July 19 At the first streak of dawn, Jackson aroused his men and resumed the march. Before the column gained the plain, Stuart’s cavalry clattered past, leaving Patterson at Charlestown, in ignorance of his adversary’s escape, and congratulating himself on the success of his cautious strategy. At Piedmont, a station at the foot of the Blue Ridge, trains were waiting for the conveyance of the troops; and at four o’clock in the afternoon Jackson and his brigade had reached Manassas Junction. The cavalry, artillery, and waggons moved by road; and the remainder of Johnston’s infantry was expected to follow the First Brigade without delay. But in war, unless there has been ample time for preparation, railways are not always an expeditious means of travel. The line was single; so short notice had been given that it was impossible to collect enough rolling-stock; the officials were inexperienced; there was much mismanagement; and on the morning of Sunday, July 21, only three brigades of the Army of the Shenandoah—Jackson’s, Bee’s, and Bartow’s—together with the cavalry and artillery, had joined Beauregard. Kirby Smith’s brigade, about 1,900 strong, was still upon the railway.
The delay might easily have been disastrous. Happily, the Federal movements were even more tardy. Had the invading army been well organised, Beauregard would probably have been defeated before Johnston could have reached him. McDowell had advanced from Washington on the afternoon of the 16th with 35,000 men. On the morning of the 18th, the greater part of his force was concentrated at Centreville, twenty-two miles from Washington, and five and a half north-east of Manassas Junction. Beauregard’s outposts had already fallen back to the banks of Bull Run, a stream made difficult by wooded and precipitous banks, from two to three miles south, and of much the same width as the Thames at Oxford.
It would have been possible to have attacked on the morning of the 19th, but the Federal commander was confronted by many obstacles. He knew little of the country. Although it was almost within sight of the capital, the maps were indifferent. Guides who could describe roads and positions from a military point of view were not forthcoming. All information had to be procured by personal reconnaissance, and few of his officers had been trained to such work. Moreover, the army was most unwieldy. 35,000 men, together with ten batteries, and the requisite train of waggons, was a force far larger than any American officer had yet set eyes upon; and the movement of such a mass demanded precise arrangement on the part of the staff, and on the part of the troops most careful attention to order and punctuality; but of these both staff and troops were incapable. The invading force might have done well in a defensive position, which it would have had time to occupy, and where the supply of food and forage, carried on from stationary magazines, would have been comparatively easy; but directly it was put in motion, inexperience and indiscipline stood like giants in the path. The Federal troops were utterly unfitted for offensive movement, and both Scott and McDowell had protested against an immediate advance. The regiments had only been organised in brigades a week previously. They had never been exercised in mass. Deployment for battle had not yet been practised, and to deploy 10,000 or 20,000 men for attack is a difficult operation, even with well-drilled troops and an experienced staff. Nor were the supply arrangements yet completed. The full complement of waggons had not arrived, and the drivers on the spot were as ignorant as they were insubordinate. The troops had received no instruction in musketry, and many of the regiments went into action without having once fired their rifles. But the protests of the generals were of no effect. The Federal Cabinet decided that in face of the public impatience it was impossible to postpone the movement. “On to Richmond” was the universal cry. The halls of Congress resounded with the fervid eloquence of the politicians. The press teemed with bombastic articles, in which the Northern troops were favourably compared with the regular armies of Europe, and the need of discipline and training for the fearless and intelligent representatives of the sovereign people was scornfully repudiated. Ignorance of war and contempt for the lessons of history were to cost the nation dear.
The march from Washington was a brilliant spectacle. The roads south of the Potomac were covered with masses of men, well armed and well clothed, amply furnished with artillery, and led by regular officers. To the sound of martial music they had defiled before the President. They were accompanied by scores of carriages. Senators, members of Congress, and even ladies swelled the long procession. A crowd of reporters rode beside the columns; and the return of a victorious army could hardly have been hailed with more enthusiasm than the departure of these untrained and unblooded volunteers. Yet, pitiful masquerade as the march must have appeared to a soldier’s eye, the majority of those who broke camp that summer morning were brave men and good Americans. To restore the Union, to avenge the insult to their country’s flag, they had come forward with no other compulsion than the love of their mother-land. If their self-confidence was supreme and even arrogant, it was the self-confidence of a strong and a fearless people, and their patriotism was of the loftiest kind. It would have been easy for the North, with her enormous wealth, to have organised a vast army of mercenaries wherewith to crush the South. But no! her sons were not willing that their country’s honour should be committed to meaner hands.
