Following the Flag, from August 1861 to November 1862, with the Army of the Potomac — A Closer Reading

ORGANIZATION OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

The battle of Bull Run, or of Manassas, as the Rebels call it, which was fought on the 21st of July, 1861, was the first great battle of the war. It was disastrous to the Union army. But the people of the North were not disheartened by it. Their pride was mortified, for they had confidently expected a victory, and had not taken into consideration the possibility of a defeat. The victory was all but won, as has been narrated in "My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field," when the arrival of a brigade of Rebels and the great mistake of Captain Barry, who supposed them to be Union troops, turned the scale, and the battle was lost to the Union army.

But the people of the North, who loved the Union, could not think of giving up the contest,--of having the country divided, and the old flag trailed in the dust. They felt that it would be impossible to live peaceably side by side with those who declared themselves superior to the laboring men of the Free States, and were their rightful masters. They were not willing to acknowledge that the slaveholders were their masters. They felt that there could not be friendship and amity between themselves and a nation which had declared that slavery was its cornerstone. Besides all this, the slaveholders wanted Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri in the Southern Confederacy, while the majority of the people of those States wanted to stay in the Union. The Rebels professed that they were willing that each State should choose for itself, but they were insincere and treacherous in their professions. Kentucky would not join the Confederacy; therefore they invaded the State to compel the people to forsake the old flag.

A gentleman from Ohio accompanied a Southern lady to Columbus, on the Mississippi, to see her safely among her friends. General Polk was commander of the Rebel forces at that place, and they talked about the war.

"I wish it might be settled," said the General.

"How will you settle?"

"O, all we ask is to have all that belongs to us, and to be let alone."

"What belongs to you?"

"All that has always been acknowledged as ours."

"Do you want Missouri?"

"Do you want Kentucky?"

"Yes, certainly. The Ohio River has always been considered as the boundary line."

"But Kentucky don't want you."

"You want all of Virginia?"

"What will you do with Washington?"

"We don't want it. Remove it if you want to; but Maryland is ours."[1]

[Footnote 1: Ohio State Journal.]

Such was the conversation; and this feeling, that they must have all the Slave States to form a great slaveholding confederacy, was universal in the South.

Besides this, they held the people in the Free States in contempt. Even the children of the South were so influenced by the system of slavery that they thought themselves superior to the people of the Free States who worked for a living.

I heard a girl, who was not more than ten years old, say that the Northern people were all "old scrubs"! Not to be a scrub was to own slaves,--to work them hard and pay them nothing,--to sell them, to raise children for the market,--to separate mothers from their babes, wives from their husbands,--to live solely for their own interests, happiness, and pleasure, without regard to the natural rights of others. This little girl, although her mother kept a boarding-house, felt that she was too good to play with Northern children, or if she noticed them at all, it was as a superior.

Feeling themselves the superiors of the Northern people, having been victorious at Manassas, the people of the South became enthusiastic for continuing the war. Thousands of volunteers joined the Rebels already in arms. Before the summer of 1861 had passed, General Johnston had a large army in front of Washington, which was called the Army of the Potomac.

At the same time thousands rushed to arms in the North. They saw clearly that there was but one course to pursue,--to fight it out, defeat the Rebels, vindicate their honor, and save the country.

The Union army which gathered at Washington was also styled the Army of the Potomac. Many of the soldiers who fought at Manassas were three months' men. As their terms of service expired their places were filled by men who enlisted for three years, if not sooner discharged.

General George B. McClellan, who with General Rosecrans had been successfully conducting the war in Western Virginia, was called to Washington to organize an army which, it was hoped, would defeat the Rebels, and move on to Richmond.

The people wanted a leader. General Scott, who had fought at Niagara and Lundy's Lane, who had captured the city of Mexico, was too old and infirm to take the field. General McDowell, although his plan of attack at Bull Run was approved, had failed of victory. General McClellan had been successful in the skirmishes at Philippi and at Rich Mountain. He was known to be a good engineer. He had been a visitor to Russia during the Crimean war, and had written a book upon that war, which was published by Congress. He was a native of Pennsylvania and a resident of Ohio when the war broke out. The governors of both of those States sent him a commission as a brigadier-general, because he had had military experience in Mexico, and because he was known as a military man, and because they were in great need of experienced men to command the troops. Having all these things in his favor, he was called to Washington and made commander of the Army of the Potomac on the 27th of July.

