into the fold, these States would not long attend a deliverer who was fighting for life hundreds of miles away; and the slender reward which welcomed Virginia's espousal of the Confederacy, by instant abandonment to Northern conquest, would become warning sufficient for other States against casting in their lots with the refluent South. Finally, the more Virginia was regarded, the more admirable a field did it present for the purpose of the Confederates. Time was soon to show that its stubborn defence was repaid and repaid many times by a stimulus of state pride and home love, which in addition to the Confederate sentiment animated those vast quotas of admirable soldiers whom Virginia poured forth unstintingly, filling up the battle-gaps till all were gone.

The Virginia Convention, as has been seen, passed, on the 16th of April, its ordinance of secession, with the proviso that the people should ratify or reject it by a vote on the 23d of May. But this vote the Convention instantly forestalled, by decreeing on the 24th of April, that, pending the popular decision, "military operations, offensive and defensive, in Virginia, should be under the chief control and direction of the President of the Confederate troops." At once, therefore, while Virginia volunteers were rallying in great numbers under the plea of State defence, Confederate troops were suffered to cross the frontiers of the State and take position within her borders. Not able even to await the popular vote in Virginia, the Confederate Government, on the 20th of April, removed its seat of authority from Montgomery to Richmond. In truth, however, the presence and operations of Confederate armies within her limits had already so long compromised Virginia and so thoroughly committed her to the Southern cause, that the removal of the Confederate capital to the seat of her area could not more effectually do so. But the latter movement, at once bold and wise, swept off, when consummated, all doubt, if any were still remaining, that Virginia was to be the great battle-ground of

the war.
The shifting and quivering lines of operations
heretofore proposed at the North were at once absorbed and
steadied in one clear, straight path, and aimless plans and
quests gave way to a fixed objective. The army at Wash-
ington, which had long since rendered meaningless by its
presence there its first rallying-call, turning its eyes from its
own capital to that of the insurgents, audaciously thrust into
their northernmost State, now raised a fiercer and more
clamorous battle-cry, and people and rulers swelled the shout
of "Onward to Richmond."

II.

THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

MIDSUMMER came before North and South had joined in the long-expected battle. The feverish rate at which the nation had been living, the intensity of popular feeling, and the vastness of that still doubtful stake for which the game of war was playing, had united to make the preceding Spring longer than a decade of ordinary years. A taste of battle, wherein the advantages were divided, set the edge of thirst for deadlier combat. The skirmishes at Big Bethel and Vienna, won by the Confederates, had been more than balanced by McClellan's brilliant minor campaign in West Virginia. But these affairs, though popularly magnified into monstrous proportions, were even then felt to be trivial prologues to an unknown drama. Impatient of what seemed unprecedented delay, the people had, by their excited Congressmen, and, indeed, by most of the public men of the day, beset the leaders of the Union troops for a forward movement, until the latter, against their better judgment, and with plentiful protests of the necessities of further preparation, sent their army into the world, literally "before its time, scarce half-made up," to seek its fortunes on the battle-field.

In the early days of July, a plan of operations having been matured by General McDowell, and accepted by the President and his cabinet, was put in train of exccution. At that time the main Confederate Army, about 20,000 strong, lay encamped, under General Beauregard, along the stream of Bull Run. His head-quarters were at Manassas Junction, the point where the great railroad running between Washington and Richmond is joined by the one leading down from the Valley of the Shenandoah. A force here obviously covered Richmond by planting itself across the direct line of march from Washington; menaced the latter city; suspended the Virginia railroad system; and kept open two lines of railroad supply, of which the westerly one communicated with the rich Shenandoah valley, and with the army guarding it. The latter, about 8,000 strong, lay, under the command of General J. E. Johnston, at Winchester, and was so posted as to hold the valley, observe Harper's Ferry and the Union forces in its front, menace McClellan, approaching from the west, and, if need be, join Beauregard. At Hampton, Magruder had a few thousand men holding the peninsula between the James and York rivers.

