On Hallowed Ground by Robert M Poole Read Free Book Online

in July. “Forward to Richmond!” his newspaper thundered. “Forward to Richmond!” boomed other papers and politicians,
taking up the call for a quick end to the rebellion. “Forward to Richmond!” cried the soldiers in blue who shouldered their
muskets and tramped down the drive from Arlington, General McDowell leading the way. With flags rippling and brass bands glinting
in the sun, they headed south for Manassas, gateway to the Confederate capital. 48
    James Parks watched them go. Before the month ended, he heard the shudder of big guns announcing the first major engagement
of the Civil War on July 21, 1861. That is when some 32,000 Federals under McDowell ran headlong into 32,000 Confederates
under Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard just outside the village of Manassas. McDowell’s troops got the upper hand that morning.
“We drove them for several hours,” McDowell reported, “and finally routed them” across a creek known as Bull Run. But the
battle turned later that day, when Generals Joseph Johnston and Thomas J. Jackson pounded into the fray with 10,000 reinforcements.
Jackson, holding one end of the Confederate line, earned his nickname, “Stonewall,” that Sunday. The Rebel counterattack shattered
Union resolve. In the confusion of the afternoon fight, inexperienced Federals fired into their own lines, miscarried orders,
and finally fell apart. The bluecoats raced for home, leaving a trail of haversacks, cartridge cases, and dashed expectations
in their wake, and there was nothing General McDowell could do to stop them.
    “The larger part of the men are a confused mob, entirely demoralized,” he reported from Fairfax Courthouse that afternoon.
“Many of the volunteers did not wait for authority to proceed to the Potomac, but left on their own decision,” he wrote the
next day, as the extent of the rout became depressingly evident. 49 Although the casualties from Manassas were shocking for the time—with 418 Union killed, 1,011 wounded, 1,216 missing; 312
Confederates dead, 1,582 wounded, 12 missing—they were infinitesimal compared to the slaughter to come. 50
    Back at Arlington, Selina Gray had heard the thud of artillery tolling the hours of July 21 and wondered who was winning.
Like others in the capital, she worried that the fighting might surge north and roll over her in a mighty wave. She remained
awake all night, listening for the rumble of guns and watching for telltale flashes of light on the horizon. She was dressed
to flee at a moment’s notice, grateful that there was a full moon to illuminate her exodus, if it came to that. 51
    The morning brought not the sight of Rebel regiments overrunning the capital but the sorry spectacle of the Union’s humiliation.
In the drizzle of that Monday, a panic-stricken Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside galloped up to Willard’s Hotel in Washington, handed his horse to a groom, and went inside. Someone noticed that the general had lost his hat. 52
    Embarrassed and exhausted soldiers straggled alone or in ragged groups back to their camp at Arlington. Covered in soot and
soaked from the rain, these scarecrows flopped down on the wet grass and promptly fell asleep, just as their comrades were
doing on the sidewalks and lawns of Washington that day, the next, and the next. 53
    General McDowell passed among his bewildered men, and returned to his tent on the Arlington hillside. There he began the dreary
business of writing the reports of his inglorious campaign. Over the scratching of his pen, he might have heard the unmistakable
sizzle of a career about to go up in flames—his own. The same politicians and editors who had clamored for a quick strike
at Virginia now blamed McDowell for the debacle; this, despite the Ohioan’s insistence beforehand that his raw recruits were
unprepared for such an offensive. Now he was labeled incompetent, and it was whispered that he had been drunk throughout the
melee at Bull Run. 54 “It was one of the