A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (27 page)

A few days later, on July 19, Seward paid a private visit to the legation. He “proceeded, with some hesitation,” reported Lord Lyons, “and with an injunction to me to be secret,” swearing “that he had used strong language in his earlier communications to Foreign Powers … from the necessity of making them clearly understand the state of Public Feeling here.” He added that his only motive had been to prevent disunion, not begin a foreign war. “I was not altogether unprepared for the change in Mr. Seward’s tone,” Lyons admitted; he had heard from the French legation that Seward had made a similar speech to Mercier a few hours earlier. He thought the real question was whether the change was temporary or permanent—and that would depend on the Federal army’s progress in Virginia.
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The decision to send the army into battle rather than wait until the civilian recruits had been trained into soldiers had been made by the president’s cabinet on June 29. The military advisers at the meeting had argued against the idea: General Scott had already presented Lincoln with a strategy, derisively called the “Anaconda Plan” by critics, which aimed to minimize the bloodshed on American soil by trapping the South behind its own borders and slowly applying pressure. But Northern newspapers were demanding a battle. Horace Greeley’s
New York Tribune
had started running the same banner headline every day:
FORWARD TO RICHMOND! FORWARD TO RICHMOND! THE REBEL CONGRESS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO MEET THERE ON 20 OF JULY!
, which incited newspapers in other states to follow suit.
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Lincoln explained to General Scott that it would be politically impossible to delay a fight, and even if it were not, there was the problem of the 75,000 volunteers whose ninety days were about to expire.

General Winfield Scott had fought in every American war since 1812 and was a revered national figure, although some of the younger officers in the army referred to him as “Old Fuss and Feathers.” He was too old and infirm to lead the troops himself, so the command of the new Federal army at Washington went to Irvin McDowell, a young officer on his staff, whose drive and intelligence had already marked him out as a future general. McDowell had not been Scott’s first choice; he had originally offered the position to Colonel Robert E. Lee, who lived in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington. But Lee declined, deciding that his loyalty belonged to Virginia and therefore the South.

McDowell was energetic, but he had never actually commanded an army, nor was Scott convinced that he would remain calm under pressure. He had sufficient experience, however, to know that the 35,000 would-be soldiers currently camping in the woods around Washington were more of a danger to themselves than to the Confederacy. His objections were dismissed by Lincoln, who told him: “You are green, it is true, but they are green, also, you are all green alike.” McDowell diligently executed Lincoln’s order to engage the enemy and devised a plan that he thought would answer the country’s wish for a quick and dramatic victory. He would march his men into Virginia to Manassas, where a Confederate army of 22,000 soldiers was stationed under the command of General Beauregard. Manassas was a small town some twenty-five miles west of Washington; though it was hardly more than a hamlet, its railroad junction linked two important rail lines going west and south into Virginia. If McDowell could smash the Confederate army blocking the way, the North would have an open route into northern Virginia, and from there it would indeed be “forward to Richmond.”

William Howard Russell liked General McDowell, whose manner, despite some personal peculiarities (Russell had never met a teetotal glutton before), he found to be engagingly frank and honest. When Russell bumped into him on July 16 at Washington Station, McDowell admitted that he was there looking for two missing batteries of artillery. The army had started its march toward Manassas that morning and already there was utter chaos at his headquarters. Even “the worst-served English general has always a young fellow or two about him,” thought Russell pityingly as the forlorn figure walked up and down the platform, poking his head into each train carriage. He was almost tempted to accept McDowell’s offer to travel with him on the train but decided it was impractical without his bags or a servant.

Over the next four days, the Federal army picnicked and pillaged its way from Washington to Manassas, leaving a trail of burning houses, discarded army kit, and stragglers that stretched for many miles. Although small by European standards, McDowell’s army was the largest ever assembled in America’s short history. He had organized it as best he could into five divisions with a total of thirteen brigades.
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Almost all the commanders were officers from the regular army, which gave McDowell confidence that at least he would have men who knew how to give and receive orders. The commander of the 3rd Brigade was Colonel Wil-liam T. Sherman, who would become the greatest Union general after Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman had asked for the 79th New York Highlanders and the 69th New York Irish because of the large number of European veterans in their ranks, but his hope that they would display more professional behavior than some of the other regiments was dashed from the outset. The Highlanders had refused to leave their camp because they had been given Model 1816 smoothbores instead of the modern rifled Springfields.
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Colonel James Cameron restored order by promising that every man would receive his own rifle as soon as possible, and since the colonel’s brother was the secretary of war, the men decided they could believe him.
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The situation was worse at the camp of the 69th, where Captain Thomas Meagher, the Irish “Prince of New York,” almost started a mutiny by arguing that their ninety days were up and that they should all be allowed to go home. Colonel Corcoran eventually managed to persuade the men to stay until after the anticipated battle.

The army’s destination was Centreville, a pretty town whose tree-lined streets promised the relief of shade to the dusty and parched soldiers. The Federal troops arrived in such a state of disarray and exhaustion that McDowell spent an entire day trying to reshuffle the various disorganized parts into some semblance of order. More regiments announced they were leaving since their ninety days had expired.
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The Confederate army was massed along an eight-mile line a little farther to the south behind a narrow, winding stream called Bull Run. Over the previous two days, General Beauregard had been receiving reinforcements from General Joseph E. Johnston’s army in the Shenandoah Valley. According to McDowell’s plan, this second army was supposed to be engaged by General Patterson in a diversionary battle so that the Confederates at Manassas would remain outnumbered. But Johnston had eluded his attackers and was, at that moment, piling his men onto trains bound for Manassas.