Now, facing and menacing these bodies were the Union forces, under direction of Scott. Foremost was the "Grand Army," under General McDowell; which, on the night of the same 23d of May, when Virginia declared for secession, crossed into that State, and began the long task of reconquering it to the Union. It was 30,000 strong, and made up of the three-months' militia, a few advance regiments of the three-years' men, for whom the President had already called, and a handful of regulars. At Fort Monroe General Butler had a small column of troops; while near Harper's Ferry, menacing Johnston, General Patterson commanded a force of 18,000 of the same unkneaded and heterogeneous sort as that of McDowell. The latter officer, surveying the field of war, and estimating the forces then upon it

with a soldierly coolness and precision quite rare in those early days, declared his ability to march against and dislodge the chief Confederate army, under Beauregard, provided he had the promise that the outlaying forces under Patterson and Butler should engage the attention (as they might easily do from their numerical superiority) of Johnston and Magruder. This assurance was emphatically given by General Scott, and the 9th July fixed for the march. Patterson was instantly ordered to again cross the Potomac, and sodemonstrate against Johnston as to prevent his joining Beauregard.

McDowell crossed the Potomac, to use his own words, "with everything green": he could "with difficulty get any officers," and was "obliged to organize, and discipline, and march and fight, all at the same time." He found difficulty alike in getting the troops and transportation designed for the expedition; and a part of the latter crossed the Potomac to him, raw and undrilled, on the day of the start, while the trains did not move until still later. However, by great exertions, employing himself even with details which usually fall to the duties of subordinate commanders and staffofficers, he got his army, such as it was, in hand, and, on the afternoon of July 16th, moved it out from the works on the southerly bank of the Potomac, leaving Runyan's (Fifth) Division as garrison. The marching force was about 30,000 strong, nearly all three-months' men, whose terms of service were expiring the object of their rally having been the defence of Washington. These all spiritedly marched to open the offensive campaign; and even some regiments entitled to discharge nobly remained, only two leaving—a Pennsylvania regiment and a New York artillery battalion — who, going back at Centreville, left McDowell still a little over 28,000 strong. In this force were about 800 regulars, of various regiments, clustered into a battalion under Major Sykes. There were four divisions in the column- the First

under General Tyler, the Second under Colonel Hunter, the Third under Colonel Heintzelman, the Fifth under Colonel Miles. The advance struck Fairfax Court House next day, and found that Beauregard's outposts there had taken the alarm and vanished; thence it moved onward to Centreville. The troops were unaccustomed to marching, and did not understand the value of dispatch, while their officers were mainly ignorant of how to march them: so that the army did not reach the latter point till the 18th, a day after McDowell's intention. Tyler's advance thence pushed immediately down to Bull Run, which, as we have seen, was Beauregard's line of defence. Now, the plan of battle had been to turn Beauregard's right, under cover of a demonstration made straightforward from Centreville, on the road to Manassas Junction, against Beauregard's centre. But Tyler was one of those numerous officers in whom, confident of success, zeal outran discretion; and, believing from the success of his advance thus far that he could push straight through to Manassas with his single division, he moved forward to Mitchell's Ford, and opened a sharp artillery fire, which provoked a response from the Confederate batteries. Not content with this reconnoissance, which, so far, was harmless, Tyler deployed his infantry brigade along the stream at Blackburn's Ford, and let them fire into the opposite woods. Of course the Confederates at once returned a hot reply, this being their strong position, and, in a few exchanges, put to flight the troops opposing. So far as material result was concerned, the affair was trifling, the Confederate loss being 68, and the Union about 100; but it had a great effect on the morale of the main attacking army, who recommenced their familiar speculations on "masked batteries." Something, however, was learned of the Confederate position. The next day, the 19th, the troops all got into position, and their rations, which were in the rear, also came up. The 19th and the morning of the 20th were spent in reconnois