CHAPTER XV. A runaway crowd at Washington
A runaway crowd at Washington—The army of the Potomac in retreat—Mail-day—Want of order and authority—Newspaper lies—Alarm at Washington—Confederate prisoners—General M‘Clellan—M. Mercier—Effects of the defeat on Mr. Seward and the President—M‘Dowell— General Patterson.
July 22nd.—I awoke from a deep sleep this morning, about six o’clock. The rain was falling in torrents and beat with a dull, thudding sound on the leads outside my window; but, louder than all, came a strange sound, as if of the tread of men, a confused tramp and splashing, and a murmuring of voices. I got up and ran to the front room, the windows of which looked on the street, and there, to my intense surprise, I saw a steady stream of men covered with mud, soaked through with rain, who were pouring irregularly, without any semblance of order, up Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Capitol. A dense stream of vapour rose from the multitude; but looking closely at the men, I perceived they belonged to different regiments, New Yorkers, Michiganders, Rhode Islanders, Massachusetters, Minnesotians, mingled pellmell together. Many of them were without knapsacks, crossbelts, and firelocks. Some had neither great-coats nor shoes, others were covered with blankets. Hastily putting on my clothes, I ran down stairs and asked an “officer,” who was passing by, a pale young man, who looked exhausted to death, and who had lost his sword, for the empty sheath dangled at his side, where the men were coming from. “Where from? Well, sir, I guess we’re all coming out of Verginny as far as we can, and pretty well whipped too.” “What! the whole army, sir?” “That’s more than I know. They may stay that like. I know I’m going home. I’ve had enough of fighting to last my lifetime.”
The news seemed incredible. But there, before my eyes, were the jaded, dispirited, broken remnants of regiments passing onwards, where and for what I knew not, and it was evident enough that the mass of the grand army of the Potomac was placing that river between it and the enemy as rapidly as possible. “Is there any pursuit?” I asked of several men. Some were too surly to reply; others said, “They’re coming as fast as they can after us.” Others, “I guess they’ve stopped it now—the rain is too much for them.” A few said they did not know, and looked as if they did not care. And here came one of these small crises in which a special correspondent would give a good deal for the least portion of duality in mind or body. A few sheets of blotted paper and writing materials lying on the table beside the burnt-out candles, reminded me that the imperious post-day was running on. “The mail for Europe, viâ Boston, closes at one o’clock, Monday, July 22nd,” stuck up in large characters, warned me I had not a moment to lose. I knew the event would be of the utmost interest in England, and that it would be important to tell the truth as far as I knew it, leaving the American papers to state their own case, that the public might form their own conclusions.
But then, I felt, how interesting it would be to ride out and watch the evacuation of the sacred soil of Virginia, to see what the enemy were doing, to examine the situation of affairs, to hear what the men said, and, above all, find out the cause of this retreat and headlong confusion, investigate the extent of the Federal losses and the condition of the wounded; in fact, to find materials for a dozen of letters. I would fain, too, have seen General Scott, and heard his opinions, and have visited the leading senators, to get a notion of the way in which they looked on this catastrophe.—“I do perceive here a divided duty.”—But the more I reflected on the matter the more strongly I became convinced that it would not be advisable to postpone the letter, and that the events of the 21st ought to have precedence of those of the 22nd, and so I stuck up my usual notice on the door outside of “Mr. Russell is out,” and resumed my letter.
Whilst the rain fell, the tramp of feet went steadily on. As I lifted my eyes now and then from the paper, I saw the beaten, foot-sore, spongy-looking soldiers, officers, and all the debris of the army filing through mud and rain, and forming in crowds in front of the spirit stores. Underneath my room is the magazine of Jost, negociant en vins, and he drives a roaring trade this morning, interrupted occasionally by loud disputes as to the score. When the lad came in with my breakfast he seemed a degree or two lighter in colour than usual. “What’s the matter with you?” “I ’spects, massa, the Seceshers soon be in here. I’m a free nigger; I must go, sar, afore de come cotch me.” It is rather pleasant to be neutral under such circumstances.
I speedily satisfied myself I could not finish my letter in time for post, and I therefore sent for my respectable Englishman to go direct to Boston by the train which leaves this at four o’clock to-morrow morning, so as to catch the mail steamer on Wednesday, and telegraphed to the agents there to inform them of my intention of doing so. Visitors came knocking at the door, and insisted on getting in—military friends who wanted to give me their versions of the battle—the attachés of legations and others who desired to hear the news and have a little gossip; but I turned a deaf ear doorwards, and they went off into the outer rain again.
