“No, I am not, thank God; I’m an Englishman.”
“Well, then,” said he, nodding his head and speaking slowly through his teeth, “There will be cavalry after them soon enough; there is 20,000 of the best horsemen in the world in old Virginny.”
Having received full directions from the people at the inn for the road to the Long Bridge, which I was most anxious to reach instead of going to Alexandria or to Georgetown, I bade the Virginian good evening; and seeing that my stout friend, who had also watered his horse by my advice at the inn, was still clinging alongside, I excused myself by saying I must press on to Washington, and galloped on for a mile, until I got into the cover of a wood, where I dismounted to examine the horse’s hoofs and shift the saddle for a moment, wipe the sweat off his back, and make him and myself as comfortable as could be for our ride into Washington, which was still seventeen or eighteen miles before me. I passed groups of men, some on horseback, others on foot, going at a more leisurely rate towards the capital; and as I was smoking my last cigar by the side of the wood, I observed the number had rather increased, and that among the retreating stragglers were some men who appeared to be wounded.
The sun had set, but the rising moon was adding every moment to the lightness of the road as I mounted once more and set out at a long trot for the capital. Presently I was overtaken by a waggon with a small escort of cavalry and an officer riding in front. I had seen the same vehicle once or twice along the road, and observed an officer seated in it with his head bound up with a handkerchief, looking very pale and ghastly. The mounted officer leading the escort asked me if I was going into Washington and knew the road. I told him I had never been on it before, but thought I could find my way, “at any rate we’ll find plenty to tell us.” “That’s Colonel Hunter inside the carriage, he’s shot through the throat and jaw, and I want to get him to the doctor’s in Washington as soon as I can. Have you been to the fight?”
“No, sir.”
“A member of Congress, I suppose, sir?”
“No, sir; I’m an Englishman.”
“Oh indeed, sir, then I’m glad you did not see it, so mean a fight, sir, I never saw; we whipped the cusses and drove them before us, and took their batteries and spiked their guns, and got right up in among all their dirt works and great batteries and forts, driving them before us like sheep, when up more of them would get, as if out of the ground, then our boys would drive them again till we were fairly worn out; they had nothing to eat since last night and nothing to drink. I myself have not tasted a morsel since two o’clock last night. Well, there we were waiting for reinforcements and expecting M‘Dowell and the rest of the army, when whish! they threw open a whole lot of masked batteries on us, and then came down such swarms of horsemen on black horses, all black as you never saw, and slashed our boys over finely. The colonel was hit, and I thought it best to get him off as well as I could, before it was too late; And, my God! when they did take to running they did it first-rate, I can tell you,” and so, the officer, who had evidently taken enough to affect his empty stomach and head, chattering about the fight, we trotted on in the moonlight: dipping down into the valleys on the road, which seemed like inky lakes in the shadows of the black trees, then mounting up again along the white road, which shone like a river in the moonlight—the country silent as death, though once as we crossed a small water-course and the noise of the carriage wheels ceased, I called the attention of my companions to a distant sound, as of a great multitude of people mingled with a faint report of cannon. “Do you hear that?” “No, I don’t. But it’s our chaps, no doubt. They’re coming along fine, I can promise you.” At last some miles further on we came to a picket, or main guard, on the roadside, who ran forward, crying out “What’s the news—anything fresh—are we whipped?—is it a fact?” “Well, gentlemen,” exclaimed the Major, reining up for a moment, “we are knocked into a cocked hat—licked to h——l.” “Oh, pray don’t say that,” I exclaimed, “It’s not quite so bad, it’s only a drawn battle, and the troops will occupy Centreville to-night, and the posts they started from this morning.”
A little further on we met a line of commissariat carts, and my excited and rather injudicious military friend appeared to take the greatest pleasure in replying to their anxious queries for news. “We are whipped! Whipped like h——.”
At the cross-roads now and then we were perplexed, for no one knew the bearings of Washington, though the stars were bright enough; but good fortune favoured us and kept us straight, and at a deserted little village, with a solitary church on the road-side, I increased my pace, bade good-night and good speed to the officer, and having kept company with two men in a gig for some time, got at length on the guarded road leading towards the capital, and was stopped by the pickets, patrols, and grand rounds, making repeated demands for the last accounts from the field. The houses by the road-side were all closed up and in darkness, I knocked in vain at several for a drink of water, but was answered only by the angry barkings of the watch-dogs from the slave quarters. It was a peculiarity of the road that the people, and soldiers I met, at points several miles apart, always insisted that I was twelve miles from Washington. Up hills, down valleys, with the silent, grim woods for ever by my side, the white roads and the black shadows of men, still I was twelve miles from the Long Bridge, but suddenly I came upon a grand guard under arms, who had quite different ideas, and who said I was only about four miles from the river; they crowded round me. “Well, man, and how is the fight going?” I repeated my tale. “What does he say?” “Oh, begorra, he says we’re not bet at all; it’s all lies they have been telling us; we’re only going back to the ould lines for the greater convaniency of fighting to-morrow again; that’s illigant, hooro!”