1861

federate regiments, while the Union commanders were filled with despair, for they supposed that it was Johnston's entire army, the arrival of which two days before they had not yet learned. With fresh reënforcements the Confederates now renewed the attack and the Federal troops, half exhausted, having been up since two o'clock in the morning, and supposing that a new army had appeared to attack them, broke and fled from the field panic-stricken.

The retreat soon became a disorganized route, in which a confused mass of frightened fugitives rushed madly across the fields, pursued by imaginary enemies. The commanders could do nothing to rally them. It was a case of sauve qui peut. Flying teams, jostling vehicles, riderless horses galloping here and there, clouds of dust, the roar of artillery, all added to the indescribable confusion. As the retreat approached Cub Run bridge a shot from Kemper's battery took effect upon the horses of a team that was crossing; the wagon was overturned in the center of the bridge and the passage obstructed. At this juncture the Confederates commenced to play their artillery upon the train of carriages and artillery wagons, reducing them to a heap of ruins. Hundreds of dusty, powder-blackened soldiers threw away their muskets and dashed down the hill in disorderly rout; the main passage of retreat was choked, and for miles the panic spread. Many officials and private citizens, including ladies, who had come down from Washington in the morning in holiday attire to witness the battle, were forced into the rout and were carried across the fields for a distance of several miles. Some, believing the Confederates would follow up their victory by active pursuit, did not cease their flight until they were safe across the Long Bridge at Washington.

But strangely enough, the Confederates showed no disposition to continue the pursuit, although it is probable that at any time within two weeks they could have easily taken Washington. President Davis, who arrived in time to see the rout of the Union troops, favored an advance, but yielded to the judgment of Beauregard and Johnston, who believed otherwise. The losses on each side in the Battle of Bull Run approximated two thousand in killed and wounded. The opinion of military critics has been general that McDowell's plan of battle was a good one, but poorly executed. Patterson's failure to hold Johnston's army in the Shenandoah, the delay in making the attack, and the opportune arrival of Kirby

1861

Smith's reënforcements at the critical hour are the reasons usually assigned for the defeat of the Union troops.

The rout of the Union army caused great disappointment as well as a feeling of humiliation in the North, but it had the effect of arousing the Northern people to a proper realization of the magnitude of the task which lay before them. It was now evident to

all that the contest was to be no mere child's play, and they entered at once upon elaborate preparations for a long war. The moral effect on the South was rather unfavorable. To many of the less informed Southerners it was accepted as proof of the old assertion often heard in the South that one Southerner could whip three "Yankees." Instead of an aggressive policy, the South, resting upon her laurels and believing that the victory was already won, now fell back into a fancied security, relaxed her efforts and waited for the second outburst of patriotism in the North to bring her to her senses. This outburst soon followed.

T

Chapter XXX

THE WAR IN THE WEST. 1861-1862

I

THE SECOND UPRISING OF THE NORTH

HE extraordinary session of Congress which had assembled on July 4 was still sitting when the news of the Battle of Bull Run came. Disappointed, but not discouraged, the House of Representatives promptly resolved that the "maintenance of the Constitution, the preservation of the Union and the enforcement of the laws are sacred trusts which must be executed; that no disaster shall discourage us from the ample performance of this most sacred duty; and that we pledge to the country and the world the employment of every resource, national and individual, for the suppression, overthrow and punishment of rebels in arms."

66

The President in his message of July 4 had asked Congress to place at his disposal at least 400,000 men and $400,000,000, in order to make the contest a short and decisive one. At the same time he informed Congress of his action of May 3 in issuing orders for the increase of the regular army by 22,700 men and of the navy by 18,000 men, and of his call for 42,000 additional volunteers for three years, unless sooner discharged. In assuming to increase the regular army and navy the President had gone to the limit of his constitutional power, if he had not exceeded it. He felt keenly the criticism which had been directed against him on this account, and justified his action by saying that his course, whether strictly legal or not, had been "ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity." He hoped, therefore, that Congress would speedily ratify his acts. He devoted a considerable part of his message also to a defense of his action in suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, which had called forth severe criticism from the Northern Democrats, and had led to conflicts between the military and civil

1861

authorities in Maryland and elsewhere. He assured Congress that the authority had been exercised sparingly and insisted that his general duty to take care that the laws should be executed justified him in violating a particular law if it were necessary to secure the execution of all. "Are all the laws to go unexecuted," he asked, "and the government itself to go to pieces lest that one be violated?" But he insisted that there had been no violation of the fundamental law, since the Constitution expressly authorizes the suspension of the writ when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. There could be no doubt, he said, that there was rebellion and that the public safety required the suspension of the writ. The only question was as to who should suspend it, and as the Constitution was silent on this point it might be claimed that there had been no flagrant violation; but the position of the clause in the Constitution and the precedents of history, English and American, were against the view of the President.

Nevertheless, Congress approved the President's course in these particulars and adopted a resolution legalizing all his acts, proclamations and orders, and making them valid as if they had been done under express authority and direction of the national legislature. Besides the act of indemnity, Congress passed measures authorizing the President to call for volunteers to the number of 500,000 men to serve for three years or during the period of the war; authorizing him further to increase the regular army and navy, empowering him to collect customs duties at ports of delivery instead of at ports of entry; authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow $250,000,000; increasing duties on imports; imposing a tax on incomes; and levying a direct tax of $20,000,000 upon the States. It was supposed that these several measures would yield a revenue of something like one million dollars a day. Finally an act was passed authorizing the President to seize and confiscate all property used or intended to be used in aid of the Confederate cause. By the same act it was declared that all slaves employed by their masters in furtherance of the same cause should be emancipated. Having thus placed the North on a military footing, Congress adjourned, August 6, leaving the President a virtual dictator in the management of the war.

The people of the North now entered upon active preparations for a long war, as the Battle of Bull Run had afforded ample conviction that the resistance of the South could not be easily

1861

overcome. Every town and village was alive with martial activity. A Southern historian of the Civil War, criticising the South for its inactivity and indifference after the Battle of Bull Run, speaks thus of the uprising of the North: "It accomplished wonders. It multiplied its armies; it built navies with infuriate energy; it recovered itself from financial straits which distant observers thought hopeless; a few weeks after the Battle of Manassas it negotiated a loan of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, at a fraction above the legal interest of New York; in short, its universal mind and energy were consolidated in its war upon the South. There is no more remarkable phenomenon in the whole history of the war than the display of fully-awake Northern energy in it, alike wonderful in the ingenuity of its expedients and in the concentrated force of its action." 1

Nevertheless the President of the Confederacy fully realized that a long and bloody war was imminent and that all the resources of the South would have to be called into requisition. The Confederate Congress met April 29 and was in session a large part of the summer. It passed various acts for putting the South on a war footing, among others one to confiscate the property of alien enemies, to sequestrate debts due Northern creditors, to raise loans of money, and authorizing the enlistment of 400,000 volunteers for three years.

II

THE STRUGGLE FOR MISSOURI; CAPTURE OF FORTS HENRY AND

DONELSON

After this brief pause military operations were renewed by both armies and rapidly pushed forward. For the rest of that year and all of the following the theater of warfare lay chiefly in the West. During the summer the chief movements were in Missouri, where the struggle between the secessionists and the Unionists for the possession of the State was still going on. The secessionist forces were led by Generals Sterling Price and Benjamin McCulloch; the Union leader was General Nathaniel P. Lyon, who, with Blair, had early in the spring outwitted the secessionists and prevented the adoption of an ordinance of secession. After several

1 Pollard, "The Lost Cause," p. 154.