1861.]

TROOPS POURING INTO WASHINGTON.

55

not appalled. The various departments of the Government went on regularly with their duties, and the veteran General Winfield Scott, who had been through two or three wars, and fourteen years before had dictated terms of peace in the capital of Mexico, made the best possible dispositions, with the force at his command, for the defence of Washington.

Troops in abundance were soon pouring into the city, till the authorities hardly knew what to do with them, and they hardly knew what to do with themselves. They slept on the floors of the Government buildings by night, and swarmed everywhere by day. A regiment of zouaves, recruited from the New York fire department and commanded by Ellsworth, amused themselves and astonished the citizens by scaling the walls of the Capitol, running along the cornices and water-tables, and clambering from window to window. To outward appearance the affair was one vast picnic, and few seemed to realize that desperate and bloody work was to come.

On the 24th of May, in the night, four regiments crossed the Potomac and took possession of Arlington Heights, which commanded Washington, and from which shells might have been thrown into the White House. This was called the first invasion of "the sacred soil of Virginia expression that became a by-word. ment, Ellsworth's, went by way of Alexandria, where a secession flag had long been flying over the principal hotel. Ellsworth himself, accom

an

One regi

56

BATTLE OF BIG BETHEL.

[1861.

panied by two soldiers, went to the top of the house, tore down the flag, and was returning to the street with it, when the proprietor of the hotel suddenly appeared with a shotgun and killed him on the stairs. The next instant the proprietor himself was shot dead by the foremost soldier. This incident produced another shock at the North, and woke the people a little more to the grim realities of war. Ellsworth's picture was displayed everywhere, eulogies were pronounced upon him, and special regiments were recruited in his name and dedicated themselves to the work of avenging his death.

In little more than a fortnight the loss was duplicated in the death of another of the notable young men that had rushed to arms. Theodore Winthrop, a writer of considerable achievement and great promise, had accompanied the New York Seventh Regiment to Washington, and published an account of the march that attracted universal attention. Afterward he went to Fort Monroe, on the staff of General Butler. In an ill-planned expedition against a secession force at Big Bethel (June 10), both he and Lieutenant John T. Greble, a young West-Pointer, were killed. It was typical of the chances of war that Winthrop, the scholar and literary genius, in the prime of manhood, was said to have been shot by a drummer-boy from North Carolina, then the most illiterate State in the Union.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

THE seventy-five thousand troops called for in President Lincoln's proclamation of April 15th, were three-months men. On the 3rd of May, 1861, he issued another proclamation, calling for forty-two thousand volunteers for three years, and authorizing the raising of ten new regiments for the regular army. He also called for eighteen thou sand volunteer seamen for the navy. The ports of the Southern coasts had been already (April 19th) declared in a state of blockade, and it was not only desirable but absolutely necessary to make the blockade effectual. The Confederate Government had issued letters of marque for privateers almost from the first; and its Congress had authorized the raising of an army of one hundred thousand volunteers for one year.

When Congress convened on the 4th of July, President Lincoln asked for four hundred thousand men and $400,000,000, to suppress the insurrection; and in response he was authorized to call for five hundred thousand men and spend $500,000,000. What he had already done was approved and declared valid; and on the 15th of July the House of Representatives, with but five dissenting votes, passed a resolution (introduced

58

ON TO RICHMOND.

[1861.

by John A. McClernand, a Democrat) pledging any amount of money and any number of men that might be necessary to restore the authority of the National Government.

The seat of the Confederate Government was removed from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, on the 20th of May, anticipating by a few days the vote of the people of Virginia on the question whether the State should leave the Union! For a long time volunteers were pouring into Washington at the rate of four thousand a day; and after a while the press and people began to talk of these raw levies as an army, and to wonder why they were not immediately precipitated upon the enemy. To the objection that they were green and unskilled in the art of war, it was answered that the Confederates were equally green and unskilled. To most people this consideration seemed perfectly satisfactory; they did not take into account the fact that it devolved upon the National forces to take the offensive, and an army marching into hostile territory must have acquired considerable discipline in order to be able to keep together, act together, and meet the contingencies of war.

So arose a popular demand for immediate action, which was represented by the catchword "On to Richmond!" echoed through the newspapers. General Scott was opposed to undertaking any large offensive movement with the three-months men. He thought they should only be used to protect Washington, keep Maryland from seceding, and carry on some operations that

1861.]

THE POSITION AT BULL RUN.

59

had been begun around Harper's Ferry and in western Virginia. But other than strictly military circumstances had to be considered, and a campaign toward Richmond was determined upon.

A Confederate army, commanded by General G. T. Beauregard, had been sent to occupy Manassas Junction, which was important as the railroad centre of northern Virginia. Seeing that it was much easier to hold the natural line of defence formed by Bull Run than to construct earthworks around the Junction, he had moved for ward to that stream and posted his troops at the various fords between the Alexandria Railroad and the Warrenton Turnpike, thus occupying a line eight miles long, facing toward Washington. He had about twenty-two thousand men. Harper's Ferry had been occupied by a Confederate force under General Joseph E. Johnston, who had destroyed the works and retired to Winchester on the approach of a superior force of National troops under General Robert Patterson.

General Scott's plan was, to launch an army against Beauregard, turn his right flank, seize the railroads in rear of his position, and defeat him. It was all-important that Johnston's army in the Shenandoah Valley, about nine thousand men, should not be permitted to go to the assistance of Beauregard; and General Patterson had strict orders to prevent such a movement, either by getting between the two or by closely following and attacking Johnston. The immediate command was intrusted to General Irvin McDowell, then