Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

CHAPTER VII. "ON TO RICHMOND."

Mr. Lincoln having called a special session of Congress, the two Houses met on the 4th of July, 1861. There were many vacant seats, but some of those who sympathized with the South lingered that they might throw obstacles before any attempt at coercion. Meanwhile the Abolitionists, who feared a compromise and a reconciliation, echoed the shout "On to Richmond!" The "Grand Army of the Union," hastily organized into brigades and divisions, was placed under the command of General Irwin McDowell, a gallant soldier, entirely destitute in the experience of handling large bodies of men. The troops thus brigaded had never even been manoeuvred together, nor had their commander any personal knowledge of many of the officers or men. But the politicians at the Capitol insisted on an immediate advance. They saw with admiration the gallant appearance of the well-equipped regiments that were to compose the advancing column, and they believed, or professed to believe, that it could easily march "On to Richmond!"

On Sunday, July 21st, 1861, the "Grand Army of the Union" began its forward march. The sun rose in a cloudless sky, and the advancing columns of Union soldiers, with glistening bayonets and gay flags, moved with measured tread through the primeval forests of the Old Dominion, apparently as resistless as the sweep of destiny. Meanwhile there drove out from Washington to General McDowell's headquarters a crowd of Congressmen, correspondents, contractors, and camp-followers, who had come in a variety of vehicles to witness the fight, as they would have gone to see a horse-race or to witness a Fourth of July procession. The Congressmen did not hesitate to intrude themselves upon General McDowell, and to offer him their advice. Others, unpacking baskets of provisions, enjoyed their lunches after the cannonading had commenced.

There was brave fighting on both sides in the Bull Run Valley, which became like a boiling crater, from which arose dense clouds of dust and smoke. At one time General Bee, well-nigh overwhelmed, greeted General Thomas J. Jackson with the exclamation, "General, they are beating us back!" To which the latter replied promptly, "Sir, we will give them the bayonet." General Bee immediately rallied his over-tasked troops, saying "There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer." From that day General Jackson was known by the soldiers on both sides as "Stonewall" Jackson.

The arrival of the force commanded by General Joe Johnston, which General Patterson had failed to hold in check, and the presence of President Jefferson Davis, inspired the Confederate troops with superhuman courage, while the Union regiments, badly officered, followed the example of the New York Zouaves, and fled in wild disorder. The panic became general, and disorder soon degenerated into a disgraceful retreat. The Confederates, however, found themselves in no condition to follow up the victory which they had gained, and to press on to Washington.

The rout of Bull Run, while it was a severe rebuke to the politicians who had forced it, secured the support of every loyal man in the Northern States for the Union cause, whatever his previous political convictions might have been. Practical issues were presented, and every man able to bear arms or to contribute money was animated by the sentiment uttered by Stephen A. Douglas in his last public speech, when he said: "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 Republicans or traitors."

The week after the Battle of Bull Run, Senator Breckinridge, who had retained his seat, made an appeal for the cessation of hostilities, speaking eloquently of the horrors of war, the cost of maintaining armies, the dangers of military despotism, and the impossibility of ever subjugating the South. He pleaded for peace with the rebels, and from the event of the great battle near Manassas he drew an augury of defeat to the cause of the Government on future battlefields.

Senator Baker was on the floor of the Senate for the first time in many days, having just come to Washington with his California Regiment, whom he had been busily engaged in organizing in Philadelphia and elsewhere, and at whose head he fell. The white-haired but vigorous and active Senator listened attentively to the sentiments and predictions of Breckinridge, pacing the Senate floor back and forth with his eyes fastened on him, and now and then chafing with visible impatience to reply. At length Breckinridge ceased, and Baker took the floor, and proceeded, with a skillful and unsparing hand, to dissect the sophistry and falsehood of the treason that had just been uttered.

"Sir," said he in conclusion, "it is not a question of men or of money. All the money, all the men, are, in our judgment, well bestowed in such a cause. Knowing their value well, we give them with the more pride and the more joy. But how could we retreat? How could we make peace? Upon what terms? Where is to be your boundary line? Where the end of the principles we shall have to give up? What will become of public liberties? What of past glories? What of future hopes? Shall we sink into the insignificance of the grave—a degraded, defeated, emasculated people, frightened by the results of one battle, and scared at the vision raised by the imagination of the Senator from Kentucky upon the floor? No, sir! a thousand times, no, sir! We will rally the people—the loyal people of the whole country. They will pour forth their treasure, their money, their men, without stint, without measure. Shall one battle determine the fate of empire, or a dozen—the loss of one thousand men or twenty thousand, or one hundred million or five hundred millions of dollars? In a year's peace—in ten years, at most, of peaceful progress—we can restore them all. There will be some graves reeking with blood, watered by the tears of affection. There will be some privation; there will be some loss of luxury; there will be somewhat more need for labor to procure the necessaries of life. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution—free government— with these there will return all the blessings of well-ordered civilization; the path of the country will be a career of greatness and of glory, such as, in the olden time, our fathers saw in the dim visions of years yet to come, and such as would have been ours now, to-day, if it had not been for the treason for which the Senator too often seeks to apologize." The orator took his seat after this lofty and impassioned appeal, little dreaming that he would be one of the first to fulfill his own prophecy.

Preparations for the war were now made in good earnest. Regiments were recruited for three years, and, on their arrival at Washington, were carefully inspected and organized into brigades and divisions, and officered by men of ability and military experience. Other forces were organized at the West, and the Administration of President Lincoln displayed remarkable energy in equipping the armies which were to act in different sections of the country, and in raising money for their support.