Yesterday was the saddest day this country has ever
experienced. In the morning the papers said that we had gained a great victory
at Bull's Run, taken three batteries and were pushing on to Manassas Junction.
We found afterwards that these accounts were exaggerated, and that the action
at Bull's Run was merely the beginning of a battle, which appeared to be
favorable to the Federal forces. About half past three, Anna and Mother had
gone to drive and I was sitting in Mother's room, when Nellie came up crying,
and said, “Our whole army has been cut to pieces and entirely routed.” “Which
army?” I asked. I immediately thought that we had been driven from Virginia and
the three divisions of our army completely destroyed. I went down to ask Anna,
but she could tell nothing excepting that our men had run from the enemy and
lost everything. In a few moments Father, George and Mother (who had met them
and walked back with them) came in and we all sat on the piazza in a most
unhappy state of mind. The report was that a panic had taken possession of our
army as they were attacking the batteries at Manassas Junction and they had all
run, with no regard to anything else but saving their own lives. Our loss was
said to be about three thousand and that of the enemy very severe also. Father
had brought down a letter from Rob, saying they (Patterson's Column) were about
to march somewhere from Charlestown, but we have heard this morning that
Patterson was expected to make a junction with McDowell and would have saved
the day had he done so. As we sat all together on the piazza feeling very
miserable, George didn't enliven us much by saying, “The next thing they will
do will be to march on Washington, take possession of it, and then Jeff Davis
will issue his conditions from the Capitol and offer us peace.” After talking
it over we all felt better and prepared to hear that it wasn't quite so bad as
the reports said.
In the evening Mr. Appleton (a neighbor) came in to George's
and told us that Patterson's forces were supposed to be engaged at Manassas. We
didn't tell Mother, although we all knew it, for it would have caused her
useless anxiety. Lou Schuyler (who is staying here with her sister) heard of
the report on the boat but didn't speak of it. In the evening Sam Curtis and I
went to Mrs. Oakey's and Mr. Oakey demonstrated in a very scientific manner
that this couldn't possibly be true. In spite of his cheering remarks, we all
felt very badly and merely hoped we might hear better news in the morning. Our
hopes proved true, although even today the news is so humiliating that we feel
as if we couldn't trust our own men again. They ran with no one pursuing! The
enemy didn't even know such a direful rout had occurred. In their reports they
say only that they have gained the battle, but with fearful loss on both sides.
It was evidently the battle on which everything depended for them. Their four
best generals, Beauregard, Johnston, Davis and Lee, were there with ninety
thousand men, while our force was only twenty-five thousand. I can conceive
what must be the feelings of the men under Patterson; they might have turned
the fortune of the battle and were doing nothing! Poor fellows! Our men ran as
far as Fairfax Court House and the Rebels took possession of the territory as
we left it. McClellan is called from Western Virginia and we shall have to
retake by slow degrees what we have lost in one day. This morning our loss was
said to be only five hundred, but what are we to believe?
This afternoon all the most humiliating circumstances of our
defeat proved to be false. Our men behaved with the greatest courage and
bravery, charging and carrying the batteries and fighting with as much
intrepidity as the most veteran troops could display, until the force of the
enemy became overpowering by the junction of Johnston with Beauregard. Then,
and not until then, they retreated in good order. Mr. Russell, of the London
Times, is said to have said that nowhere in the Crimean War had he seen men
make such splendid charges. This morning I and the Oakeys went down to the
sewing meeting and worked hard until three o'clock, when we came home and heard
the joyful tidings that our men were not cowards. The false reports were from
the exaggerated statements of civilians who had witnessed the battle and been very
much frightened themselves, and all the agony of yesterday was occasioned by
the readiness of newspaper reporters to transmit any stirring news to their
employers.
One little incident showed the difference of feeling between
today and yesterday. A few days ago Mother bought Frank a uniform and George
had promised to buy him a knapsack yesterday, but when he came down from town
he said to Frank: “My dear little boy, you must forgive me this time for when I
got to New York, I heard such terrible news that I had no heart to buy your
knapsack.” This afternoon Frank came over in great glee, with knapsack and fez.
I know a great many men in the army who are: My brother, and
first cousin, H. S. Russell, in Gordon's Regiment (2d Mass. Vol.), Capt.
Curtis, Lieut. Motley, Lieut. Morse, Capt. Tucker, Lieut. Bangs, Lieut. Robson
in the same Regiment; Joe and Ned Curtis, the former belonging to the Ninth
Regiment, N. Y., the latter, a surgeon in the Georgetown Hospital. My cousin,
Harry Sturgis, in Raymond Lee's Mass. Regiment. My uncle, William Greene,
Colonel of the 14th Mass.; Dr. Elliott and his three sons of the Highland
Regiment; Capt. Lowell of the U. S. A., and Theodore Winthrop, who died for his
country at Great Bethel, June 10th, 1861. Also, Rufus Delafield, a surgeon U.
S. A. Twenty brave men, — nineteen living and one dead. — O. Wendell Holmes,
Caspar Crowninshield.
SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 10-13
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