Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer

by G. Moxley Sorrel

The great battle that followed, and all these operations covering several days, were called the Second Manassas. Some of the ground was identical with the first. Most of it lay beautifully for good tactical operations, and as the country was quite open much could be observed at considerable distances. When the enemy's masses began again pressing Stonewall on the 30th of August, Longstreet moved quickly up to support. Their dense columns had been left exposed to artillery fire from our position and Longstreet instantly saw it. Planting a battery in the road, the first shots, together with Jackson's incessant fire, began to tell.

We were near enough to see some wavering in the blue masses, then halt, and then a flight back to cover. But it was all up with John Pope. No rest was given his army. Longstreet started every man of us to his division to push them into attack, and soon everything was hotly engaged. The easy, rounded ridges ran at right angles to the turnpike, and over these infantry and artillery poured in pursuit. The artillery would gallop furiously to the nearest ridge, limber to the front, deliver a few rounds until the enemy were out of range, and then a gallop again to the next ridge. And thus it went on until black darkness stopped operations—the enemy defeated at all points and hastening back to the Potomac. Many prisoners, guns, colors, small arms, and large quantities of stores and equipments fell into our hands.

J. E. B. Stuart was highly tickled at his capture of Pope's wagon and personal effects, including a very fine uniform.

Losses on both sides were heavy. Alas! the butcher's bill is always to be paid after these grand operations, and at Manassas especially there were some splendid young lives laid down for our cause and our homes.

Longstreet was seen at his best during the battle. His consummate ability in managing troops was well displayed that day and his large bodies of men were moved with great skill and without the least confusion.

As General C. M. Wilcox was moving forward at the head of his brigade in the open field, he was attracted by the waving of a handkerchief at some little distance. He found time to go to the spot and there mortally wounded was a Federal general, Wilcox's old army friend, who had recognized the Confederate as he passed and wanted to say farewell. His soul soon took flight and his body was cared for by his old-time comrade—the name is forgotten.

Wilcox told me that he once officiated at a christening with D. N. Couch, afterwards a Federal major-general. Wilcox's baptismals were Cadmus Marcellus, and Couch's Darius Narcissus. It is said that when these sonorous designations reached the parson's ear he almost dropped the baby in round-eyed astonishment!

N. G. Evans ("Shank" Evans) had two brigades with Longstreet and was a rather marked character. A regular soldier, he had served well in Mexico, and at Manassas, on July 21, had done exceedingly well with a small command, a good eye, and quick decision. It was he, too, that commanded at Ball's Bluff on the upper Potomac when Baker attempted to take it with a fine regiment and lost some 800 men. Baker was Senator from Oregon and only a few days before had addressed the United States Senate in full uniform in farewell. It was forever, for he died with hundreds of his men in the waters of the Potomac. Evans was difficult to manage and we found him so. He had a Prussian orderly, with a wooden vessel holding a gallon of whiskey always strapped on his back, and there was the trouble. At the little artillery fight he had on the Rappahannock, G. T. Anderson (Tige), commanding one of the Georgia brigades, was ordered by Evans to attack a powerful battery and silence it. In vain did Anderson explain that it was on the far side of a deep river and that without a bridge his infantry could not get to it. Evans would not listen to reason and Anderson came to me. Of course he was told to make no such attempt, and I proceeded to hunt up Evans, finding him under a tree, too near his "Barrelita," as he called his whiskey holder. But he had to listen and comply. In the progress of the campaign after the Manassas battle he became so unruly as to arrest without reason Hood, one of his brigadiers, and Longstreet had to get him out of the way in some manner. He disappeared afterwards from field work and I don't know his end. He had been a very brave, experienced cavalry officer. Anderson's indignation at the impossibility of the order to take the battery was highly amusing.

In the early part of the march against Pope we made a bivouac near where some Federal cavalry were reported to have been prowling. The enemy had no troops near by to disturb us except this body of horse. It was therefore thought prudent to post a regiment at the cross-road which would warn our camps. General Toombs was ordered to detail one and I saw that it was posted.