A Picture of the Desolated States, and the Work of Restoration. 1865-1868

by J. T. Trowbridge

JULY 21st, 1861.

This shaft, another inscription tells us, was erected June 10th, 1865. There it stands on the “sacred soil,” recalling to the proud sons of Virginia many things. To them, and to all Americans, it has a grand and deep significance beyond anything words can convey. There it stands, a silent preacher, with its breast of stone, and its austere face of stone, preaching inaudible stern lessons. Bull Run may be called the Bunker Hill of the last revolution. It was the prologue of disaster to the far-off final triumph. Well fought at first, we had almost won the day, when, fresh troops pressing us, came the crushing defeat and horrible panic which filled the whole loyal North with dismay and the whole rebel South with exultation. Then how many a patriot heart fell sick with despair, and doubtingly murmured, “Does God still live? and is there after all an overruling Power?”

Look at that monument to-day. Where now is the triumph of the dark cause? Where now is the haughty slave empire whose eternal foundations were deemed established by that victory? Where is the banner of Freedom trailed so low, all torn and blood-stained, in the dust? God lives! There is an overruling Power that never sleeps; patient, foreseeing what we cannot see, and, in sublime knowledge of the end, tolerating the wrath of the unrighteous and the arrogance of the unjust. The day of victory for freedom had not yet come; for triumph then would have been but half triumph. Temporary success to the bad cause was necessary to draw it irretrievably into the currents of destruction.

Moreover, struggle and long agony were needful to this nation. Frivolous, worldly, imitating other nations; nourishing in the very bosom of the Republic the serpent of a barbarous despotism; in our heedlessness and hurry giving no ear to the cries of the oppressed; we needed the baptism of blood and the awful lessons of loss to bring us back to sanity and soberness. The furnace of civil war was indispensable to fuse conflicting elements, and to pour the molten materials of the diverse States into the single mould of one mighty and masterful Nation. In order that it might take the lead of all the proud banners on the globe, our flag must first be humbled, and win its way through dust and battle-smoke to the eminence above all eminences of earthly power, where it is destined at last to float.

There seems to have been something fatal to our armies in the mere name of Bull Run. The visitor to the scene of the first disaster is already on the field of the second. The battles of the subsequent year, fought on a more stupendous scale, and sweeping over a vast area, included within their scope the hills on which we were standing.

To reach the scene of the principal contest in 1862, however, an advance of a mile or two had to be made. We rode on to a piece of woods, in the shade of which we halted, surrounded by marks of shot and shell in the timber, and by soldiers’ graves lying lonely among the trees, with many a whitened bone scattered about or protruding. There, it being mid-day, we partook of luncheon sauced with Widow Henry’s peaches.

On the west of us was a large stony field sloping up to a wood-crowned height,—a field strown thick with dead in those sanguinary days of ’62. The woods in which we were, extended around the north side of it also, forming a connection with the woods beyond. Making the circuit of this shady boundary, we reached the crest, which, strengthened greatly by an unfinished railroad track cut through it, afforded the enemy their most formidable position during the second Bull Run battle.

At the summit of the open field stands another monument, similar to that we had first seen, dedicated to the “Memory of the Patriots who fell at Groverton, August 28th, 29th, and 30th, 1862.” This inscription had been mutilated by some Rebel hand, and made to read “Confederate Patriots”; but my tall friend, arming himself with a stone, stepped upon the pedestal, amid the black rows of shells surrounding it, and resolutely ground the offensive word out of the tablet.

Groverton, which has given the field its name, is a little cluster of three or four buildings lying out west of it on the turnpike.

There are two or three points of striking resemblance between the first and second battles of Bull Run. At one time almost a victory, this also proved at last a defeat; and again the North was filled with consternation at seeing the barrier of its armies broken, and the country laid open to the foe. After the first Bull Run, the Rebels might have entered Washington almost without opposition. After the second, they did invade Maryland, getting as far as Antietam. It is also a circumstance worthy of note, that in each fight the victory might have been rendered complete, but for the failure of an important command to perform the part assigned it. General Patterson remained inert at Winchester, while Johnston, whom it was his business to look after, hastened to reinforce Beauregard and turn the scale of battle. At the second Bull Run, General Porter’s neglect to obey the orders of General Pope wrought incalculable mischief, and contributed similarly to change the opening successes into final discomfiture.