A great outcry had arisen in the North against the course and policy of England, and the journal I represented was assailed on all sides as a Secession organ, favourable to the rebels and exceedingly hostile to the Federal government and the cause of the Union. Public men in America are alive to the inconveniences of attacks by their own press; and as it was quite impossible to grant to the swarms of correspondents from all parts of the Union the permission to draw supplies from the public stores, it would have afforded a handle to turn the screw upon the War Department, already roundly abused in the most influential papers, if Mr. Cameron acceded to me, not merely a foreigner, but the correspondent of a foreign journal which was considered the most powerful enemy of the policy of his government, privileges which he denied to American citizens, representing newspapers which were enthusiastically supporting the cause for which the armies of the North were now in the field.
To these gentlemen indeed, I must here remark, such privileges were of little consequence. In every camp they had friends who were willing to receive them in their quarters, and who earned a word of praise in the local papers for the gratification of either their vanity or their laudable ambition in their own neighbourhood, by the ready service which they afforded to the correspondents. They rode Government horses, had the use of Government waggons, and through fear, favour, or affection, enjoyed facilities to which I had no access. I could not expect persons with whom I was unacquainted to be equally generous, least of all when by doing so they would have incurred popular obloquy and censure; though many officers in the army had expressed in very civil terms the pleasure it would give them to see me at their quarters in the field. Some days ago I had an interview with Mr. Cameron himself, who was profuse enough in promising that he would do all in his power to further my wishes; but he had, nevertheless, neglected sending me the authorisation for which I had applied. I could scarcely stand a baggage train and commissariat upon my own account, nor could I well participate in the system of plunder and appropriation which has marked the course of the Federal army so far, devastating and laying waste all the country behind it.
Hence, all I could do was to make a journey to see the army on the field, and to return to Washington to write my report of its first operation, knowing there would be plenty of time to overtake it before it could reach Richmond, when, as I hoped, Mr. Cameron would be prepared to accede to my request, or some plan had been devised by myself to obviate the difficulties which lay in my path. There was no entente cordiale exhibited towards me by the members of the American press; nor did they, any more than the generals, evince any disposition to help the alien correspondent of the Times, and my only connection with one of their body, the young designer, had not, indeed, inspired me with any great desire to extend my acquaintance. General M‘Dowell, on giving me the most hospitable invitation to his quarters, refrained from offering the assistance which, perhaps, it was not in his power to afford; and I confess, looking at the matter calmly, I could scarcely expect that he would, particularly as he said, half in jest, half seriously, “I declare I am not quite easy at the idea of having your eye on me, for you have seen so much of European armies, you will, very naturally, think little of us, generals and all.”
CHAPTER XIV. To the scene of action
To the scene of action—The Confederate camp—Centreville—Action at Bull Run—Defeat of the Federals—Disorderly retreat to Centreville—My ride back to Washington.
Punctual to time, our carriage appeared at the door, with a spare horse, followed by the black quadruped on which the negro boy sat with difficulty, in consequence of its high spirits and excessively hard mouth. I swallowed a cup of tea and a morsel of bread, put the remainder of the tea into a bottle, got a flask of light Bordeaux, a bottle of water, a paper of sandwiches, and having replenished my small flask with brandy, stowed them all away in the bottom of the gig; but my friend, who is not accustomed to rise very early in the morning, did not make his appearance, and I was obliged to send several times to the legation to quicken his movements. Each time I was assured he would be over presently; but it was not till two hours had elapsed, and when I had just resolved to leave him behind, that he appeared in person, quite unprovided with viaticum, so that my slender store had now to meet the demands of two instead of one. We are off at last. The amicus and self find contracted space behind the driver. The negro boy, grinning half with pain and “the balance” with pleasure, as the Americans say, held on his rampant charger, which made continual efforts to leap into the gig, and thus through the deserted city we proceeded towards the Long Bridge, where a sentry examined our papers, and said with a grin, “You’ll find plenty of Congressmen on before you.” And then our driver whipped his horses through the embankment of Fort Runyon, and dashed off along a country road, much cut up with gun and cart wheels, towards the main turnpike.
