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CAUSES OF OUR DEFEAT-SHORT ENLISTMENTS.

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pose. But it should, at least, have been promptly employed to block completely with its bayonets the roads leading to Washington, sternly arresting the flight of the panicstricken fugitives, and gathering them up into something which should bear once more the semblance of an army.

with traitors, many of them holding | After the mischief was done, Runofficial positions of the gravest re- yon's division was ordered forward sponsibility; and whatever it was from Fairfax-of course, to no purimportant to Beauregard to know he speedily ascertained. To cross the Potomac, a little below or above our camps, was never difficult; and, once across, trusty messengers knew where to find fleet horses and sure guides to take them to the Rebel lines. The Confederate chiefs knew which among our officers meant them any harm, and which might be confidently trusted never to take them at disadvantage. They evidently had no more apprehension that Patterson would obstruct or countervail the march of Johnston to Manassas than that Breckinridge or Burnett would do them mortal harm in Congress.

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VI. The original call of President Lincoln on the States, for 75,000 militia to serve three months, was a deplorable error. It resulted naturally from that obstinate infatuation which would believe, in defiance of all history and probability, that an aristocratic conspiracy of thirty years' standing, culminating in a rebellion V. The fall, very early in the action, based on an artificial property valued of Gen. David Hunter," command34 command- at Four Thousand Millions of Doling the 2d or leading division, was lars, and wielding the resources of most untimely and unfortunate. He ten or twelve States, having nearly was so seriously wounded that he was ten millions of people, was to be put necessarily borne from the field. down in sixty or ninety days by some Gen. Heintzelman, commanding the process equivalent to reading the 3d division, was also wounded; not Riot Act to an excited mob, and as severely, but so as to disable him. sending a squad of police to disperse Gen. McDowell either had control it. Hence, the many prisoners of war of Runyon's division, guarding his taken with arms in their hands, in line of communication, or he had not. West Virginia and Missouri, had, up If he had, he should have ordered the to this time, been quite commonly bulk of it to advance that morning permitted to go at large on taking an on Centerville, so as to have had it oath of fidelity to the Constitution well in hand to precipitate on the foe-a process which, in their view, was at the decisive moment; or, if he was so hampered by Scott that he was not at liberty to do this, he should have refused to attack, and resigned the command of the army, rather than fight a battle so fettered.

34 Colonel of the 3d cavalry in the regular service.

35 Colonel in the regular service.

For the first year of the war, no regular

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about as significant and imposing as taking a glass of cider. The Government had only to call for any number of men it required, to serve during the pleasure of Congress, or till the overthrow of the Rebellion, and

list of prisoners taken by us-not even of those paroled was kept at the War Department; hence, we fell deplorably behind in our account current with the Rebels.

that the Rebels were not in earnest; that there would be a promenade, a frolic, and, ultimately, a compromise, which would send every one home, unharmed and exultant, to receive from admiring, cheering thousands the guerdon of his valor. Hence, some regiments were very badly officered, and others gave way and scattered, or fled, just when they were most needed.

they could have been had at once. | there would be no serious fighting; Regiments were pressed upon it from all sides; and the hotels of Washington were crowded by keen competitors for the coveted privilege of raising more batteries and fresh battalions. None asked for shorter terms to serve, or would have then hesitated to enlist for the war. It was entirely proper to call out the organized and uniformed militia as minutemen to defend Washington and protect the public property until volunteers could be raised; but no single regiment should have been organized or enlisted, during that springtide of National enthusiasm, for any term short of the duration of the war.

VII. It is impossible not to perceive that the Rebel troops were better handled, during the conflict, than ours. Gen. McDowell, who does not appear to have actively participated in any former battle but that of Buena Vista, where he served as Aid to Gen. Wool, seems to have had very little control over the movements of his forces after the beginning of the conflict. Gov. Sprague, who fought through the day as brigadier with the 2d Rhode Island, whose Colonel, Slocum, and Major, Ballou, were both left dead on the battle-field, observed to one who asked him, near the close of the fight, what were his orders, that he had been fighting all day without any. In short, our army was projected like a bolt, not wielded like a sword.

VIII. Although our army, before fighting on that disastrous day, was largely composed of the bravest and truest patriots in the Union, it contained, also, much indifferent material. Many, in the general stagnation and dearth of employment, had volunteered under a firm conviction that

IX. Col. D. S. Miles, a Marylander, commanding the 5th (reserve) division, was drunk throughout the action, and playing the buffoon; riding about to attract observation, with two hats on his head, one within the other. As, however, he was pretty certainly a traitor, and was not ordered to advance, it is hardly probable that his drunkenness did any serious damage, save as it disgusted and disheartened those whose lives were in his hands.