More draggled, more muddy, and down-hearted, and foot-weary and vapid, the great army of the Potomac still straggled by. Towards evening I seized my hat and made off to the stable to inquire how the poor horse was. There he stood, nearly as fresh as ever, a little tucked up in the ribs, but eating heartily, and perfectly sound. A change had come over Mr. Wroe’s dream of horseflesh. “They’ll be going cheap now,” thought he, and so he said aloud, “If you’d like to buy that horse, I’d let you have him a little under what I said. Dear! dear! it must a’ been a sight sure-ly to see them Yankees running; you can scarce get through the Avenue with them.”
And what Mr. W. says is quite true. The rain has abated a little, and the pavements are densely packed with men in uniform, some with, others without, arms, on whom the shopkeepers are looking with evident alarm. They seem to be in possession of all the spirit-houses. Now and then shots are heard down the street or in the distance, and cries and shouting, as if a scuffle or a difficulty were occurring. Willard’s is turned into a barrack for officers, and presents such a scene in the hall as could only be witnessed in a city occupied by a demoralised army. There is no provost guard, no patrol, no authority visible in the streets. General Scott is quite overwhelmed by the affair, and is unable to stir. General M‘Dowell has not yet arrived. The Secretary of War knows not what to do, Mr. Lincoln is equally helpless, and Mr. Seward, who retains some calmness, is, notwithstanding his military rank and militia experience, without resource or expedient. There are a good many troops hanging on about the camps and forts on the other side of the river, it is said; but they are thoroughly disorganised, and will run away if the enemy comes in sight without a shot, and then the capital must fall at once. Why Beauregard does not come I know not, nor can I well guess. I have been expecting every hour since noon to hear his cannon. Here is a golden opportunity. If the Confederates do not grasp that which will never come again on such terms, it stamps them with mediocrity.
The morning papers are quite ignorant of the defeat, or affect to be unaware of it, and declare yesterday’s battle to have been in favour of the Federals generally, the least arrogant stating that M‘Dowell will resume his march from Centreville immediately. The evening papers, however, seem to be more sensible of the real nature of the crisis: it is scarcely within the reach of any amount of impertinence or audacious assertion to deny what is passing before their very eyes. The grand army of the Potomac is in the streets of Washington, instead of being on its way to Richmond. One paper contains a statement which would make me uneasy about myself if I had any confidence in these stories, for it is asserted “that Mr. Russell was last seen in the thick of the fight, and has not yet returned. Fears are entertained for his safety.”
Towards dark the rain moderated and the noise in the streets waxed louder; all kinds of rumours respecting the advance of the enemy, the annihilation of Federal regiments, the tremendous losses on both sides, charges of cavalry, stormings of great intrenchments and stupendous masked batteries, and elaborate reports of unparalleled feats of personal valour, were circulated under the genial influence of excitement, and by the quantities of alcohol necessary to keep out the influence of the external moisture. I did not hear one expression of confidence, or see one cheerful face in all that vast crowd which but a few days before constituted an army, and was now nothing better than a semi-armed mob. I could see no cannon returning, and to my inquiries after them, I got generally the answer, “I suppose the Seceshers have got hold of them.”
Whilst I was at table several gentlemen who have entrée called on me, who confirmed my impressions respecting the magnitude of the disaster that is so rapidly developing its proportions. They agree in describing the army as disorganised. Washington is rendered almost untenable, in consequence of the conduct of the army, which was not only to have defended it, but to have captured the rival capital. Some of my visitors declared it was dangerous to move abroad in the streets. Many think the contest is now over; but the gentlemen of Washington have Southern sympathies, and I, on the contrary, am persuaded this prick in the great Northern balloon will let out a quantity of poisonous gas, and rouse the people to a sense of the nature of the conflict on which they have entered. The inmates of the White House are in a state of the utmost trepidation, and Mr. Lincoln, who sat in the telegraph operator’s room with General Scott and Mr. Seward, listening to the dispatches as they arrived from the scene of action, left it in despair when the fatal words tripped from the needle and the defeat was clearly revealed to him.
