With the details of the overwhelming disaster to the Federal arms, at Manassas, on the 21st of July, we are not here interested. Our aim has been to glance briefly at the relations sustained by President Davis to the preliminary campaign which culminated in success so brilliant and valuable. In accordance with his preconceived purpose to be present, if possible, at the consummation of plans in which he felt so profound an interest, President Davis left Richmond on Sunday morning, July 21st, for the scene of the expected battle. Reaching the battle-field while the struggle was still in progress, it was his privilege to witness the flight, in utter confusion and dismay, of the Federal hosts in their first serious conflict with the patriot army. His presence upon the field was the inspiration of unbounded enthusiasm among the troops, to whom his name and bearing were the symbols of victory. His dispatch from the battle-field, on Sunday night, will long be remembered by those who gathered from it their first intelligence of the great victory:
“Manassas Junction, Sunday Night.
“Night has closed upon a hard-fought field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy were routed, and precipitately fled, abandoning a large amount of arms, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewn for miles with those killed, and the farmhouses and ground around were filled with the wounded. Pursuit was continued along several routes towards Leesburg and Centreville, until darkness covered the fugitives. We have captured many field batteries and stands of arms, and one of the United States flags. Many prisoners have been taken. Too high praise can not be bestowed, whether for the skill of the principal officers, or the gallantry of all our troops. The battle was mainly fought on our left. Our force was 15,000; that of the enemy estimated at 35,000.
“Jeff’n Davis.”
He remained at Manassas, in consultation with Generals Beauregard and Johnston, until the morning of Tuesday, July 23d. The return of the President to Richmond was the occasion of renewed patriotic rejoicings. An immense crowd awaited at the railroad depot, in expectancy of his arrival, and both there and at his hotel occurred most enthusiastic demonstrations of popular delight at the success of the army, and of public regard for himself.[38] At night Mr. Davis addressed, with thrilling effect, an immense audience, from a window of the Spottswood Hotel, recounting some of the incidents of the battle, which he declared to be a decisive victory, if followed by energetic measures, and counseled moderation and forbearance in victory, with unrelaxed preparations for future trials. It was upon this occasion that he uttered the memorable injunction, “Never be haughty to the humble, or humble to the haughty.”
The immediate and palpable consequence of the victory of Manassas was the rescue of the Confederacy from the peril by which, for weeks, it had been threatened. The South was now plainly a power, capable of fighting ably and vigorously, and with greatly improved prospects of success, for the independence which it had asserted. Time was to develop a far greater value in this wonderful success than was then made available. A few days only were required to exhibit, what at first appeared merely a thorough repulse of the Federal army, as an overwhelming rout, capable of being followed to such results as might have changed even the fate of a nation. Not many weeks sufficed to convince the Southern people of the fact which must ever dwell among their saddest associations, that an opportunity, inestimable in value, and almost unparalleled in its flattering inducements to a people situated as they were, had been utterly unappreciated and irrevocably lost.
In the numerous accounts which have been written, representing all shades of opinion from different stand-points on both sides, and from the wide discussion which has resulted, history can be at no loss for material upon which to base an intelligent estimate of this battle, and of the extent to which the victors reaped the advantages of success. Differences of opinion have prevailed, and will, in all probability, continue to prevail, respecting the purely military questions involved in the discussion of the absence of such a vigorous, pertinacious, and unrelenting pursuit by the Confederates as was necessary to secure the fruits of a decisive victory. But the stubborn conviction, nevertheless, remains, and will never be eradicated from the Southern mind—that, barring the immediate security to the Confederate capital, Manassas was but a barren victory, where results of a most decisive character were within easy reach. Nor is this popular impression unsustained by such competent military authority, as will command respect for its judgment, upon those aspects of the question, upon which a military judgment is alone valuable.
So emphatic became the public condemnation of the inactivity of the army, and especially when, by subsequent information, was revealed the real condition of the enemy after his overwhelming disaster, that inquiry was naturally made as to the authorship of such an erroneous policy. The presence of President Davis, both during a portion of the battle and during the day following, was promptly seized upon as affording a clue to the mystery. For months he rested under the suspicion of having, by peremptory order, stopped the pursuit of the enemy, in the face of the protestations of his generals, who would have pressed it to the extent of attainable results.
How such an impression—so utterly in conflict with the facts—could have obtained, by whom, or for what purpose it was disseminated, it is now needless to inquire. The slander was, at length, after having been circulated to the injury of Mr. Davis throughout the country, so conclusively answered as to receive not even the pretense of belief, save from an unscrupulous partisanship, at all times deaf to facts which could not be perverted injuriously to the President. It nevertheless had served a purpose, in preparing the popular mind for those constantly iterated charges of “executive interference,” in the plans and dispositions of the armies of the Confederacy, which followed at subsequent stages of the war.
It may be asked, Why did Mr. Davis suffer this suspicion, when the proof of its injustice might have been so easily adduced? This inquiry would indicate an imperfect acquaintance with that devoted patriotism and knightly magnanimity which belong to his character. Any explanation acquitting himself, must have thrown the responsibility upon Generals Johnston and Beauregard, and he preferred rather to suffer an undeserved reproach, than to excite distrust of two officers, then enjoying the largest degree of popular confidence. With him, selfish considerations were never permitted to outweigh the interests of the country. Actuated by this impulse, he, in more than one instance, where the names of men high in public favor were used in his disparagement, refused, even in self-defense, that retaliation, which must have hurt the cause in proportion as it diminished confidence in its prominent representatives. Mr. Davis, with that decorum which has equally illustrated his public and private life, recognized the special propriety of a denial of these injurious rumors from other sources, fully apprized of their falsity, and from which such an acquittal of himself would have come with becoming candor and grace.