The promise of a lovely day, given by the early dawn, was likely to be realised to the fullest, and the placid beauty of the scenery as we drove through the woods below Arlington, and beheld the white buildings shining in the early sunlight, and the Potomac, like a broad silver riband dividing the picture, breathed of peace. The silence close to the city was unbroken. From the time we passed the guard beyond the Long Bridge, for several miles we did not meet a human being, except a few soldiers in the neighbourhood of the deserted camps, and when we passed beyond the range of tents we drove for nearly two hours through a densely-wooded, undulating country; the houses, close to the road-side, shut up and deserted, window-high in the crops of Indian corn, fast ripening for the sickle; alternate field and forest, the latter generally still holding possession of the hollows, and, except when the road, deep and filled with loose stones, passed over the summit of the ridges, the eye caught on either side little but fir-trees and maize, and the deserted wooden houses, standing amidst the slave quarters.
The residences close to the lines gave signs and tokens that the Federals had recently visited them. But at the best of times the inhabitants could not be very well off. Some of the farms were small, the houses tumbling to decay, with unpainted roofs and side walls, and windows where the want of glass was supplemented by panes of wood. As we got further into the country the traces of the debateable land between the two armies vanished, and negroes looked out from their quarters, or sickly-looking women and children were summoned forth by the rattle of the wheels to see who was hurrying to the war. Now and then a white man looked out, with an ugly scowl on his face, but the country seemed drained of the adult male population, and such of the inhabitants as we saw were neither as comfortably dressed nor as healthy looking as the shambling slaves who shuffled about the plantations. The road was so cut up by gun-wheels, ammunition and commissariat waggons, that our horses made but slow way against the continual draft upon the collar; but at last the driver, who had known the country in happier times, announced that we had entered the high road for Fairfax Court-house. Unfortunately my watch had gone down, but I guessed it was then a little before nine o’clock. In a few minutes afterwards I thought I heard, through the eternal clatter and jingle of the old gig, a sound which made me call the driver to stop. He pulled up, and we listened. In a minute or so, the well-known boom of a gun, followed by two or three in rapid succession, but at a considerable distance, reached my ear. “Did you hear that?” The driver heard nothing, nor did my companion, but the black boy on the led horse, with eyes starting out of his head, cried, “I hear them, massa; I hear them, sure enough, like de gun in de navy yard;” and as he spoke the thudding noise, like taps with a gentle hand upon a muffled drum, were repeated, which were heard both by Mr. Warre and the driver. “They are at it! We shall be late! Drive on as fast as you can!” We rattled on still faster, and presently came up to a farm-house, where a man and woman, with some negroes beside them, were standing out by the hedge-row above us, looking up the road in the direction of a cloud of dust, which we could see rising above the tops of the trees. We halted for a moment. “How long have the guns been going, sir?” “Well, ever since early this morning,” said he; “they’ve been having a fight. And I do really believe some of our poor Union chaps have had enough of it already. For here’s some of them darned Secessionists marching down to go into Alexandry.” The driver did not seem altogether content with this explanation of the dust in front of us, and presently, when a turn of the road brought to view a body of armed men, stretching to an interminable distance, with bayonets glittering in the sunlight through the clouds of dust, seemed inclined to halt or turn back again. A nearer approach satisfied me they were friends, and as soon as we came up with the head of the column I saw that they could not be engaged in the performance of any military duty. The men were marching without any resemblance of order, in twos and threes or larger troops. Some without arms, carrying great bundles on their backs; others with their coats hung from their firelocks; many foot sore. They were all talking, and in haste; many plodding along laughing, so I concluded that they could not belong to a defeated army, and imagined M‘Dowell was effecting some flank movement. “Where are you going to, may I ask?”
“If this is the road to Alexandria, we are going there.”