1861.]

A FLAG OF TRUCE.

167

regiment introduced a novel feature into the celebration of New Year's day. The officers all abdicated for the day, and the men elected their successors, from colonel down. Corporal Colton, of Buffalo, was chosen colonel pro tempore. His first act of authority was to place the line officers on guard around the camp. At dress parade, which was commanded by the corporal-colonel (and well commanded too), Colonel Rogers and his field and staff officers were in the ranks, doing duty as privates.

Wednesday evening, January eighth, the head-quarter mess of the Twentieth gave a dinner to General Wadsworth, Colonel Rogers, and a few other officers, which was a very enjoyable affair.

On the sixteenth of January the men had the pleasure of exchanging their old-fashioned arms for Austrian rifled muskets, and they were very proud of their new weapons. It was found that they were much more accurate in firing than the discarded pieces were, and the men took great pleasure in practicing the firings, and, as a regiment, became very good marksmen.

On the second of February, while the Twentieth was on picket, a solitary horseman (like one of James') was seen approaching the line from the enemy's side, waving a white flag. The peaceful emblem was recognized, and the bearer allowed to approach. He proved to be Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison, of the Second Va. Cavalry, and the bearer of a sealed communication to General McClellan from General Johnson, which he desired to present in person. He was kept outside the picket line until General McClellan could be heard from, and then an officer of General McDowell's staff, specially detailed therefor, received the communication and conveyed it to General McClellan; Colonel Harrison, meantime, being excluded from our lines, but remaining at a house a few hundred yards in front, under cover of his flag, for several days, until a reply was received. It was

said that a Cabinet Council was convened to consider the matter contained in the flag-of-truce letter; how that may have been I do not know, but certain it is, that Colonel Harrison had to wait several days for a reply. The Washington correspondent of the New York Herald wrote to his paper that the flag-of-truce letter was from Jeff. Davis himself, and that it announced to Mr. Lincoln the resolve of the Confederate authorities to execute Colonels Lee, Corcoran, Wilcox and other Federal prisoners, then in the hands of the rebels, if the Federal Government allowed certain rebel bridge-burners to be hung, as was likely to happen, under orders of General Halleck. The Washington Star said this was the real subject of the communication. Well, the hangings did not take place on either side. Our Government seemed to be of Greeley's opinion, that the worst use you can put a man to is to hang him. Yet, we sometimes find men to whom nothing else in life seems so becoming as this mode of ending it. The war developed many such characters; and, writing now, fourteen years after its close, and while an extra session of Congress is sweltering under the rays of a June sun, I feel constrained to say that a few hempen lessons, designed to make treason "odious," would have been beneficial to the tone of public sentiment in some parts of our be loved country.

At midnight on the third of February, a lively fusilade broke out along the picket line, in front of Dulan's, where a portion of I Company was stationed, and the reserves were ordered up, but the attack died out, as so many others had, without any other consequences than a little extra excitement, and the waste of a few rounds of ammunition.

During the latter part of January and the beginning of February, our camp was enlivened and honored by the visits of sundry friends from Kingston; among them were Mrs. Gates, wife of the Lieutenant-Colonel, Mr.

1862.]

HALLELUJAH! THE ARMY MOVES.

169

Elijah Dubois and wife, and Mr. and Mrs. William B. Fitch. Mrs. George W. Pratt visited Washington about the same time, but in consequence of the badness of the roads did not get over to the regiment.

A very pleasant episode occurred about this time, it being the presentation of a sword to Captain Van Rensselaer, of B Co., by his command. It was an entire surprise to the captain, and he was quite overcome by this merited but unexpected testimonial of the esteem in which he was held by his company. The surprise, added to the captain's well-known modesty, rendered him almost speechless, and it was some time before he could command words in which to express his emotion.

HALLELUJAH! The army is in motion! A thousand bands peal out their joyous notes upon the resonant air, this glorious March morning. Ten thousand starry banners reflect the light of the early morning sun. A hundred thousand men, armed in the cause of justice, good government, humanity, have turned their faces toward the west, and are moving upon the rebel stronghold of Manassas. A thousand cannon glitter in their untarnished brilliancy. Ten thousand horsemen clatter over roads and fields, ready to try their maiden sabres upon the boastful Southern cavalry. The army is launched at last upon its terrible mission. Is it to be like a thunderbolt in the grasp of Jove, or a mighty engine in a hand too puny for so great a charge?

