Confederate Military History. Robert White

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СКАЧАТЬ behind Bull Run. McDowell on the 19th made a heavy reconnaissance in force and found Beauregard's position. The latter called on Johnston for help. He left Winchester in the morning of the 18th and marched to Piedmont, on the Manassas Gap railroad, whence his troops were hurried by rail to Manassas Junction. In the meantime McDowell had thrown his right around Beauregard's left, turned his position, and at daylight of the 21st attacked him, driving everything before him as he marched down the right bank of Bull Run. By midday the Confederates were in retreat, their line broken and their position forced. About noon, the Fourth brigade, Colonel Elzey, arrived at the junction of the Manassas Gap and Orange & Alexandria railroads. The command was at once disembarked. McDowell's heavy guns were pounding away toward the east, the first hostile fire the men had ever heard. They were formed: First Maryland on the right, Third Tennessee, Tenth Virginia, Thirteenth Virginia. By the time they were ready to move, Kirby Smith rode up in a strain of tense excitement. He assumed charge of the brigade. The other part of his division was not up—‘The watchword is Sumter, the signal is this,’ throwing his right hand to his forehead, palm outwards. ‘Go where the fire is hottest; forward march!’

      The excitement of the first fight, the growing fire, the spreading volleys, braced up the men. At the order ‘double-quick’ they struck out in a trot, down by the junction, past the cluster of huts and houses, thence straight as the crow flies toward ‘where the fire was hottest.’ After a run of a few miles the column was halted to breathe and load. Then on again. Wounded men coming back cried, ‘Go back. We are all cut to pieces. Go back. You'll all get killed!’ But the Fourth brigade kept steadily on. As it passed a clump of pines on the right, a sharp volley from a squad of the Brooklyn Zouaves knocked General Smith over the neck of his horse and Elzey resumed command. By that time the day had advanced to three or four o'clock. The field was dotted with retreating men, hurrying ambulances, flying wagons. Just to the right was a squad of cavalry. A shell burst over them and the cavalry scattered. Running over two lines lying in ranks on the ground, still Elzey pressed on to the left. Entering a wood, beyond which was heavy musketry firing, he formed line of battle. Smith at Manassas had detached A. P. Hill with the Thirteenth Virginia to hold one of the fords of Bull Run. With three regiments remaining Elzey pressed straight to the front. Getting nearly through the wood, he halted inside the edge of it. In front were a branch and a worm fence; beyond it an open field gently rising for four hundred yards into a considerable elevation. On the ridge stood a line of battle. Uniforms were no designation, as the line showed no colors. Cried Elzey to his aide-de-camp, Charles Couter, of Prince George's, Maryland: ‘Couter, give me a glass—give me a glass, quick.’ Just at that instant the breeze blew out the flag on the hill. It was the stars and stripes. ‘Fire!’ cried Elzey, and the whole line delivered its volley. ‘Charge!’ he shouted. The Marylanders had six companies of Mississippi rifles and three companies of bayonets. But over the fence the whole line went with a yell—up the hill—through the Yankee line, or rather where it had been. It had gone, dissolved into mist. Elzey pressed right on. He was behind McDowell's right and he never stopped to draw breath. The whole Union line crumpled up, and First Manassas was won. As the Maryland colonel rode proudly down on the right of his line, Beauregard dashed up, filled with enthusiasm— ‘Hail! Elzey, Blucher of the day!’ and in a moment President Davis came up with General Johnston. ‘General Elzey, I congratulate you,’ said the man who made generals. Elzey was promoted brigadier-general, Steuart colonel, Johnson lieutenant-colonel, and E. R. Dorsey, captain Company C, major—all to date from July 21st, the day of the great victory.

