The army left Martinsburg for the south, as we have seen, on Monday, July 15th. The whole division, with trifling exceptions, moved forward, and advanced on that day as far as 'Bunker Hill,' ten miles from Martinsburg. An insignificant rebel force fell back as Patterson advanced, and at 'Bunker Hill' the army encamped around the smoking brands of the rebel camp-fires, just deserted. Here was a small post-town called Mill Creek; and near by, the high ridge called 'Bunker Hill' formed another fine natural position for defence; but the rebels were not disposed to defend it. Patterson lay here two days, within twelve miles of the rebel strong-hold at Winchester, the pickets of the two armies watching each other by night and day. On the 17th the Federal army was astir before daylight, and an advance to the south was commenced. But before the rear-guard filed down from 'Bunker Hill' to the turnpike, a counter-march was ordered; and the whole division proceeded twelve miles to the east, leaving Winchester on their flank, and occupying Charlestown, in Jefferson County. What could have pleased Johnston better? What wonder that he should take the opportunity, as soon as satisfied that this flank movement was not intended to operate against him, to leave his fortifications at Winchester in charge of a small force, and rush to reinforce Beauregard? And is it not more than remarkable that Patterson, after occupying Charlestown for four days, should fall back to Harper's Ferry on the very day when his foe had effected his ruse de guerre, and was actually turning the tide of battle at Bull Run?
There is nothing in all this to change the opinion, previously formed, that Patterson should have pushed on to Winchester early in July. The whole of Johnston's manoeuvering seems to have been calculated merely to deceive Patterson, and to gain time. And so clever was he in his strategy, that, when his march to Manassas commenced, Patterson, learning either of the main movement or of a feint towards himself, aroused his army at midnight, and held them in readiness to fight, in apprehension of instant attack. As early as the middle of June, when Patterson threw a brigade over the Potomac at Williamsport, on a reconnoitering expedition, Johnston heard of the movement, and advanced a small force to engage and delay the Federals, which fell back as soon as the latter retired, as has since been learned from escaped prisoners and deserters. Indeed, the whole of Patterson's campaign shows far superior generalship on the part of his adversary.
Scarcely had the cautious general occupied from necessity that point whose strength and natural facilities he had previously despised, when the term of his appointment as general of the division expired, and the government allowed him to retire to private life. His successor's first act was to retire across the Potomac and occupy the Maryland Heights, opposite to Harper's Ferry, leaving not a foot of rebel soil to be held by our army as an evidence of the 'something' which had been expected of the venerable commander of the army of the Shenandoah. He had spent three months of time, and ten millions of money, and had only emulated the acts of that Gallic sovereign whose great deeds are immortalized in the brief couplet,
'The king of France, with twice ten thousand men,
Marched up the hill, and then—marched down again.'
He had done more. He had committed another grave error, which has received but little public attention, but which told with disastrous effect upon the Union cause in Northern Virginia. That section of the State, as is well known, contained many true Union men. Previous to Patterson's entry into Virginia, they had been proscribed and severely treated by the secessionists. Many had been impressed by the rebel troops; the 'Berkeley Border Guard' had dragged many a peaceable Unionist from his bed at night to serve in the ranks of Johnston's army. But many others had been able to keep their true sentiments wholly to themselves, and had feigned sympathy with secession; while many more had fled from their homes across the Potomac, and sought refuge in loyal Maryland, where they hung around the Federal camps, vainly urging an early advance, that they might go home and take care of their families and their crops. Thus was Berkeley County completely shackled, and a reign of terror fully established. And on that bright morning of the 2d of July, as the Federal army marched over the 'sacred soil,' the cleanly cut grain fields, with their deserted houses, told plainly of secessionist owners, who could stay at home and cut their grain while the rebels were in force, but who fled before the advance of Union troops, and deserted their homes; while the fields of standing grain, with the golden kernels ripe and almost rotting on the stalks, and the cheerless-looking houses, tenanted only by women and children, told as plainly of the poor Unionists, driven from home and family by the 'Border Guard' who so bravely 'defended the sacred soil.' With the advance of the Union army came back hundreds of Union refugees from Maryland; poor, half-starved men crept out to the roadside from their hiding-places, and told the Union troops that they now first saw daylight for several weeks; and the lonely yet brave women displayed from their hovels the Union flags, the true 'Red, White, and Blue,' which their loyalty had kept for months concealed. And as the army tarried at Martinsburg, and reinforcements came in, the secret Unionists avowed their real sentiments; the Union flag was displayed from many a dwelling; and the fair hands of Martinsburg women stitched beautiful banners, which, with words of eloquent loyalty, were presented to the favorite Union regiments, and even now are cherished in Northern homes, or in Union encampments, as mementos of the gratitude of Berkeley County for its deliverance from the reign of terror. Yet how was the confidence repaid which these loyal people thus reposed in Gen. Patterson? In less than three weeks, not a Union soldier was left in Martinsburg, and before the first of August they were withdrawn wholly from Berkeley and Jefferson Counties. And the poor refugees who had returned to their homes in good faith, and the loyalists who in equal good faith had spoken out their true patriotism and their love of the Union, were left to the tender mercies of the 'Berkeley Border Guard,' and such braves as the Texan Rangers, the Mississippi Bowie-knives, and the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves. Gray-headed men like Pendleton and Strother were dragged from their homes to languish for weeks in Richmond jails, and the old reign of terror was reëstablished with renewed virulence. Shall we ask these poor, deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen. Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the injury to the cause of the Union inflicted in this way alone by a grossly inefficient Federal general?