As they advanced into Virginia, the men, animated by their surroundings, stepped briskly forward, and the country-side was gay with fantastic uniforms and gorgeous standards. But the heat was oppressive, and the roads lay deep in dust. Knapsack, rifle, and blankets became a grievous burden. The excitement died away, and unbroken to the monotonous exertion of the march the three-months’ recruits lost all semblance of subordination. The compact array of the columns was gradually lost, and a tail of laggards, rapidly increasing, brought up the rear. Regiment mingled with regiment. By each roadside brook the men fell out in numbers. Every blackberry bush was surrounded by a knot of stragglers; and, heedless of the orders of those officers who still attempted to keep them in the ranks, scores of so-called soldiers sought the cool shade of the surrounding woods.[[1]] When darkness fell the army was but six miles from its morning bivouacs; and it was not till late the next day that the stragglers rejoined their regiments.
McDowell had intended to attack at once. “But I could not,” he says, “get the troops forward earlier than we did. I wished them to go to Centreville the second day, but when I went to urge them forward, I was told that it was impossible for the men to march further. They had only come from Vienna, about six miles, and it was not more than six and a half miles further to Centreville, in all a march of twelve and a half miles; but the men were foot-weary—not so much, I was told, by the distance marched, as by the time they had been on foot, caused by the obstructions in the road, and the slow pace we had to move to avoid ambuscades. The men were, moreover, unaccustomed to marching, and not used to carrying even the load of ‘light marching order.’ . . . The trains, hurriedly gotten together, with horses, waggons, drivers, and waggon-masters all new and unused to each other, moved with difficulty and disorder, and were the cause of a day’s delay in getting the provisions forward.”[[2]]
On the morning of the 18th, in order to attract the enemy’s attention from his right, a brigade was sent south, in the direction of Bull Run. The Confederate outposts fell back over Blackburn’s Ford. The woods about the stream concealed the defenders’ forces, and the Federals pushed on, bringing artillery into action. Two Confederate guns, after firing a few shots, were withdrawn under cover, and the attacking troops reached the ford. Suddenly, from the high timber on the further bank, volleys of musketry blazed out in their very faces, and then came proof that some at least of the Federal regiments were no more to be relied upon in action than on the march. A portion of the force, despite the strong position of the enemy and the heavy fire, showed a bold front, but at least one regiment turned and fled, and was only rallied far in rear. The whole affair was a mistake on the part of the commander. His troops had been heedlessly pushed forward, and General Longstreet, commanding the opposing brigade, by carefully concealing his infantry, had drawn him into an ambuscade. The results of the action were not without importance. The Federals fell back with a loss of 83 officers and men, and the Confederates were much elated at their easy success. Among some of the Northerners, on the other hand, the sudden check to the advance, and the bold bearing of the enemy, turned confidence and enthusiasm into irrational despondency. A regiment and a battery, which had enlisted for three months and whose time was up, demanded their discharge, and notwithstanding the appeals of the Secretary of War, “moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy’s cannon.”[[3]]
McDowell’s plans were affected by the behaviour of his troops. He was still ignorant, so skilfully had the march from the Valley been carried out, that Johnston had escaped Patterson. He was well aware, however, that such movement was within the bounds of possibility, yet he found himself compelled to postpone attack until the 21st. The 19th and 20th were spent in reconnaissance, and in bringing up supplies; and the lack of organisation made the issue of rations a long process. But it was the general’s want of confidence in his soldiers that was the main cause of delay.
The Confederates were strongly posted. The bridges and fords across Bull Run, with the exception of Sudley Ford, a long way up stream to the Federal right, were obstructed with felled trees, and covered by rude intrenchments. Even with regular troops a direct attack on a single point of passage would have been difficult. McDowell’s first idea was to pass across the front of the defences, and turn the right at Wolf Run Shoals, five miles south-east of Union Mills. The country, however, on this flank was found to be unfit for the operations of large masses, and it was consequently determined to turn the Confederate left by way of Sudley Springs.
The Federal army consisted of five divisions of infantry, forty-three guns, and seven troops of regular cavalry. Nine batteries and eight companies of infantry were supplied by the United States army, and there was a small battalion of marines. The strength of the force told off for the attack amounted to 30,000 all told.[[4]]