After breakfast.
Leaving head-quarters, I went across to General Mansfield's, and was going
up-stairs, when the General* himself, a white-headed, gray-bearded, and rather
soldierly-looking man, dashed out of his room in some excitement, and
exclaimed, “Mr. Russell, I fear there is bad news from the front.” “Are they
fighting, General?” “Yes, sir. That fellow Tyler has been engaged, and we are
whipped.” Again I went off to the horse-dealer; but this time the price of the steed
had been raised to £220; “for,” says he, “I don't want my animals to be ripped
up by them cannon and them musketry, and those who wish to be guilty of such
cruelty must pay for it.” At the War-Office, at the Department of State, at the
Senate, and at the White House, messengers and orderlies running in and out,
military aides, and civilians with anxious faces, betokened the activity and
perturbation which reigned within. I met Senator Sumner radiant with joy. “We
have obtained a great success; the rebels are falling back in all directions.
General Scott says we ought to be in Richmond by Saturday night.” Soon
afterwards a United States officer, who had visited me in company with General
Meigs, riding rapidly past, called out, “You have heard we are whipped; these
confounded volunteers have run away.” I drove to the Capitol, where people said
one could actually see the smoke of the cannon; but, on arriving there, it was
evident that the fire from some burning houses, and from wood cut down for
cooking purposes, had been mistaken for tokens of the fight.
It was strange to
stand outside the walls of the Senate whilst legislators were debating inside
respecting the best means of punishing the rebels and traitors; and to think
that, amidst the dim horizon of woods which bounded the west towards the plains
of Manassas, the army of the United States was then contending, at least with
doubtful fortune, against the forces of the desperate and hopeless outlaws
whose fate these United States senators pretended to hold in the hollow of
their hands. Nor was it unworthy of note that many of the tradespeople along
Pennsylvania Avenue, and the ladies whom one saw sauntering in the streets,
were exchanging significant nods and smiles, and rubbing their hands with
satisfaction. I entered one shop, where the proprietor and his wife ran forward
to meet me. . . “Have you heard the news? Beauregard has knocked them into a
cooked hat.” “Believe me,” said the good lady, “it is the finger of the
Almighty is in it. Didn't he curse the niggers, and why should he take their
part now with these Yankee Abolitionists, against true white men?” “But how do
you know this?” said I. “Why, it's all true enough, depend upon it, no matter
how we know it. We've got our underground railway as well as the Abolitionists.”
On my way to dinner
at the Legation I met the President crossing Pennsylvania Avenue, striding like
a crane in a bulrush swamp among the great blocks of marble, dressed in an
oddly cut suit of gray, with a felt hat on the back of his head, wiping his
face with a red pocket-handkerchief. He was evidently in a hurry, on his way to
the White House, where I believe a telegraph has been established in
communication with McDowell's head-quarters. I may mention, by the by in
illustration of the extreme ignorance and arrogance which characterize the low
Yankee, that a man in the uniform of a colonel said to me to-day, as I was leaving
the War Department, “They have just got a telegraph from McDowell. Would it not
astonish you Britishers to hear that, as our General moves on towards the
enemy, he trails a telegraph wire behind him, just to let them know in
Washington which foot he is putting first?” I was imprudent enough to say, “I
assure you the use of the telegraph is not such a novelty in Europe or even in
India. When Lord Clyde made his campaign, the telegraph was laid in his track
as fast as he advanced.” “Oh, well, come now,” quoth the Colonel, “that's
pretty good, that is; I believe you'll say next, your General Clyde and our
Benjamin Franklin discovered lightning simultaneously.”
The calm of a
Legation contrasts wonderfully in troubled times with the excitement and storm
of the world outside. M. Mercier perhaps is moved to a vivacious interest in
events. M. Stoeckl becomes more animated as the time approaches when he sees
the fulfilment of his prophecies at hand. M. Tassara cannot be indifferent to
occurrences which bear so directly on the future of Spain in Western seas; but
all these diplomatists can discuss the most engrossing and portentous incidents
of political and military life, with a sense of calm and indifference which was
felt by the gentleman who resented being called out of his sleep to get up out
of a burning house because he was only a lodger.
There is no
Minister of the European Powers in Washington who watches with so much interest
the march of events as Lord Lyons, or who feels as much sympathy perhaps in the
Federal Government as the constituted Executive of the country to which
he is accredited; but in virtue of his position he knows little or nothing
officially of what passes around him, and may be regarded as a medium for the
communication of despatches to Mr. Seward, and for the discharge of a great
deal of most causeless and unmeaning vituperation from the conductors of the
New York press against England.
On my return to
Captain Johnson's lodgings I received a note from the head-quarters of the
Federals, stating that the serious action between the two armies would probably
be postponed for some days. McDowell's original idea was to avoid forcing the
enemy's position directly in front, which was defended by movable batteries
commanding the fords over a stream called “Bull's Run.” He therefore proposed
to make a demonstration on some point near the centre of their line, and at the
same time throw the mass of his force below their extreme right, so as to turn
it and get possession of the Manassas Railway in their rear; a movement which
would separate him, by the by, from his own communications, and enable any
General worth his salt to make a magnificent counter by marching on Washington,
only 27 miles away, which he could take with the greatest ease, and leave the
enemy in the rear to march 120 miles to Richmond, if they dared, or to make a
hasty retreat upon the higher Potomac, and to cross into the hostile country of
Maryland.
McDowell, however,
has found the country on his left densely wooded and difficult. It is as new to
him as it was to Braddock, when he cut his wreary way through forest and swamp
in this very district to reach, hundreds of miles away, the scene of his fatal
repulse at Fort Du Quesne. And so, having moved his whole army, McDowell finds
himself obliged to form a new plan of attack, and, prudently fearful of pushing
his underdone and over-praised levies into a river in face of an enemy, is
endeavoring to ascertain with what chance of success he can attack and turn
their left.
Whilst he was engaged
in a reconnoissance to-day, General Tyler did one of those things which must be
expected from ambitious officers, without any fear of punishment, in countries
where military discipline is scarcely known. Ordered to reconnoitre the
position of the enemy on the left front, when the army moved from Fairfax to
Centreville this morning, General Tyler thrust forward some 3000 or 4000 men of
his division down to the very banks of “Bull's Run,” which was said to be
thickly wooded, and there brought up his men under a heavy fire of artillery
and musketry, from which they retired in confusion.
The papers from New
York to-night are more than usually impudent and amusing. The retreat of the
Confederate outposts from Fairfax Court House is represented as a most extraordinary
success; at best it was an affair of outposts; but one would really think that
it was a victory of no small magnitude. I learn that the Federal troops behaved
in a most ruffianly and lawless manner at Fairfax Court House. It is but a bad
beginning of a campaign for the restoration of the Union, to rob, burn, and
destroy the property and houses of the people in the State of Virginia. The
enemy are described as running in all directions, but it is evident they did
not intend to defend the advanced works, which were merely constructed to
prevent surprise or cavalry inroads.
I went to
Willard's, where the news of the battle, as it was called, was eagerly
discussed. One little man in front of the cigar-stand declared it was all an affair
of cavalry. “But how could that be among the piney woods and with a river in
front, major?” “Our boys, sir, left their horses, crossed the water at a run,
and went right away through them with their swords and six-shooters.” “I tell
you what it is, Mr. Russell,” said a man who followed me out of the crowd and placed
his hand on my shoulder, “they were whipped like curs, and they ran like curs,
and I know it.” “How?” “Well, I’d rather be excused telling you.”
_______________
* Since killed in
action.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, Vol. 1, p. 427-31
