THE LONG BRIDGE, WASHINGTON.
The Troops retreating from Bull Run came into the capital over this bridge.
IN WASHINGTON AFTER THE BATTLE.
BY WALT WHITMAN.
on all day) and fearfully worn, hungry, haggard, blister’d in the feet. Good people (but not over-many of them either) hurry up something for their grub. They put wash-kettles on the fire, for soup, for coffee. They set tables on the sidewalks — wagon-loads of bread are purchas’d, swiftly cut in stout chunks. Here are two aged ladies, beautiful, the first in the city for culture and charm; they stand with store of eating and drink at an improvis’d table of rough plank, and give food, and have the store replenish’d from their house every half-hour all that day; and there in the rain they stand, active, silent, white-hair’d, and give food, though the tears stream down their cheeks, almost without intermission, the whole time. Amid the deep excitement, crowds and motion, and desperate eagerness, it seems strange to see many, very many, of the soldiers sleeping — in the midst of all, sleeping sound. They drop down anywhere, on the steps of houses, up close by the basements or fences, on the sidewalk, aside on some vacant lot, and deeply sleep. A poor seventeen- or eighteen-year old boy lies there, on the stoop of a grand house; he sleeps so calmly, so profoundly. Some clutch their muskets firmly even in sleep. Some in squads; comrades, brothers, close together—and on them, as they lay, sulkily drips the rain. . . .
“But the hour, the day, the night pass’d, and whatever returns, an hour, a day, a night like that can never again return. The President, recovering himself, begins that very night — sternly, rapidly sets about the task of reorganizing his forces, and placing himself in positions for future and surer work. If there were nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to send him with his wreath to the memory of ail future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall — indeed, a crucifixion day — that it did not conquer him —that he unflinchingly stemm’d. it, and resolv’d to lift himself and the Union out of it.”
Note.— The revised losses at the battle of Bull Run are as follows: Federal, 16 ofticers and 411 enlisted men killed; 78 officers and 10« enlisted men wounded; 60 officers and 1262 enlisted men missing; 25 pieces of artillery and a large quantity of small arms. Confederate. 25 officers and 362 enlisted men killed; 63 officers and 1519 enlisted men wounded; 1 officer and 12 enlisted men missing.
THE scene in Washington after the battle has been graphically described by Walt Whitman, from whose 1 ‘ Specimen Days and Collect ” (Philadelphia : Rees, Welch & Co.) we make these extracts:
“ The defeated troops commenced pouring into Washington over the Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22d —day drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle (20th, 21st) had been parched and hot to an extreme — the dust, the grime and smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow’d by other layers again sweated in, absorb’d by those excited souls — their clothes all saturated with the clay-powder filling the air — stirr’d up everywhere on the dry roads and trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons, artillery, etc.—all the men with this coating of murk and sweat and rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long Bridge —a horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled, humiliated, panic-struck. Where are the vaunts and the proud boasts with which you went forth '1 Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and your ropes to bring back your prisoners 1 Well, there is n’t a band playing — and there is n’t a flag but clings ashamed and lank to its staff.
