On Fort Johnson: (1) Mortars—Capt. G. S. James and Lieut. W. H. Gibbes.
Immediately upon the fall of Sumter the most active and constant efforts were made by Governor Pickens and General Beauregard to repair and arm the fort, to strengthen the batteries defending the harbor, and to defend the city from an attack by the Stono river and James island. General Beauregard inspected the coast, and works of defense were begun on James island and at Port Royal harbor.
But South Carolina was now to enjoy freedom from attack, by land or sea, until early in November, and while her soldiers and her people were making ready her defense, and her sons were flocking to her standard in larger numbers than she could organize and arm, she was called upon to go to the help of Virginia. William H. Trescot, of South Carolina, in his beautiful memorial of Brig.-Gen. Johnston Pettigrew, has described the spirit with which "the youth and manhood of the South" responded to the call to arms, in language so true, so just and so eloquent, that the author of this sketch inserts it here. Writing more than five years after the close of the great struggle, Mr. Trescot said:
We who are the vanquished in this battle must of necessity leave to a calmer and wiser posterity to judge of the intrinsic worth of that struggle, as it bears upon the principles of constitutional liberty, and as it must affect the future history of the American people; but there is one duty not only possible but imperative, a duty which we owe alike to the living and the dead, and that is the preservation in perpetual and tender remembrance of the lives of those who, to use a phrase scarcely too sacred for so unselfish a sacrifice, died in the hope that we might live. Especially is this our duty, because in the South a choice between the parties and principles at issue was scarcely possible. From causes which it is exceedingly interesting to trace, but which I cannot now develop the feeling of State loyalty had acquired throughout the South an almost fanatic intensity; particularly in the old colonial States did this devotion to the State assume that blended character of affection and duty which gives in the old world such a chivalrous coloring to loyalty to the crown.... When, therefore, by the formal and constitutional act of the States, secession from the Federal government was declared in 1860 and 1861, it is almost impossible for any one not familiar with the habits and thoughts of the South, to understand how completely the question of duty was settled for Southern men. Shrewd, practical men who had no faith in the result, old and eminent men who had grown gray in service under the national flag, had their doubts and their misgivings; but there was no hesitation as to what they were to do. Especially to that great body of men, just coming into manhood, who were preparing to take their places as the thinkers and actors of the next generation, was this call of the State an imperative summons.
The fathers and mothers who had reared them; the society whose traditions gave both refinement and assurance to their young ambition; the colleges in which the creed of Mr. Calhoun was the text-book of their studies; the friends with whom they planned their future; the very land they loved, dear to them as thoughtless boys, dearer to them as thoughtful men, were all impersonate, living, speaking, commanding in the State of which they were children. Never in the history of the world has there been a nobler response to a more thoroughly recognized duty; nowhere anything more truly glorious than this outburst of the youth and manhood of the South.
And now that the end has come and we have seen it, it seems to me that to a man of humanity, I care not in what section his sympathies may have been matured, there never has been a sadder or sublimer spectacle than these earnest and devoted men, their young and vigorous columns marching through Richmond to the Potomac, like the combatants of ancient Rome, beneath the imperial throne in the amphitheater, and exclaiming with uplifted arms, "morituri te salutant."
President Lincoln had issued his proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers to coerce the South; Virginia had withdrawn from the Union, and before the end of April had called Lee, J. E. Johnston and Jackson into her service; the seat of the Confederate government had been transferred from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond; and early in May, General Beauregard was relieved from duty in South Carolina and ordered to the command of the Alexandria line, with headquarters at Manassas Junction. He had been preceded by General Bonham, then a Confederate brigadier, with the regiments of Colonels Gregg, Kershaw, Bacon, Cash, Jenkins and Sloan—First, Second, Seventh, Eighth, Fifth and Fourth South Carolina volunteers.
Before General Beauregard's arrival in Virginia, General Bonham with his Carolina troops had been placed in command of the Alexandria line, the regiments being at Fairfax Court House, and other points of this line, fronting Washington and Alexandria.
These South Carolina regiments were reinforced during the month of July by the Third, Colonel Williams; the Sixth, Colonel Rion, and the Ninth, Colonel Blanding. The infantry of the Hampton legion, under Col. Wade Hampton, reached the battlefield of Manassas on the morning of July 21st, but in time to take a full share in that decisive contest.
On the 20th of June, General Beauregard, commanding the "army of the Potomac," headquarters at Manassas Junction, organized his army into six brigades, the First commanded by Bonham, composed of the regiments of Gregg, Kershaw, Bacon and Cash. Sloan's regiment was assigned to the Sixth brigade, Early's; and Jenkins' regiment to the Third, Gen. D. R. Jones. Col. N. G. Evans, an officer of the old United States army, having arrived at Manassas, was assigned to command of a temporary brigade—Sloan's Fourth South Carolina, Wheat's Louisiana battalion, two companies Virginia cavalry, and four 6-pounder guns.
On the 11th of July, General Beauregard wrote to the President that the enemy was concentrating in his front at Falls church, with a force of not less than 35,000 men, and that to oppose him he had only about half that number. On the 17th, Bonham's brigade, stationed at Fairfax, met the first aggressive movement of General McDowell's army, and was attacked early in the morning. By General Beauregard's orders Bonham retired through Centreville, and took the position assigned him behind Mitchell's ford, on Bull run. The Confederate army was in position behind Bull run, extending from Union Mills ford on the right to the stone bridge on the left, a distance of 5 miles.
The brigades were stationed, from right to left, as follows: Ewell, D. R. Jones, Longstreet, Bonham, Cocke, and Evans on the extreme left. Early was in reserve, in rear of the right. To each brigade a section or a battery of artillery was attached, except in the case of Bonham who had two batteries and six companies of cavalry attached to his command. Seven other cavalry companies were distributed among the other brigades. Bonham's position was behind Mitchell's ford, with his four regiments of Carolinians; Jenkins' Fifth regiment was with General Jones' brigade, behind McLean's ford, and Sloan's Fourth regiment was with Evans' brigade on the left, at the stone bridge. With this disposition of his little army, General Beauregard awaited the development of the enemy's movement against him.