No one who did not share in the sad experience will be able to realize the consternation which the news of this discomfiture-grossly exaggerated-diffused over the loyal portion of our country. Only the tidings which had reached Washington up to 4 o'clock all presaging certain and decisive victory-were permitted to go north by telegraph that day and evening; so that, on Monday morning, when the crowd of fugitives from our grand army was pouring into Washington, a heedless, harmless, worthless mob, the loyal States were exulting over accounts of a decisive triumph. But a few hours brought different advices; and these were as much worse than the truth as the former had been better: our army had been utterly destroyed-cut to

EXTENT AND RESULTS OF OUR DISCOMFITURE. 553

pieces, with a loss of twenty-five to | with their tales of impregnable in

thirty thousand men, beside all its artillery and munitions, and Washington lay at the mercy of the enemy, who were soon to advance to the capture and sack of our great commercial cities. Never before had so black a day as that black Monday lowered upon the loyal hearts of the North; and the leaden, weeping skies reflected and hightened, while they seemed to sympathize with, the general gloom. It would have been easy, with ordinary effort and care, to have gathered and remanded to their camps or forts around Alexandria or Arlington, all the wretched stragglers to whom fear had lent wings, and who, throwing away their arms and equipments, and abandoning all semblance of military order or discipline, had rushed to the capital to hide therein their shame behind a cloud of exaggerations and falsehoods. The still effective batteries, the solid battalions, that were then wending their way slowly back to their old encampments along the south bank of the Potomac, depressed but unshaken, dauntless and utterly unassailed, were unseen and unheard from; while the panic-stricken racers filled and distended the general ear

37 Gen. McDowell, in his official report, in giving his reasons for fighting as and when he did, says:

"I could not, as I have said more early, push on faster, nor could I delay. A large and the best part of my forces were three months' volunteers, whose term of service was about to expire, but who were sent forward as having long enough to serve for the purpose of the expedition. On the eve of the battle, the 4th Pennsylvania regiment of volunteers, and the battery of volunteer artillery of the New York 8th militia, whose term of service expired, insisted on their discharge. I wrote to the regiment, expressing a request for them to remain a short time; and the Hon. Secretary of War, who was at the time on the ground, tried to induce the battery to remain at least five days. But in vain. They insisted on their discharge that

trenchments and masked batteries, of regiments slaughtered, brigades utterly cut to pieces, etc., making out their miserable selves to be about all that was left of the army. That these men were allowed thus to straggle into Washington, instead of being peremptorily stopped at the bridges, and sent back to the encampments of their several regiments, is only to be accounted for on the hypothesis that the reason of our military magnates had been temporarily dethroned, so as to divest them of all moral responsibility.

The consequences of this defeat were sufficiently serious. Our 75,000 three months' men, whose term of en. listment, for the most part, expired within the three weeks following the battle, generally made haste to quit the service and seek their several firesides at the earliest possible moment." Our arınies were thus depleted with a rapidity rarely equaled; and the Government, which, throughout the preceding month, had been defending itself as best it could against importunities and entreaties to be allowed to furnish a regiment here or a bat

night. It was granted: and, the next morning, when the army moved forward into battle, these troops moved to the rear to the sound of the enemy's

cannon.

"In the next few days, day by day, I should have lost ten thousand of the best armed, drilled, officered, and disciplined troops in the army. In strength of the enemy, made us weaker." other words, every day, which added to the

It should here be added, that a member of the New York battery aforesaid, who was most earnest and active in opposing Gen. McDowell's request, and insisting on an immediate discharge, was, at the ensuing election, in full view of all the facts, chosen Sheriff of the city of NewYork-probably the most lucrative office filled by popular election in the country.

tery there, was glad thenceforth to | strong, had been utterly routed and take all that offered, and to solicit dispersed by Beauregard's 15,000 to where it had been so earnestly soli- 20,000 Confederates. cited. The nation awoke from a dream of invincibility and easy triumph to find itself inextricably in volved in a desperate and dubious struggle for life. And the thinly disguised or utterly undisguised exultation wherewith the news of this disaster was received by thousands whose sympathy with the Rebels had hitherto been suppressed, or only indulged in secret, proved that, in the struggle now upon us, the Republic could not count on the support even of all those who still claimed to be loyal to the Constitution and Union.

