On the night of May 23d, orders were given for an advance to the troops designed for this expedition, numbering in all about 13,000, and at ten o’clock an advance guard of picked men moved cautiously over the bridge. Sent to reconnoitre, their commands were imperative that if assaulted they were to signalize for reinforcements, which would be speedily furnished by a corps of infantry and a battery. At twelve o’clock the regiment of infantry, the artillery and the cavalry corps began to muster, and as fast as they were prepared, proceeded to the Long Bridge, the portion of the force then in Washington being directed to take that route. The troops quartered at Georgetown, comprising the Fifth, Eighth, Twenty-eighth and Sixty-ninth New York, also proceeded across the Chain Bridge, under the command of General McDowell.
At half-past one o’clock, six companies of District Volunteers, including the National Rifles, and Turners, stepped from the Long Bridge upon Virginia soil. To capture the enemy’s patrols by the means of boats had been the original plan, but the bright moonlight prevented it. This vanguard was commanded by Inspector-General Stone, under whom Captain Smead led the centre, Adjutant Abbott the left, and Captain Stewart the right wing. When within half a mile of Alexandria, they halted and awaited the arrival of the main body.
The remainder of the army crossed in the following order: The Twelfth and Twenty-fifth New York, First Michigan, and First, Second, Third, and Fourth New Jersey; two regular cavalry corps of eighty men each, and Sherman’s two batteries; next and last came the New York Seventh. General Mansfield directed the movements of the troops. At a quarter to four the last of the forces left, and fifteen minutes later Major-General Sanford, accompanied by his staff, proceeded to Virginia to assume the command.
The famous Sixty-ninth New York, after crossing the river below Georgetown, took position on the Orange and Manassas Gap railroad, and surrounded and captured the train from Alexandria, with a large number of passengers, of which a few, known to be violent secession partizans, were retained as prisoners.
As the Michigan regiment, accompanied by two guns of Sherman’s renowned battery, and a company of regular cavalry, marched into the town, a detachment of thirty-five rebel horsemen were found preparing to mount. The battery came up the street towards them like a whirlwind, and they soon surrendered.
The New York Fire Zouaves, under the command of Colonel E. E. Ellsworth, were conveyed in steamers, and as the day was dawning their dashing uniform and fearless faces flashed upon the citizens of Alexandria. Not until they had landed did the rebel sentinels discover them, and then, after firing their muskets as a signal of warning, they hastened to alarm the sleeping city.
Little need had those brave and untameable “fire fighters” of directions. The master spirit of all their movements had imbued them with feelings akin to his own. They knew their duty, and men trained as they had been in a severe school of danger, could never be backward in performing it. Ellsworth, who, as it might seem, with the shadows of death already gathering around him, could sit calmly down in the dim midnight, after addressing his men in a brief and stirring speech, announcing the orders to march on Alexandria, closing with the well remembered words, “Now boys, go to bed and wake up at two o’clock for a sail and a skirmish;” and after arranging the business of his regiment, pen letters that seemed “as if the mystical gales from the near eternity must have breathed for a moment over his soul, freighted with the odor of amaranths and asphodels”—needed none to tell him of his duty or to urge him to its even rash fulfilment.
In the early light of morning he entered the rebel town. A secession flag waved defiantly from the Marshall House, and with the fiery enthusiasm of his nature, Ellsworth rushed to tear down the hated emblem of enmity to the Union he loved so well. With his own hand he tore the flag from its fastening, and descending the stairs flushed with the pride of success, came upon his fate. A musket in the hands of the proprietor, J. W. Jackson, pealed his death-knell, and he sealed the glories of that too well remembered morning, with his heart’s blood.
ASSASSINATION OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.