History of the United States, Volume 3

by Elisha Benjamin Andrews

CHAPTER IV.
WAR BEGUN
[1861]
It was now apparent to both North and South that war was inevitable. Yet
neither side believed the other in full earnest or dreamed of a long
struggle. Sanguine northerners looked to see the rebellion stamped out
in thirty days. The more cautious allowed three months.
The President, however, soon saw that more troops, enlisted for a longer
term, would be necessary. At the outset the South certainly possessed
decided advantages: greater earnestness, more men of leisure aching for
war and accustomed to saddle and firearms, a militia better organized,
owing to fear of slave insurrections, and now for a long time in special
training, and withal a certain soldierly fire and dash native to the
people. The South also had superior arms. Enlistments there were prompt
and abundant. The troops were ably commanded, 262 of the 951 regular
army officers whom secession found in service, including many very high
in rank, joining their States in the new cause, besides a large number
of West Point graduates from civil life.
Accordingly on May 3d Mr. Lincoln issued a new call for troops, 42,000
volunteers to serve three years or during the war, 23,000 regulars, and
18,000 seamen. It was of first importance to secure Maryland for the
Union. On the night of May 13th, under cover of a thunderstorm, General
Butler suddenly entered rebellious Baltimore with less than 1,000 men,
and entrenched upon Federal Hill. Overawed by this bold move, the
secessionists made no resistance. A political reaction soon set in
throughout the State, which became firmly Unionist. Baltimore was once
more open to the passage of troops, who kept steadily hurrying to the
front.
Meanwhile the Confederate forces were getting uncomfortably close to
Washington. From the White House a secession flag could be seen flying
at Alexandria, which was occupied by a small pro-secession garrison.
There was fear lest that party would occupy Arlington Heights, across
from Washington, and thence pour shot and shell into the city. At two
o'clock on the morning of May 24th, eight regiments crossed the Potomac
and took possession of these hills as far south as Alexandria, and
fortified them. The latter place was entered by Colonel Ellsworth with
his famous New York Zouaves. No resistance was made, as the Confederates
had retired, but Ellsworth was brutally assassinated while hauling down
the secession flag.

Captain Nathaniel Lyon.
Upon the secession of Virginia the Confederate capital was removed to
Richmond. The main armies of both sides were now encamped on Old
Dominion soil, and at no great distance apart; but the commanders were
busy drilling their raw troops, so that for a time only trifling
engagements occurred. General Butler, with a considerable body of men,
was occupying Fortress Monroe, at the mouth of the James River. June
10th, an expedition sent by him against the Confederates at Big Bethel,
some twelve miles distant, was repulsed after a spirited attack, with a
total loss of sixty-eight. A week later an Ohio regiment took the cars
to make a reconnoissance toward Vienna, a village not far south of
Washington. They were surprised by Confederates, who placed two guns on
the track and fired on the train as it came around a curve. The Ohioans
sprang to the ground, and after some fighting drove their opponents
back.
All this time both North and South were struggling for possession of the
neutral States. Governor Jackson, of Missouri, was straining every nerve
to force his State into secession. Early in May two or three regiments
of militia were got together and drilled in a camp near St. Louis.
Cannon were sent by President Davis, boxed up and marked "marble."
Captain Lyon, of the regular army, who held the St. Louis arsenal with a
few companies, reconnoitred the secessionist camp in female dress. The
next day, May 10th, assisted by local militia, he suddenly surrounded it
and took 1,200 prisoners. A month later he embarked some soldiers on
three swift steamers, sailed up the Missouri to Jefferson City, the
state capital, and raised the Union flag once more over the State House.
Governor Jackson fled. During the next month all the armed disunionists
were driven into the southwestern part of the State.