      The First Maryland was pushed on in pursuit of the rout over the Stone bridge and along the turnpike until dark, and then hastily recalled to Blackburn's ford to meet an apprehended attack. Next, moving at daylight, it went out with the First Virginia cavalry under Col. J. E. B. Stuart to Fairfax Court House, when, for the first time, the extent of the disaster to the Union army was understood and appreciated. During the night of the 21st no one had any idea of the ruin and rout that overwhelmed the enemy. On the march of the 22nd, J. E. B. Stuart, an, Indian fighter, could not believe his eyes, nor the reports his scouts brought him. The roads, the woods, the fields were filled with inconceivable debris—overturned carriages, ambulances, artillery limbers, lunch baskets, champagne, even gold pieces were found, and Stuart suspected it was a ruse to lure him into an ambush. As the morning wore on, however, the thing became too plain to doubt, and Fairfax Court House settled it. The court house and yard were packed full of new tents, new overcoats, new uniforms. The infantry went into camp, and cavalry scouts pursued their way down to the suburbs of Alexandria, and by night Stuart reported to Johnston and Beauregard that there was no organized force south of the Potomac.

      This is no place to discuss the reasons why the Confederates did not take Washington on the 23rd of July, 1861. Two days march would have brought them to the Long Bridge, J. E. B. Stuart could have occupied it by noon of the 22nd, and the army could have marched comfortably over it. It is easy to see all this now. It was not so apparent on the 22nd of July. The Fourth brigade, Colonel Elzey, reached the Court House the afternoon of the 22nd, where the First Maryland had preceded them, and the command went into camp at Fairfax Station, a few miles distant.

      The whole army passed the rest of the summer in drills, in marches, in sudden alarms, in being instructed in the duties of a soldier—first and most important of which is to know how to make bread. Bad cooking that summer killed more than Yankee bullets. But the Marylanders were full of spirit. They sang, they yelled, they shouted, they romped like a pack of schoolboys, and they were pets in the army. If a quick march was to be made, the Marylanders were sent on it. If a surprise was planned by J. E. B. Stuart and the cavalry, the Maryland regiment was ordered to support him, and to this day the survivors remember an eighteen-mile march through the rain and mud to catch a regiment of Yankee cavalry at Pohick Church, which had strayed that far into the woods and which Stuart proposed ‘to lose’ with the help of the First Maryland. They mustered seven hundred and twenty rifles and muskets. Their uniform was a French kepi (a little gray cap), a natty gray roundabout, collar and sleeves bound with black braid, and a similar stripe down the gray trousers. They were all boys The age of the First Maryland rank and file would not have averaged nineteen, nor their height over five feet eight, nor their weight above one hundred and thirty-five pounds. They were generally beardless boys, with the spirits, the enthusiasm, the devotion of boys. A large per cent were gentlemen by birth and culture. All were gentlemen at heart and principle. Exiles from home, volunteers to help a friend, staking life for love, they must of necessity have been impressed with an ardent sentimentality and a devotion beyond the ordinary standard of humanity. Around the camp-fires, on the lonely picket, on the march, what recollections of home did they not carry with them, the lengthening chain that time nor distance ever breaks. During the summer they became well drilled. They believed they were the best drilled corps in the army—in either army—in any army for that matter, for the Marylander never loses anything by diffidence or self-depreciation. He always thinks as well of himself as anyone ever thinks of him. Beauregard said they marched like Frenchmen. This set them up; but more knowledge would have restrained their self-conceit, for no Frenchmen have ever marched or moved as brightly as they did. Beauregard's compliment was to his own people, not to ours.

      Joseph E. Johnston's wife was a Maryland woman, and he, tough old soldier as he was, had a tender spot in his heart for Marylanders, and whenever they passed him at review or on the march, he always had a pleasant word to say about them. It is due to the truth of history to say that during the summer and fall of 1861 the first Maryland regiment became as conceited a set of young blades as ever faced a battery or charged a line of battle.

      Variety is a virtue in a soldier. Beauregard wanted a line of Yankee posts along the Potomac overlooking Alexandria seized. It required dash, quickness, unfailing nerve. J. E. B. Stuart and some troops of cavalry and the First Maryland were sent to do it. Of course they did it, and for a month or two they watched the dome of the Capitol and the marchings up and down of McClellan, in front of Alexandria. Peaches were ripe. They liked peaches. The Yanks held a fine peach orchard in front, so they drove them out, and ate their peaches. The Yanks had some fine beef cattle. The Marylanders drove in their pickets, went inside their lines and got their cattle out and ate them. There was also an assortment of sows and little pigs over there. They went СКАЧАТЬ