He immediately submitted a plan of operations to the President for suppressing the rebellion. He thought that if Kentucky remained loyal, twenty thousand men moving down the Mississippi would be sufficient to quell the rebellion in the West. Western Virginia could be held by five or ten thousand more. He would have ten thousand protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Potomac River, five thousand at Baltimore, twenty thousand at Washington, and three thousand at Fortress Monroe. One grand army for active operations was needed, to consist of two hundred and twenty-five thousand infantry, six hundred pieces of field artillery, twenty-five thousand cavalry, and seven thousand five hundred engineers, making a total of two hundred and seventy-three thousand men. In his letter to the President, General McClellan says: "I propose, with the force which I have requested, not only to drive the enemy out of Virginia, and occupy Richmond, but to occupy Charleston, Savannah, Montgomery, Pensacola, Mobile, and New Orleans; in other words, to move into the heart of the enemy's country, and crush the rebellion in its very heart."[2]

[Footnote 2: General McClellan's Report, p. 4.]

It was found a very difficult matter to obtain arms for the soldiers; for President Buchanan's Secretary of War, Floyd, had sent most of the arms in Northern arsenals to the South before the war commenced. But, notwithstanding this, so earnest were the people, and so energetic the government, that on the 1st of October, two months from the time that General McClellan took command, there were one hundred and sixty-eight thousand men in the Army of the Potomac, with two hundred and twenty pieces of artillery; besides this, the government had a large army in Kentucky, and another in Missouri. The Rebels had large armies in those States, and were making great efforts to secure them to the Confederacy. It was not possible to send all the troops to Washington, as General McClellan desired.

The Rebel army was commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston. He had about seventy thousand men, with his headquarters at Manassas. Some of the spies which were sent out by General McClellan reported a much larger force under Johnston, and General McClellan believed that he had one hundred and fifty thousand men. Strong fortifications were erected to defend Washington; General Johnston wished very much to take the city, and the people of the South expected that he would gain possession of it and drive out the hated Yankees. He pushed his troops almost up to General McClellan's lines, taking possession of Munson's Hill, which is only five miles from the Long Bridge at Washington.

The Rebels erected breastworks upon the hill, and threw shot and shells almost to Arlington House. From the hill they could see the spires of the city of Washington, the white dome of the capitol, and its marble pillars. No doubt they longed to have it in their possession; but there were thousands of men in arms and hundreds of cannon and a wide river between them and the city.

One bright October morning I rode to Bailey's Cross-roads, which is about a mile from Munson's Hill. Looking across a cornfield, I could see the Rebels behind their breastworks. Their battle-flags were waving gayly. Their bayonets gleamed in the sunshine. A group of officers had gathered on the summit of the hill. With my field-glass, I could see what they were doing. They examined maps, looked towards Washington, and pointed out the position of the Union fortifications. There were ladies present, who looked earnestly towards the city, and chatted merrily with the officers. A few days after, I saw in a Richmond paper that the officers were Generals Lee, Beauregard, and Johnston, and that one of the ladies was Mrs. Lee.

General Lee was within sight of his old home; but he had become a traitor to his country, and it was to be his no more. Never again would he sit in the spacious parlors, or walk the verdant lawn, or look upon the beautiful panorama of city and country, forest and field, hill and valley, land and water,--upon the ripened wheat on the hillside or the waving corn in the meadows,--upon the broad Potomac, gleaming in the sunshine, or upon the white-winged ships sailing upon its bosom,--upon the city, with its magnificent buildings, upon the marble shaft rising to the memory of Washington, or upon the outline of the hills of Bladensburg, faint and dim in the distance.