There were other reasons than those already enumerated why Patterson should have occupied Harper's Ferry at an early day, and these were reasons of economy, which commended themselves to the judgment of almost every one except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the Ferry were some rebel obstructions easy to be removed. Had Gen. Patterson occupied Harper's Ferry in June, and opened the railroad to that point, and from thence carried on the campaign like a brave general, worthy to command the brave men who filled the ranks of his army, the government might by this time have made the whole line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad of use, as a means of transporting troops and munitions between Cincinnati and Baltimore,—a desideratum then, as now, very strongly urged, as the shortest route between those points is the circuitous one via Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. It could have been of great use, too, to Patterson's division of the army, in transporting supplies from Baltimore, by the most natural and expeditious route. But it was his plan to enter Virginia at Williamsport, so that all supplies for his division must go from Baltimore and Philadelphia to Harrisburg, and thence by rail to Hagerstown, where they were loaded upon army wagons, and transported thus to and across the Potomac, and for fifteen or twenty miles into Virginia, to the Federal camps, at very great outlay and expense. So earnest did Gen. Patterson seem to be, either in doing nothing, or else in causing all the expenditure possible.
These are the arguments which address themselves to our reason, as bearing on the question of Patterson's success or failure, and as explanatory of the latter. As before stated, they are urged, not to show that Patterson should have possessed prophetic knowledge or any extraordinary powers, but to illustrate his failure to understand what was transpiring before his face and eyes. He is culpable, not because he did not achieve impossibilities, but because he did not do what plain common-sense seemed to require. The writer heard, among the Federal camps, but one reason suggested for Patterson's neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, which was, that probably the rebels had concealed sundry infernal machines in its vicinity, which would destroy thousands of the Union soldiers at the proper time. This was building a great military policy on a very small basis. If there was running through Gen. Patterson's policy any such plan of military strategy, or, in fact, any plan whatever, we have the curious spectacle presented of a general of an army ignoring common-sense, and building up a plan of a great campaign solely upon improbabilities. And it strikes us that this may be the key to the general's system of warfare, and a very plain and lucid explanation of his failure.
It is not deemed desirable here to treat of Patterson's other faults, such as his indulgent treatment of rebel spies, his failure to confiscate rebel property, and his distinguishing between the property of rebels and loyalists, by placing strong guards over the former, and neglecting to take equal care of the latter. Such acts only prove him to be either more nice than wise, or less nice than foolish; unless we argue him to be, as many do, a secret secessionist. But we leave it to others to draw inferences as to his loyalty or disloyalty. Our task is accomplished if we have shown that whether loyal or false, whether a patriot or a traitor, his three months' campaign in Virginia proves him unfit to be a commander, by revealing three great faults, each injuring the cause he professed to aid, all combining to render his campaign a failure, and two of the three assisting directly in our disaster at Bull Run, and deepening that dark stain upon our national escutcheon. His neglect to occupy Harper's Ferry in June, his failure to push on against Johnston when there was an opportunity to injure him, and his cool betrayal of the Unionists of Northern Virginia into the clutches of the rebel Thugs, will place the name of Patterson by the side of the names of Lee, Hull, Winder, and Buchanan, who, though not the open enemies of their country, were its false and inefficient friends.