Having finally cleared my room of visitors and locked the door, I sat down once more to my desk, and continued my narrative. The night wore on, and the tumult still reigned in the city. Once, indeed, if not twice, my attention was aroused by sounds like distant cannon and outbursts of musketry, but on reflection I was satisfied the Confederate general would never be rash enough to attack the place by night, and that, after all the rain which had fallen, he in all probability would give horses and men a day’s rest, marching them through the night, so as to appear before the city in the course of to-morrow. Again and again I was interrupted by soldiers clamouring for drink and for money, attracted by the light in my windows; one or two irrepressible and irresistible friends actually succeeded in making their way into my room—just as on the night when I was engaged in writing an account of the last attack on the Redan my hut was stormed by visitors, and much of my letter was penned under the apprehension of a sharp pair of spurs fixed in the heels of a jolly little adjutant, who, overcome by fatigue and rum-and-water, fell asleep in my chair, with his legs cocked up on my writing-table—but I saw the last of them about midnight, and so continued writing till the morning light began to steal through the casement. Then came the trusty messenger, and, at 3 a.m., when I had handed him the parcel and looked round to see all my things were in readiness, lest a rapid toilet might be necessary in the morning, with a sigh of relief I plunged into bed, and slept.
July 23rd.—The morning was far advanced when I awoke, and hearing the roll of waggons in the street, I at first imagined the Federals were actually about to abandon Washington itself; but on going to the window, I perceived it arose from an irregular train of commissariat carts, country waggons, ambulances, and sutlers’ vans, in the centre of the street, the paths being crowded as before with soldiers, or rather with men in uniform, many of whom seemed as if they had been rolling in the mud. Poor General Mansfield was running back and forwards between his quarters and the War Department, and in the afternoon some efforts were made to restore order, by appointing rendezvous to which the fragment of regiments should repair, and by organising mounted patrols to clear the streets. In the middle of the day I went out through the streets, and walked down to the long bridge with the intention of crossing, but it was literally blocked up from end to end with a mass of waggons and ambulances full of wounded men, whose cries of pain echoed above the shouts of the drivers, so that I abandoned the attempt to get across, which, indeed, would not have been easy with any comfort, owing to the depth of mud in the roads. To-day the aspect of Washington is more unseemly and disgraceful, if that were possible, than yesterday afternoon.
As I returned towards my lodgings a scene of greater disorder and violence than usual attracted my attention. A body of Confederate prisoners, marching two and two, were with difficulty saved by their guard from the murderous assaults of a hooting rabble, composed of civilians and men dressed like soldiers, who hurled all kinds of missiles they could lay their hands upon over the heads of the guard at their victims, spattering them with mud and filthy language. It was very gratifying to see the way in which the dastardly mob dispersed at the appearance of a squad of mounted men, who charged them boldly, and escorted the prisoners to General Mansfield. They consisted of a picket or grand guard, which, unaware of the retreat of their regiment from Fairfax, marched into the Federal lines before the battle. Their just indignation was audible enough. One of them, afterwards, told General M‘Dowell, who hurried over as soon as he was made aware of the disgraceful outrages to which they had been exposed, “I would have died a hundred deaths before I fell into these wretches’ hands, if I had known this. Set me free for five minutes, and let any two, or four, of them insult me when my hands are loose.”
Soon afterwards a report flew about that a crowd of soldiers were hanging a Secessionist. A senator rushed to General M‘Dowell, and told him that he had seen the man swinging with his own eyes. Off went the General, ventre à terre, and was considerably relieved by finding that they were hanging merely a dummy or effigy of Jeff. Davis, not having succeeded in getting at the original yesterday.
Poor M‘Dowell has been swiftly punished for his defeat, or rather for the unhappy termination to his advance. As soon as the disaster was ascertained beyond doubt, the President telegraphed to General M‘Clellan to come and take command of his army. It is a commentary full of instruction on the military system of the Americans, that they have not a soldier who has ever handled a brigade in the field fit for service in the North.
The new commander-in-chief is a brevet-major who has been in civil employ on a railway for several years. He went once, with two other West Point officers, commissioned by Mr. Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, to examine and report on the operations in the Crimea, who were judiciously despatched when the war was over, and I used to see him and his companions poking about the ruins of the deserted trenches and batteries, mounted on horses furnished by the courtesy of British officers, just as they lived in English quarters, when they were snubbed and refused an audience by the Duke of Malakhoff in the French camp. Major M‘Clellan forgot the affront, did not even mention it, and showed his Christian spirit by praising the allies, and damning John Bull with very faint applause, seasoned with lofty censure. He was very young, however, at the time, and is so well spoken of that his appointment will be popular; but all that he has done to gain such reputation and to earn the confidence of the government, is to have had some skirmishes with bands of Confederates in Western Virginia, in which the leader, Garnett, was killed, his “forces” routed, and finally, to the number of a thousand, obliged to surrender as prisoners of war. That success, however, at such a time is quite enough to elevate any man to the highest command. M‘Clellan is about thirty-six years of age, was educated at West Point, where he was junior to M‘Dowell, and a class-fellow of Beauregard.