He joined the rebellion because he believed that a state was more than the nation, that Virginia was greater than the Union, that she had a right to leave it, and was justified in seceding from it. He belonged to an old family, which, when Virginia was a colony of Great Britain, had influence and power. He owned many slaves. He believed that the institution of slavery was right. He left the Union to serve Virginia, resigned his command as colonel of cavalry, which he held under the United States. He accepted a commission from Jefferson Davis, forswore his allegiance to his country, turned his back upon the old flag, proved recreant in the hour of trial, and became an enemy to the nation which had trusted and honored him.

The summer passed away and the golden months of autumn came round. The troops were organized into brigades and divisions. They were drilled daily. In the morning at six o'clock the drummers beat the reveille. The soldiers sprang to their feet at the sound, and formed in company lines to answer the roll-call. Then they had breakfast of hard-tack and coffee. After breakfast the guards were sent out. At eight o'clock there were company drills in marching, in handling their muskets, in charging bayonet, and resisting an imaginary onset from the enemy. At twelve o'clock they had dinner,--more hard-tack, pork or beef, or rice and molasses. In the afternoon there were regimental, brigade, and sometimes division drills,--the men carrying their knapsacks, canteens, haversacks, and blankets,--just as if they were on the march. At sunset each regiment had a dress parade. Then each soldier was expected to be in his best trim. In well-disciplined regiments, all wore white gloves when they appeared on dress parade. It was a fine sight,--the long line of men in blue, the ranks straight and even, each soldier doing his best. Marching proudly to the music of the band, the light of the setting sun falling aslant upon their bright bayonets, and the flag they loved waving above them, thrilling them with remembrances of the glorious deeds of their fathers, who bore it aloft at Saratoga, Trenton, and Princeton, at Queenstown and New Orleans, at Buena Vista and Chapultepec, who beneath its endearing folds laid the foundations of the nation and secured the rights of civil and religious liberty. Each soldier felt that he would be an unworthy son, if traitors and rebels were permitted to overthrow a government which had cost so much sacrifice and blood and treasure, and which was the hope of the oppressed throughout all the world.

In the evening there were no military duties to be performed, and the soldiers told stories around the camp-fires, or sang songs, or had a dance; for in each company there was usually one who could play the violin. Many merry times they had. Some sat in their tents and read the newspapers or whatever they could find to interest them, with a bayonet stuck in the ground for a candle-stick. There were some who, at home, had attended the Sabbath school. Although in camp, they did not forget what they had left behind. The Bible was precious to them. They read its sacred pages and treasured its holy truths. Sometimes they had a prayer-meeting, and asked God to bless them, the friends they had left behind, and the country for which they were ready to die, if need be, to save it from destruction.

But at the tap of the drum at nine o'clock the laughter, the songs, the dances, the stories, the readings, and the prayer-meetings, all were brought to a close, the lights were put out, and silence reigned throughout the camp, broken only by the step of the watchful sentinel.

The soldiers soon grew weary of this monotony. They had been accustomed to an active life. It was an army different from any ever before organized. It was composed in a great degree of thinking men. Many of them were leading citizens in the towns where they lived. They were well educated and were refined in their manners. They knew there was to be hard fighting and a desperate contest, that many never would return to their homes, but would find their graves upon the field of battle; yet they were ready to meet the enemy, and waited impatiently for orders to march.

There were grand reviews of troops during the fall, by which the officers and soldiers became somewhat accustomed to moving in large bodies. All of the troops which could be spared from the fortifications and advanced positions were brought together at Bailey's Cross-roads, after the Rebels evacuated Munson's Hill, to be reviewed by the President and General McClellan. There were seventy thousand men. It was a grand sight. Each regiment tried to outdo all others in its appearance and its marching. They moved by companies past the President, bands playing national airs, the drums beating, and the flags waving. There were several hundred pieces of artillery, and several thousand cavalrymen. The ground shook beneath the steady marching of the great mass of men, and the tread of thousands of hoofs. It was the finest military display ever seen in America.