Generals Beauregard and McDowell had been classmates at West Point. They had studied the same military classics, learned the same tactics, and admired the same generals. Beauregard’s recent success at Fort Sumter had unleashed his Napoleonic tendencies to an unfortunate degree and given him visions of a great victory. Now, not only was his numerical disadvantage being rectified, but he had been prepared in advance for McDowell’s attack with the help of spies in Washington. Rose Greenhow, the alluring pro-Southern society hostess, had stayed behind in Washington with the express purpose of sending information to the Confederacy. She had been supplied with a cipher key for writing in code and had organized her own spy ring of pretty young women who charmed their way past Union guards to deliver messages, sewn inside their petticoats, to a Confederate contact in Virginia. The most important of Rose’s sources was Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, who swore, “You well know that I do love you—and will sacrifice anything,” which may explain how a copy of McDowell’s route ended up in her possession.
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Rose also knew the date of McDowell’s departure and when he proposed to attack.
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Although Jefferson Davis was not tied down by the Federal law that limited the service of state militias to a mere ninety days, Beauregard was hampered by other problems, including a severe shortage of arms and equipment. The 6th Louisiana Volunteers, Sam Hill’s regiment, had arrived at Manassas Junction with only their personal rifles and homemade uniforms. “The men badly off for clothes,” wrote Mary Sophia Hill in her diary. When Sam ripped his uniform she had to repair it with red flannel. “Just imagine a patch of this behind and on your knees!” she complained.
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Sam had been unable to master the most basic skills of soldiering, but his commanding officer turned down Mary’s plea to assign him to a nonmilitary function. The hard truth was that Sam fulfilled a function already, if only by being there to stop a bullet destined for someone else.

In Washington, Russell realized he had made a costly mistake by turning down McDowell’s offer at the station. He had failed to engage a servant, and there was not a horse or any kind of transport left in the city; what the army had not requisitioned had been hired by civilians who wanted to watch the spectacle. On Saturday, July 20, Russell heard from Federal officers in the city that McDowell’s attack would take place the next morning. His search for transport became frantic; Russell revisited one of the larger livery stables and begged the owner to rent him his last remaining carriage. He paid the exorbitant price demanded and rushed to General Scott’s headquarters to have his pass countersigned. “But the aide-de-camp shook his head, and I began to suspect from his manner and from that of his comrades that my visit to the army was not regarded with much favour.”
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Russell would not be able to leave until the morning.

I returned to my lodgings [he wrote], laid out an old pair of Indian boots, cords, a Himalayan suit, an old felt hat, a flask, revolver and belt. My mind had been so much occupied with the coming event that I slept uneasily, and once or twice I started up, fancying I was called. The moon shone in through the mosquito curtains of my bed, and just ere day-break I was aroused by some noise in the adjoining room, and looking out, in a half dreamy state, imagined I saw General McDowell standing at the table … so distinctly that I woke up with the words, “General, is that you?”
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By the time Russell was fully awake on the twenty-first, McDowell’s army had already marched into position and was awaiting orders. The two opposing generals had formed precisely the same plan: to trick the enemy with a feint against one side while mounting the real attack on the other. McDowell moved first, and his initiative appeared to bring rewards. Vizetelly placed himself rather precariously in a field and made sketches of the Federal regiments charging into their Confederate opponents. Both sides displayed unexpected courage and determination in their first introduction to warfare. It was the Confederates who wavered and were gradually pushed back; they ran toward the crest of a rise known as Henry House Hill, after the little white farmhouse that overlooked the ridge.

Confident that McDowell was on the verge of driving the Confederates off the field, Vizetelly galloped back to Centreville to give his first sketches to a waiting courier. A journalist for
The New York Times
also left and returned to Washington to write a report on McDowell’s victory. On the way back to the fighting, Vizetelly bumped into a hot and perspiring Russell accompanied by Frederick Warre, one of the more adventurous attachés from the legation. The driver of the gig had left them at Centreville and they were wandering around in search of something to eat. Vizetelly offered to share his lunch with them, and they found a shady spot on a hill overlooking Manassas.

A large crowd of sightseers, including several senators and their wives, was also on the hill to observe the battle. The smoke and haze made it impossible to see what was actually happening, although whenever there was a loud explosion a woman beside them would shout, “That is splendid. Oh my! Is not that first-rate? I guess we will be in Richmond this time tomorrow.” Russell knew better: “I was well convinced,” he wrote, “no advance of any importance or any great success had been achieved, because the ammunition and baggage wagons had never moved.” On the other hand, an Englishman whom Russell did not recognize “came up flushed and heated from the plain,” saying that the Federals were behaving “most gallantly.”
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His announcement that the Confederates were retreating provoked “gutteral ‘hochs’ from the Deutschland folk and loud ‘hurroos’ from the Irish.”
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Russell’s instincts were correct. McDowell was no longer leading but reacting; when urgently asked for orders by his subordinates, he told them to wait. “For some three hours previous, we had seen long lines of dense dust rising from the roads leaving from Manassas,” wrote Vizetelly. The dust clouds were in fact the last of the Confederate brigades arriving off the trains from the Shenandoah Valley.
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One of these fresh regiments, led by a former professor named Thomas J. Jackson, ran to Henry House Hill, where the Confederate stand was starting to crumble. There, according to legend, Jackson’s firmness and bravery under fire inspired a Confederate general to rally his troops with the cry: “Look at Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!”
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So began the legend of Stonewall Jackson.