The sun of Austerlitz was not more gloriously beautiful than the unobscured orb of day which greeted the thousand banners of the Union army, as they expanded in the early morning light.

Here the eye might rest for miles upon a line of marching troops, whose neat uniforms and burnished arms-whose steady step and well-closed files denoted the thoroughly drilled and self-reliant soldier; while above their ranks, the flag we love. "As it catches the

gleam of the morning's first beam," floats out on the breeze, filling the air with pictures of rarest beauty.

There again, in the distance, winds another and still another column, of which you get but now and then a glimpse. Sometimes their banners only can be seen moving through the air, as though we were supported on the right hand and on the left by an invisible host arrayed under the ensign of freedom.

Have you ever seen your country's flag thrown out against the sky, with only the blue ether for a background? Pencil or painter never wrought so beautiful a picture! Oh, how your heart has thrilled with patriotic pride as you watched its graceful dalliance with the winds of heaven, and thought how, on every sea, in every port where commerce finds its way; wherever civilization has made a home, and human freedom has an aspiration, that ensign is welcomed and beloved.

Have you ever seen that flag wreathed with the smoke of battle? Oh, then, what sublime eloquence glows in every star and speaks in every stripe! It invokes you by all the memories of the past to maintain the heritage its thirteen colonies bequeathed to you, through sufferings unspeakable. Its constellation of States tells of your wonderful growth as a nation, and your glorious destiny as a people; while through the sulphurous clouds shine out, as though written by the finger of Omnipotence, "In this symbol is the world's last best hope of civil and religious liberty!" Thus, onward moves the army of the Potomac, followed by the nation's hopes and prayers. Annandale and Fairfax Court House are passed. The rifle-pits and breastworks around the latter place are the first exhibitions we have of the digging propensity of the enemy. But he does not stay to defend his lines. Our advanced guard follows close upon the heels of his retiring outposts, until the Heights of Centreville rise before us, and we find its elaborate fortifications bristling with wooden guns!

CHAPTER XI.

CENTREVILLE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS-MCCLELLAN AND MCDOWELL VISIT BULL RUN BATTLE FIELD-SCENES ALONG THE WAY-REBEL HUTSBEAUREGARD'S DESSERT-PLAINS OF MANASSAS-THE JUNCTION-WHAT WE SAW THERE-UNIVERSAL DESTRUCTION-QUO ANIMO-THE LEGEND IN A HUT-BURNING

BRIDGES-THE WICKED FLEE WHEN NO MAN

PURSUETH-ON THE FIELD-SIGNS OF THE BATTLE-THE GENERALS REVERSED

DRAW REIN-THEIR

APPEARANCE-THEIR

MCDOWELL'S STORY OF THE FIGHT-MCCLELLAN AS AN

POSITIONS

AUDITOR-AP

PRECIATIVE, PERHAPS, BUT NOT SYMPATHETIC-PAINFUL POSITION FOR MCDOWELL-AS TRUE AS THE NEEDLE TO THE POLE-HOW MERIT MAY SOMETIMES SUFFER-IS RECOGNIZED AT LAST-MCDOWELL ON HIS MEN—HIS IDEA OF DISCIPLINE-CONSEQUENCES OF ITS ABSENCE.

THE day after the army drew up before Centreville, Generals McClellan and McDowell, with their staffs and two thousand cavalry as an escort, and a number of field and staff officers anxious to see the famous field of Bull Run, where General McDowell had been defeated eight months before, set out for Manassas Junction, seven miles to the westward.

From the heights of Centreville the view south and east is almost unlimited, while to the northward it is bounded by the Bull Run mountains, which seem to lift their rugged peaks into the bending heavens in the dim and hazy distance. Westward, and enveloping Manassas Junction, dense forests mask the country lying beyond, and over which the rebel army had recently retreated.

Centreville is a hamlet of a half dozen houses, planted upon the most southerly of a succession of bold ridges, which roll and swell, in ever-increasing proportions, until they are dwarfed and lost in the majestic range that meets the horizon in the north.

The sky was cloudless, and the day was warm and balmy as a day in May. The cavalcade that clattered