I dined with M. Mercier, the French minister, who has a prettily situated house on the heights of Georgetown, about a mile and a-half from the city. Lord Lyons, Mr. Monson, his private secretary, M. Baroche, son of the French minister, who has been exploiting the Southern states, were the only additions to the family circle. The minister is a man in the prime of life, of more than moderate ability, with a rapid manner and quickness of apprehension. Ever since I first met M. Mercier he has expressed his conviction that the North never can succeed in conquering the South, or even restoring the Union, and that an attempt to do either by armed force must end in disaster. He is the more confirmed in his opinions by the result of Sunday’s battle, but the inactivity of the Confederates gives rise to the belief that they suffered seriously in the affair. M. Baroche has arrived at the conviction, without reference to the fate of the Federals in their march to Richmond, that the Union is utterly gone—as dead as the Achaian league.
Whilst Madame Mercier and her friends are conversing on much more agreeable subjects, the men hold a tobacco council under the shade of the magnificent trees, and France, Russia, and minor powers talk politics, Lord Lyons alone not joining in the nicotian controversy. Beneath us flowed the Potomac, and on the wooded heights at the other side, the Federal flag rose over Fort Corcoran and Arlington House, from which the grand army had set forth a few days ago to crush rebellion and destroy its chiefs. There, sad, anxious, and despairing, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward were at that very moment passing through the wreck of the army, which, silent as ruin itself, took no notice of their presence.
It had been rumoured that the Confederates were advancing, and the President and the Foreign Minister set out in a carriage to see with their own eyes the state of the troops. What they beheld filled them with despair. The plateau was covered with the men of different regiments, driven by the patrols out of the city, or arrested in their flight at the bridges. In Fort Corcoran the men were in utter disorder, threatening to murder the officer of regulars who was essaying to get them into some state of efficiency to meet the advancing enemy. He had menaced one of the officers of the 69th with death for flat disobedience to orders; the men had taken the part of their captain; and the President drove into the work just in time to witness the confusion. The soldiers with loud cries demanded that the officer should be punished, and the President asked him why he had used such violent language towards his subordinate. “I told him, Mr. President, that if he refused to obey my orders I would shoot him on the spot; and I here repeat it, sir, that if I remain in command here, and he or any other man refuses to obey my orders, I’ll shoot him on the spot.”
The firmness of Sherman’s language and demeanour in presence of the chief of the State overawed the mutineers, and they proceeded to put the work in some kind of order to resist the enemy.
Mr. Seward was deeply impressed by the scene, and retired with the President to consult as to the best course to pursue, in some dejection, but they were rather comforted by the telegrams from all parts of the North, which proved that, though disappointed and surprised, the people were not disheartened or ready to relinquish the contest.
The accounts of the battle in the principal journals are curiously inaccurate and absurd. The writers have now recovered themselves. At first they yielded to the pressure of facts and to the accounts of their correspondents. They admitted the repulse, the losses, the disastrous retreat, the loss of guns, in strange contrast to their prophecies and wondrous hyperboles about the hyperbolic grand army. Now they set themselves to stem the current they have made. Let any one read the New York journals for the last week, if he wishes to frame an indictment against such journalism as the people delight to honour in America.
July 24th.—I rode out before breakfast in company with Mr. Monson across the Long Bridge over to Arlington House. General M‘Dowell was seated at a table under a tree in front of his tent, and got out his plans and maps to explain the scheme of battle.
Cast down from his high estate, placed as a subordinate to his junior, covered with obloquy and abuse, the American General displayed a calm self-possession and perfect amiability which could only proceed from a philosophic temperament and a consciousness that he would outlive the calumnies of his countrymen. He accused nobody; but it was not difficult to perceive he had been sacrificed to the vanity, self-seeking, and disobedience of some of his officers, and to radical vices in the composition of his army.
When M‘Dowell found he could not turn the enemy’s right as he intended, because the country by the Occoquan was unfit for the movements of artillery, or even infantry, he reconnoitred the ground towards their left, and formed the project of turning it by a movement which would bring the weight of his columns on their extreme left, and at the same time overlap it, whilst a strong demonstration was made on the ford at Bull’s Run, where General Tyler brought on the serious skirmish of the 18th. In order to carry out this plan, he had to debouch his columns from a narrow point at Centreville, and march them round by various roads to points on the upper part of the Run, where it was fordable in all directions, intending to turn the enemy’s batteries on the lower roads and bridges. But although he started them at an early hour, the troops moved so slowly the Confederates became aware of their design, and were enabled to concentrate considerable masses of troops on their left.