General John C. Fremont.
The last of July a state convention organized a provisional government
and declared for the Union. But the secessionists, under General Price,
continued the struggle. The Union forces, after a brave fight against
great odds at Wilson's Creek, August 10th, in which Lyon was killed, had
to retreat north. General Fremont had shortly before been put at the
head of the Western Department, which included Missouri, Kentucky,
Illinois, and Kansas. His difficulties were great. He was unable to
clear the State of secessionists, who besieged Lexington and took it on
September 20th. Generals Hunter and Halleck, Fremont's successors, were
equally unsuccessful, and the State was harassed by a petty warfare all
the year.
In Kentucky, Governor Magoffin was inclined to secession. The
Legislature leaned the other way, but preferred neutrality to active
participation on either side. September 6th, Brigadier-General U. S.
Grant occupied Paducah, an important strategical point at the junction
of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. Next day the Confederate General Polk,
advancing from below, took possession of Columbus on the Mississippi.
With both hostile armies thus encamped on her soil, Kentucky could no
longer be neutral. Her decision was quickly taken. The Legislature
demanded of President Davis to withdraw Polk's forces, at the same time
calling upon General Anderson, the hero of Sumter, who had been placed
in charge of the Department of the Cumberland, to take active measures
for the defence of this his native State.
The mountain portion of Virginia belonged to the West rather than to the
South. It contained only 18,000 slaves, against nearly 500,000 in
Eastern Virginia. Union sentiment was therefore strong, and when the old
State seceded from the Union, Western Virginia proceeded to secede from
the State. General Lee sent troops to hold it for the Confederacy.
Thereupon General McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio,
threw several regiments across the river into Virginia, and defeated the
foe in minor engagements at Philippi, Rich Mountain, and Carrick's Ford.
By the middle of July he was able to report, "Secession is killed in
this country." Later in the year the Confederates renewed their
attempts, but were finally driven out. West Virginia organized a
separate government, and was subsequently admitted to the Union as a
State by itself.

Bull Run--the Field of Strategy.
While these struggles were going on in the border commonwealths, the
Union soldiers lay inactive along the Potomac. Constant drill had
changed the mob into some semblance of an organized army, but the
careful Scott feared to risk a general engagement. The hostile forces
stretched in three pairs of groups across Virginia from northwest to
southeast. In the southeastern part of the State, at Fortress Monroe,
Butler faced the Confederate Magruder. At Manassas, opposite Washington,
and about thirty miles southwest, lay a Confederate army under General
Beauregard. General Patterson, a veteran of the War of 1812, commanded
considerable forces in Southern Pennsylvania. About the middle of June
he advanced against Harper's Ferry, which had been abandoned by the
Unionists the latter part of April and was now occupied by General
Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston evacuated the place upon Patterson's
approach, and retreated up the Shenandoah Valley, in a southwesterly
direction, to Winchester. Patterson followed part way, and the two
armies now lay watching each other.
Anxious to see the rebellion put down by one blow, the North was
becoming impatient. "On to Richmond!" was the ceaseless cry. Yielding to
this, Scott ordered an advance. July 16th, General McDowell, leaving one
division to protect Washington, led forth an army 28,000 strong to
attack the enemy at Manassas. He advanced slowly and with great caution.
The enemy were found posted in a line eight miles long upon the south
bank of Bull Run, a small river three miles east of Manassas, running in
a southeasterly direction. Several days were spent in reconnoitering.
Meanwhile, Johnston, whom Patterson was expected to hold at Winchester,
had stolen away to join Beauregard, their combined forces numbering
about 30,000. McDowell was ignorant of Johnston's movement, supposing
him still at Winchester.

General Irvin McDowell.
On the morning of the 21st McDowell advanced to the attack. Beauregard
held all the lower fords, besides a stone bridge on the Warrenton
turnpike which crosses the river at right angles. Two divisions, under
Hunter and Heintzelman, were set in motion before sunrise to make a
flanking detour and cross Bull Run at Sudley's Ford, some distance
farther up. To distract attention from this movement, Tyler's division
began an attack at the stone bridge. This was held by a regiment and a
half, with four guns, under General Evans. He replied vigorously at
first, but perceiving after a while that Tyler was only feigning, and
learning of the flank movement above, he left four companies at the
bridge and drew up the rest of his forces on a ridge north of Warrenton
turnpike to await Hunter and Heintzelman's approach down the Sudley
road.