjutant-general at the battle, gives the number actually engaged as 17,676. General Beauregard reported his strength at the opening of the battle as 27,833 men and 49 guns, and after the arrival of Jackson's troops and Holmes' brigade in the afternoon as 31,972 men and 57 guns. An estimate by his adjutant-general, James Jordan, fixed the number actually engaged at 18,053, so that the two sides were about equal on the firing line. As reported, the Union loss was: killed, 460; wounded, 1,124; missing, 1,312; total, 2,896; while 29 guns were abandoned or captured. The Confederate loss was: killed, 387; wounded, 1,582; missing, 13; total, 1,982. Cf. these figures with those in Rhodes, United States, vol. iii., p. 450; Battles and Leaders, vol. i., p. 193; Official Records, vol. ii., pp. 327, 328, 570, 571; Pollard, First Year of the War, p. 101; Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. iv., p. 357. 54 EFFECT OF THE DISASTER IN THE NORTH. * Memoirs, p. 181. For other accounts, Battles and Leaders, vol. i., pp. 167-261; Roman, The Military Operations of General Beauregard in the War between the States; Early's account in Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i., p. 392 et seq.; Rhodes, United States, vol. iii., p. 444-452; Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, vol. iv., chap. xx.; Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, pp. 169-212; Duyckinck, Late Civil War, vol. i., pp. 402-416; T. C. C. (an English combatant), Battlefields of the South from Bull Run to Fredericksburg; George Baylor, Bull Run to Bull Run, or Four Years in the Army of Northern Virginia, etc. (1900); W. H. Russell, On the Battle of Bull Run (1861); Beauregard, A Commentary on the Campaign and Battle of Manassas of July, 1861 (1891); Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomattox; N. M. Curtis, From Bull Run to Chancellorsville (1906); Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations; biographies of Johnston by B. T. Johnston, and R. M. Hughes; biographies of Jackson by M. Addey (1863), R. L. Dabney (1866), J. E. Cooke (1866), Sarah N. Randolph (1876), G. F. R. Henderson (1898), C. Hovey (1900), J. Anderson (1904), D. D. White (1908), James H. Wood (1910); Confederate Military History, vol. i., pp. 416-420; vol. ii., pp. 54–57; vol. iii., pp. 91-122; vol. iv., pp. 21-24; vol. v., pp. 21-28; vol. vi., pp. 67-69. army was in full retreat through Centreville, that the day was lost, that the routed troops would not reform, and that Washington should be saved. He heard the crushing news with fortitude and without the slightest change of expression. The President's Cabinet then met at Scott's office to await further news. When a telegram from McDowell confirmed the disaster, the discussion turned on preparations for the future. All available troops were rushed forward to McDowell's support. Baltimore was put on the alert. Telegrams were sent to the recruiting stations in the North to forward their organized regiments to Washington, and McClellan was ordered, "to come down to the Shenandoah Valley with such troops as can be spared from Western Virginia." At night things seemed to grow worse. McDowell's first dispatch had indicated that he could hold Centreville, but his later dispatches showed that the army was completely demoralized and that there was no alternative but to fall back to the Potomac. When the Northern people learned the truth of the overwhelming disaster, dismay was in every heart. But the discouragement was of short duration. Only a few were disposed to give up the conquest, though it was perceived that instead of a short campaign the war would be long and |