It is worth while to pause for a moment in our narration to introduce upon the scene one of the most useful and remarkable men of the time, who became one of Miss Carroll's principal coadjutors; this was Senator Wade, of Ohio. He was successively justice of the peace, prosecuting attorney, State senator, judge of the circuit court, and United States Senator for three terms; he was also Acting Vice-President of the United States after Lincoln's death. If President Johnson's impeachment had been carried through he would have been the President for the rest of the term, and it was feared by his opponents that in that case he would have secured the Chicago nomination for the coming term, of which he was one of the candidates.
The first encounter of the Union army, a crowd of raw, undisciplined recruits, under new and inexperienced officers, with the better prepared Confederate army naturally resulted in a tremendous panic. Two carriages were present on the battlefield; one contained Senators Wade, Chandler, and Brown, Sergeant-at-arms of the Senate, and Major Eaton; in the other was Tom Brown, of Cleveland, Blake, Morris, and Riddle, of the House. Near the extemporized hospital, Ashley's Black Horse sweeping down on the recruits caused the panic. One of the gentlemen present thus described the scene. (The description can be met with in Coxe's Three Decades and in Riddle's Life of Wade, a work that should be more widely published.)
"It seemed as if the very devils of panic and cowardice had seized every mortal officer, soldier, teamster, and citizen. No officer tried to rally a soldier or do anything but spring and run toward Centerville. There was never anything like it for causeless, sheer, absolute, absurd cowardice—or rather panic—on this miserable earth before. Off they went, one and all—off down the highway, across the fields, towards the woods, anywhere, everywhere, to escape. The further they ran the more frightened they grew, and though we moved as fast as we could the fugitives passed us by scores. To enable themselves better to run they threw away their blankets, knapsacks, canteens, and finally their muskets, cartridge-boxes—everything. We called to them; told them there was no danger; implored them to stand. We called them cowards; denounced them in the most offensive terms; pulled out our heavy revolvers, threatened to kill them—in vain. A cruel, crazy, hopeless panic possessed them and infected everybody, front and rear."
The two carriages were blocked up in the awful gorge of Cub's Run and were for a time separated. When they again met, Mr. Wade shouted, "Boys, we'll stop this damned runaway!"
They found a good position, where a high wall on one side and a dense impassable wood secured the other side. The eight gentlemen leaped from their carriages and put Mr. Wade in command. Mr. Wade, with his hat well back and his famous rifle in his hand, formed them across the pikes all armed with heavy revolvers and facing the onflowing torrent of runaways, who were ghastly sick with panic, and this little band, worthy of the heroes of Thermopylæ, actually kept back the runaway army, so that "for the fourth of an hour not a man passed save McDowell's bearer of dispatches, and he only on production of his papers. The rushing, cowardly, half-armed, demented fugitives stopped, gathered, crowded, flowed back, hedged in by thick-growing cedars that a rabbit could scarcely penetrate. The position became serious. A revolver was discharged, shattering the arm of Major Eaton, from the hand of a mounted escaping teamster" (who had cut loose from his wagon).
"At that critical moment the heroic old Senator and his friends were relieved and probably saved by Colonel Crane and a part of the Second New York, hurrying toward the scene of the disaster, and then the party proceeded. Naturally the exploit of Mr. Wade in stopping a runaway army caused much talk at Washington and increased the great confidence and admiration with which he was already regarded.[25]
"In consequence of this disaster and the following one at Ball's Bluff, it was evident that both soldiers and officers would have to be created, and that we were without a military commander competent to direct so vast a war. This led to the formation by Congress of a Committee for the Conduct of the War. It consisted of seven members, three from the Senate and four from the House; Wade, Chandler, and Andrew Johnson from the Senate; Julian, Covode, Gooch, and Odell from the House. (Johnson seems never to have acted.) Nobody but Wade was thought of for chairman. Mr. Wade was absolutely fearless, physically and morally; absolutely regardless of self; absolutely devoted to his country. All parties agreed in boundless admiration and confidence in the heroic old Senator. "It is said that Wade seldom missed a session of the committee. The most conscientious of known men; never ill; he never neglected a duty; failed of an engagement; was never waited for, and never failed to meet his foe, one or many."
"The committee, by Mr. Wade, omitting Mr. Johnson's name, made their first report soon after the close of the 37th Congress, in April, 1863, which made three heavy volumes of over 2,000 printed pages.
Their second report was made May 22, 1865, a trifle more in bulk, six volumes in all." (Very valuable for future historians.)—Life of Benjamin F. Wade by A. G. Riddle.
President Lincoln, as Commander-in-Chief, with the assistance of this committee, thereafter directed the movements of the war, all the generals being subordinate and only enlightened step by step as to the accepted plan of campaign, great secrecy being, as Mr. Wade testifies, necessary or the plan would have been frustrated.