It was expected that the army would soon move upon the enemy. General McClellan, in a letter to the President, advised that the advance should not be postponed later than the 25th of November. The time passed rapidly. The roads were smooth and hard. The days were golden with sunshine, and the stars shone from a cloudless sky at night; but there were no movements during the month, except reconnaissances by brigades and divisions.

The Rebels erected batteries on the south side of the Potomac, below the Occoquan, and blockaded it. They had destroyed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake Canal, so that the Union army and the city of Washington were dependent on the one line of railroad to Baltimore for all its supplies. It was very desirable that the Potomac should be opened. General Hooker, who commanded a division at Budd's Ferry, wished very much to attack the Rebels, with the aid of the navy, and capture the batteries, but General McClellan did not wish one division to move till the whole army was ready. December passed, and the year completed its round. Cold nights and blustering days came, and the army, numbering two hundred thousand men, went into winter quarters.

There were but two events of importance during the long period of inactivity in the autumn of 1861,--a disaster at Ball's Bluff and a victory at Dranesville.

In October General Stone's division of the Army of the Potomac was at Poolesville in Maryland. General Banks's division was at Darnestown, between Poolesville and Washington. General McCall's division was at a little hamlet called Lewinsville, on the turnpike leading from the chain bridge to Leesburg, on the Virginia side. The main body of the Rebels was at Centreville, but there was a brigade at Leesburg.

It is a beautiful and fertile country around that pleasant Virginia town. West of the town are high hills, called the Catoctin Mountains. If we were standing on their summits, and looking east, we should see the town of Leesburg at our feet. It is a place of three or four thousand inhabitants. There are several churches, a court-house, a market-place, where, before the war, the farmers sold their wheat, and corn, oats, and garden vegetables. Three miles east of the town we behold the Potomac sparkling in the sunlight, its current divided by Harrison's Island. The distance from the Virginia shore to the island is about one hundred and eighty feet; from the island to the Maryland shore it is six or seven hundred feet. The bank on the Virginia side is steep, and seventy-five or eighty feet high, and is called Ball's Bluff. A canal runs along the Maryland shore. Four miles below the island is Edward's Ferry, and three miles east of it is Poolesville.

In October, General McClellan desired to make a movement which would compel General Evans, commanding the Rebels at Leesburg, to leave the place. He therefore directed General McCall to move up to Dranesville, on the Leesburg turnpike. Such a movement would threaten to cut General Evans off from Centreville. At the same time he sent word to General Stone, that if he were to make a demonstration towards Leesburg it might drive them away.

On Sunday night, at sundown, October 20th, General Stone ordered Colonel Devens of the Massachusetts Fifteenth to send a squad of men across the river, to see if there were any Rebels in and around Leesburg.

Captain Philbrick, with twenty men of that regiment, crossed in three small boats, hauled them upon the bank, went up the bluff by a winding path, moved cautiously through the woods, also through a cornfield, and went within a mile and a half of Leesburg, seeing no pickets, hearing no alarm. But the men saw what they thought was an encampment. They returned at midnight and reported to General Stone, who ordered Colonel Devens to go over with about half of his regiment and hold the bluff.

The only means which General Stone had for crossing troops was one flat-boat, an old ferry-boat, and three small boats.

Colonel Devens embarked his men on the boats about three o'clock in the morning. The soldiers pushed them to the foot of the bluff, then returned for other detachments. The men went up the path and formed in line on the top of the bluff. By daybreak he had five companies on the Virginia shore. He moved through the open field towards the encampment which Captain Philbrick and his men had seen, as they thought, but which proved to be only an opening in the woods. But just as the sun's first rays were lighting the Catoctin hills he came upon the Rebel pickets in the woods beyond the field. The pickets fired a few shots and fled towards Leesburg, giving the alarm.

The town was soon in commotion. The drums beat, the Rebel troops then rushed out of their tents and formed in line, and the people of the town jumped from their breakfast-tables at the startling cry, "The Yankees are coming!"

General Evans, the Rebel commander, the day before had moved to Goose Creek to meet General McCall, if he should push beyond Dranesville. He had the Eighth Virginia, the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Mississippi Regiments, and a squadron of cavalry and four pieces of artillery.