The Federals were not only slow, but disorderly. The regiments in advance stopped at streams to drink and fill their canteens, delaying the regiments in the rear. They wasted their provisions, so that many of them were without food at noon, when they were exhausted by the heat of the sun and by the stifling vapours of their own dense columns. When they at last came into action some divisions were not in their places, so that the line of battle was broken; and those which were in their proper position were exposed, without support, to the enemy’s fire. A delusion of masked batteries pressed on their brain. To this was soon added a hallucination about cavalry, which might have been cured had the Federals possessed a few steady squadrons to manœuvre on their flanks and in the intervals of their line. Nevertheless, they advanced and encountered the enemy’s fire with some spirit; but the Confederates were enabled to move up fresh battalions, and to a certain extent to establish an equality between the numbers of their own troops and the assailants, whilst they had the advantages of better cover and ground. An apparition of a disorderly crowd of horsemen in front of the much-boasting Fire Zouaves of New York threw them into confusion and flight, and a battery which they ought to have protected was taken. Another battery was captured by the mistake of an officer, who allowed a Confederate regiment to approach the guns, thinking they were Federal troops, till their first volley destroyed both horses and gunners. At the critical moment, General Johnston, who had escaped from the feeble observation and untenacious grip of General Patterson and his time-expired volunteers, and had been hurrying down his troops from Winchester by train, threw his fresh battalions on the flank and rear of the Federal right. When the General ordered a retreat, rendered necessary by the failure of the attack—disorder spread, which increased—the retreat became a flight which degenerated—if a flight can degenerate—into a panic, the moment the Confederates pressed them with a few cavalry and horse artillery. The efforts of the Generals to restore order and confidence were futile. Fortunately a weak reserve was posted at Centreville, and these were formed in line on the slope of the hill, whilst M‘Dowell and his officers exerted themselves with indifferent success to arrest the mass of the army, and make them draw up behind the reserve, telling the men a bold front was their sole chance of safety. At midnight it became evident the morale of the army was destroyed, and nothing was left but a speedy retrograde movement, with the few regiments and guns which were in a condition approaching to efficiency, upon the defensive works of Washington.
Notwithstanding the reverse of fortune, M‘Dowell did not appear willing to admit his estimate of the Southern troops was erroneous, or to say “Change armies, and I’ll fight the battle over again.” He still held Mississippians, Alabamians, Louisianians, very cheap, and did not see, or would not confess, the full extent of the calamity which had fallen so heavily on him personally. The fact of the evening’s inactivity was conclusive in his mind that they had a dearly bought success, and he looked forward, though in a subordinate capacity, to a speedy and glorious revenge.
July 25th.—The unfortunate General Patterson, who could not keep Johnston from getting away from Winchester, is to be dismissed the service—honourably, of course—that is, he is to be punished because his men would insist on going home in face of the enemy, as soon as their three months were up, and that time happened to arrive just as it would be desirable to operate against the Confederates. The latter have lost their chance. The Senate, the House of Representatives, the Cabinet, the President, are all at their ease once more, and feel secure in Washington. Up to this moment the Confederates could have taken it with very little trouble. Maryland could have been roused to arms, and Baltimore would have declared for them. The triumph of the non-aggressionists, at the head of whom is Mr. Davis, in resisting the demands of the party which urges an actual invasion of the North as the best way of obtaining peace, may prove to be very disastrous. Final material results must have justified the occupation of Washington.
I dined at the Legation, where were Mr. Sumner and some English visitors desirous of going South. Lord Lyons gives no encouragement to these adventurous persons.
July 26th.—Whether it is from curiosity to hear what I have to say or not, the number of my visitors is augmenting. Among them was a man in soldier’s uniform, who sauntered into my room to borrow “five or ten dollars,” on the ground that he was a waiter at the Clarendon Hotel when I was stopping there, and wanted to go North, as his time was up. His anecdotes were stupendous. General Meigs and Captain Macomb, of the United States Engineers, paid me a visit, and talked of the disaster very sensibly. The former is an able officer, and an accomplished man—the latter, son, I believe, of the American general of that name, distinguished in the war with Great Britain. I had a long conversation with General M‘Dowell, who bears his supercession with admirable fortitude, and complains of nothing, except the failure of his officers to obey orders, and the hard fate which condemned him to lead an army of volunteers—Captain Wright, aide-de-camp to General Scott, Lieutenant Wise, of the Navy, and many others. The communications received from the Northern States have restored the spirits of all Union men, and not a few declare they are glad of the reverse, as the North will now be obliged to put forth all its strength.