On the other hand, the Rebellion was immensely strengthened and consolidated by its victory. Tens of thousands throughout the South, who had hitherto submitted in silence to proceedings which they condemned and deplored, but lacked the power or the courage to resist, yet whose hearts were still with their whole country and the old flag, now abandoned the Union as hopelessly lost, and sought, by zeal in the cause of the Rebellion, to efface the recollection of their past coldness and infidelity; while no one who had previously been a Rebel any longer cherished a shadow of doubt that the independence of the Confederacy was secured. The vote of Tennessee for Secession, the sudden uprising of a great Rebel army in Missouri, and the strengthening of the cause and its defenders everywhere, owe much of their impulse to the dispatches which flashed over the rejoicing South assurances that the grand army of the North, 35,000 to 50,000

Yet it is to be added that, whatever the exultation of one party, the depression of the other was not without its compensations. The North, at first stunned, was ultimately rather chastened and sobered than disheartened or unnerved by its great disaster; while the South, intoxicated by its astounding success, expended in fruitless exultation energies that might better have been devoted to | preparation for future and more determined struggles. If, as the Confederates were told, 15,000 of their raw recruits, badly armed and provided, had sufficed to rout and scatter double or treble their number of Yankees, superbly equipped for the contest, what need could there be for self-denial, and sacrifice, and a general volunteering to recruit their victorious armies? They hastily concluded that the struggle was virtually over-that nothing remained but to prescribe the terms on which peace should be accorded to the vanquished; and this delusion continued for months undispelled and effective.

And thus, while the instant effect of the tidings was the doubling of the Rebel numbers in the field and a reduction of ours by half, yet a few weeks sufficed to efface this disparity, and the expiration of three months saw our forces swelled once more till they exceeded those of the enemy. The Nation, flung headlong to the earth, and temporarily paralyzed by her fall, rose at length with a truer appreciation of the power, the purpose, and the venom of her foes, and a firmer resolve that they should be grappled with and overcome.

ORGANIZATION OF THE XXXVIITH CONGRESS. 555

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XXXIV.

THE EXTRA
EXTRA SESSION.

THE XXXVIIth Congress convened, pursuant to the President's summons, in Extra Session, at noon on the 4th of July; when, on a call of the roll, an ample quorum of either House was found in attendance, including full delegations from Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland,' and Delaware.* Tennessee had not yet chosen Representatives; and, when she did choose, at her regular State election, five weeks later, only the three districts east of the mountains elected members to the Union Congress; and, of these, one-Thomas A. R. Nelson-being arrested by the Rebels while on his way to Washington, regained his liberty by renouncing the Union and professing adherence to the Rebellion. Of the seceded States, only Arkansas chose Representatives to Congress in 1860; and these renounced their seats by open and active adhesion to the Southern Confederacy. In the Sen

The Representatives from Kentucky had been chosen a few weeks before at a special election, wherein nine districts elected 'conservative' or pro-Slavery Unionists, while the 1st reëlected, by a considerable majority, Henry C. Burnett, a Secessionist, who only served through the Extra Session, and then fled to participate openly in the Rebellion. The only remaining district seriously contested was the 8th (Fayette, Bourbon, etc.), which elected John J. Crittenden (Union) over William E. Simms (late Democrat, now Secessionist), by 8,272 to 5,706. The aggregate vote of the State showed a preponderance of more than two to one for the Union.

2 The members from this State had been chosen in August, 1860: five of them as Democrats; one (Francis P. Blair,) as a Republican; another (James S. Rollins) as a Bell-Everett Unionist.

ate, the four States first named were fully represented; while Andrew Johnson was present from Tennessee, making 44 in all. Western Virginia had chosen three members at the regular State election in April, while another had been elected by a light vote, either then or subsequently, from the district lying along the Potomac, above and below Harper's Ferry. Of Representatives, 157 in all answered to their names at the first call. Galusha A. Grow [Republican], of Pennsylvania, was chosen Speaker, and Emerson Etheridge. [Bell-Everett], of Tennessee, Clerk of the House. John W. Forney [Douglas], of Pennsylvania, was soon afterward elected Clerk of the Senate.

President Lincoln's Message was transmitted to both Houses on the following day. It was largely devoted to a recital of occurrences already narrated. It did not distinctly avow that the Government had ever

One of the Democrats had already gone over to the Rebellion, as two more of them did afterward.

Maryland had very recently chosen her Representatives at a special election, wherein each district elected a professed Unionist-the 6th (south-western) by barely 162 majority. But Henry May, elected as a Democrat over Winter Davis in the Baltimore city district, by 8,424 votes to 6,214, received the unanimous and ardent support of the Secessionists, and, as afterward appeared, for very good reasons.

4 Delaware had elected George P. Fisher (Unionist), in 1860, by the combined vote of the Lincoln and Bell parties-giving him 257 majority over Biggs (Breckinridge); while Reed (Douglas) drew away 761 votes.

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