The Civil War Through the Camera

by Henry W. Elson

At three o’clock, while McDowell and his men were congratulating themselves on having won the battle, a faint cheering was heard from a Confederate army far across the hills. It grew louder and nearer, and presently the gray lines were seen marching gallantly back toward the scene of the battle from which they had been driven. The thrilling cry then passed through the Union ranks, “Johnston has come, Johnston has come!” and there was terror in the cry. They did not know that Johnston, with two-thirds of his army, had arrived the day before; but it was true that the remaining third, twenty-three hundred fresh troops, had reached Manassas at noon by rail, and after a forced march of three hours, under the command of Kirby Smith, had just united with the army of Beauregard. It was this that caused the cheering and determined Beauregard to make another attack on the Henry plateau.

The Union men had fought valiantly in this, their first battle, untrained and unused to warfare as they were; they had braved the hail of lead and of bursting shells; they had witnessed their comrades, their friends, and neighbors fall at their feet to rise no more. They nevertheless rejoiced in their success. But with the long march and the five hours’ fighting in the scorching July sun they were weary to exhaustion, and when they saw the Confederates again approaching, reënforced with fresh troops, their courage failed and they began to retreat down the hill. With waving colors the Confederates pressed on, opening a volley of musketry on the retreating Federals, and following it with another and another.

In vain McDowell and his officers attempted to rally his panic-stricken men and re-form his lines. Only the regulars, about sixteen hundred in number, were subject to the orders of their superiors, and they made a brave stand against the oncoming foe while they covered the retreat of the disorganized mass. On the Henry hill were the two powerful batteries of Griffin and Ricketts. They had done most valiant service while the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. But at last their hour had come. A Confederate regiment, dashing from a neighboring hill, poured in a deadly volley, cut down the cannoneers almost to a man, killed their horses, and captured the guns. A few minutes later General Beauregard rode up to the spot and noticed Captain Ricketts lying on the ground, desperately wounded. The two men had been friends in the years gone by. Beauregard, recognizing his old friend, asked him if he could be of any service. He then sent his own surgeons to care for the wounded captain and detailed one of his staff to make him comfortable when he was carried to Richmond as a prisoner of war.

There is little more to relate of the battle of Bull Run. In his report McDowell stated that after providing for the protection of the retreat from the battlefield by Porter’s and Blenker’s volunteer brigades, he took command in person of the force previously stationed for holding the road back to Centreville and made such disposition “as would best serve to check the enemy,” at the Centreville ridge. Some hundreds of civilians, members of Congress and others, had come out from Washington to witness a victory for the Grand Army, and they saw that army scattered in wild flight to escape an imaginary pursuer. The Confederates made no serious effort to follow after them, for the routed Federals had destroyed the Stone Bridge as they passed it in their retreat, and had obstructed the other avenues of pursuit. As darkness settled over the field the Confederates returned to their camps.

McDowell made a desperate effort to check and reorganize his army at Centreville, but he was powerless. The troops refused to listen to any commands; they rushed on and great numbers of them traveled all night, reaching Washington in the morning.

These raw troops had now received their first baptism of blood and fire. Nearly five hundred of their number were left dead on the field of battle, and fourteen hundred were wounded. The captured and missing brought the Federal loss to nearly three thousand men. The Confederate loss in killed, wounded, and missing was less than two thousand. The Federal forces engaged were nearly nineteen thousand, while the Confederates had more than eighteen thousand men on the field.

The Confederate victory at Bull Run did the South great injury in that it led vast numbers to believe the war was over and that the South had won. Many soldiers went home in this belief, and for months thereafter it was not easy to recruit the Southern armies. The North, on the other hand, was taught a needed lesson—was awakened to a sense of the magnitude of the task before it.

The first great battle of the American Civil War brought joy to the Confederacy and grief to the States of the North. As the Federal troops marched into Washington through a drenching downpour of rain, on July 22d, the North was shrouded in gloom. But the defeated army had not lost its courage. The remnants of the shattered forces were gathered, and from the fragments a mightier host was to be rallied under the Stars and Stripes to meet the now victorious foe on future battle-grounds.