“ The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely and shame-faced enough, then thicker, in the streets of Washington—appear in Pennsylvania Avenue, and on the steps and basement entrances. They come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads, stragglers, companies. Occasionally, a rare regiment, in perfect order, with its officers (some gaps, dead, the true braves), marching in silence, with lowering faces, stern, weary to sinking, all black and dirty, but every man with his musket, and stepping alive; but these are the exceptions. Sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue, Fourteenth street, etc., crowded, jamm’d with citizens, darkies, clerks, everybody, lookers-on; women in the windows, curious expressions from faces, as those swarms of dirt-cover’d return’d soldiers there (will they never end 1) move by; but nothing said, no comments (half our lookers-on ‘secesh’ of the most venomous kind— they say nothing; but the devil snickers in their faces). During the forenoon, Washington gets all over motley with these defeated soldiers — queer-looking objects, strange eyes and faces, drench’d (the steady rain drizzles
disciplined and unseasoned men within 36 hours walked fully 45 miles, besides fighting from about 10 a. M. until 4 p. M. on a hot and dusty day in July. McDowell in person reached Centreville before sunset, and found there Miles’s division with Richardson’s brigade and 3 regiments of Runyon’s division, and Hunt’s, Tidball’s, Ayres’s, and Greene’s batteries and one or two fragments of batteries, making about 20 guns. It was a formidable force, but there was a lack of food, and the mass of the army was completely demoralized. Beauregard had about an equal force which had not been in the fight, consisting of Ewell’s, Jones’s, and Longstreet’s brigades and some troops of other brigades. McDowell consulted the division and brigade commanders who were at hand upon the question of making a stand or retreating. The verdict was in favor of the latter, but a decision of officers one way or the other was of no moment; the men had already decided for themselves and were streaming away to the rear, in spite of all that could be done. They had no interest or treasure in Centreville, and their hearts were not there. Their tents, provisions, baggage, and letters from home were upon the banks of the Potomac, and no power could have stopped them short of the camps they had left less than a week before. As before stated, most of them were sovereigns in uniform, not soldiers. McDowell accepted the situation, detailed Richardson’s and Blenker’s brigades to cover the retreat, and the army, a disorganized mass, with some creditable exceptions, drifted as the men pleased away from the scene of action. There was no pursuit, and the march from Centreville was as barren of opportunities for the rearguard as the withdrawal from the field of battle had been. When McDowell reached Fairfax Court House in the night, he was in communication with Washington and exchanged telegrams with General Scott, in one of which the old hero said, “We are not discouraged ”; but that despatch did not lighten the gloom in which it was received. McDowell was so tired that while sitting on the ground writing a despatch he fell asleep, pencil in hand, in the middle of a sentence. His adjutant-general aroused him; the despatch was finished, and the weary ride to the Potomac resumed. When the unfortunate commander dismounted at Arlington next forenoon in a soaking rain, after 32 hours in the saddle, his disastrous campaign of 6 days was closed.
The first martial effervescence of the country was over. The three-months men went home, and the three-months chapter of the war ended — with the South triumphant and confident; the North disappointed but determined.
THE NEW HENRY HOUSE Showing the Union monument of the first battle. From a photograph taken in 1884.
of the lost batteries. But there were no longer cannoneers to man or horses to move these guns that had done so much. By the arrival upon this part of the field of his own reserves and Kirby Smith’s brigade of Johnston’s army about half-past three, Beauregard extended his left to outflank McDowell’s shattered, shortened, and disconnected line, and the Fédérais left the field about half-past four. Until then they had fought wonderfully well for raw troops. There were no fresh forces on the field to support or
״ encourage them, and the UNIFORM OF THE 2d	6	, .	’,	•	,
OHIO AT BULL RUN. mei1 seemed to I>e seized From a photograph. simultaneously by the conviction that it was no use to do anything more and they might as well start home. Cohesion was lost, the organizations with some exceptions being disintegrated, and the men quietly walked off. There was no special excitement except that arising from the frantic efforts of officers to stop men who paid little or no attention to anything that was said. On the high ground by the Matthews house, about where Evans had taken position in the morning to check Burnside, McDowell and his staff, aided by other officers, made a desperate but futile effort to arrest the masses and form them into line. There, I went to Arnold’s battery as it came by, and advised that he unlimber and make a stand as a rallying-point, which he did, saying he was in fair condition and ready to fight as long as there was any fighting to be done. But all efforts failed. The stragglers moved past the guns, in spite of all that could be done, and, as stated in his report, Arnold at my direction joined Sykes’s ' battalion of infantry of Porter’s brigade and Palmer’s battalion of cavalry, all of the regular army, to cover the rear, as the men trooped back in great disorder across Bull Run. There were some hours of daylight for the Confederates to gather the fruits of victory, but a few rounds of shell and canister cheeked all the pursuit that was attempted, and the occasion called for no sacrifices or valorous deeds by the stanch regulars of the rear-guard. There was no panic, in the ordinary meaning of the word, until the retiring soldiers, guns, wagons, congressmen, and carriages were fired upon, on the road east of Bull Run. Then the panic began, and the bridge over Cub Run being rendered impassable for vehicles by a wagon that was upset upon it, utter confusion set in : pleasure-carriages, gun-carriages, and ammunition wagons which could not be put across the Run were abandoned, and blocked the way, and stragglers broke and threw aside their muskets and cut horses from their harness and rode off upon them. In leaving the field the men took the same routes, in a general way, by which they had reached it. Hence when the men of Hunter’s and Heintzelman’s divisions got back to Centreville, they had walked about 25 miles. That night they walked back to the Potomac, an additional distance of 20 miles ; so that these un-