Part 75 (2/2)

Waves of white curling smoke rose above the tree-tops and hung in dense clouds over the field lighted by the red glare of the sinking sun.

The relief corps could be seen das.h.i.+ng on, with stretchers and ambulances following in the wake of the victorious army.

The hum and roar of the vast field of carnage came now on the ears of the listener--the groans of the wounded and the despairing cry of the dying. And still the living waves of gray-tipped steel rolled on in relentless sweep.

Again the fleeing Federal soldiers choked the waters of Bull Run. Ma.s.ses of struggling fugitives were pushed from the banks into the water and pressed down. Here and there a wounded man clung to the branch of an overhanging tree until exhausted and sank to rise no more.

The meadows were trampled and red. Hundreds of weak and tired men were ridden down by cavalry and crushed by artillery. On and on rushed the remorseless machine of the Confederacy, crus.h.i.+ng, killing, scarring, piling the dead in heaps.

It was ten o'clock that night before the army of Lee halted and Pope's exhausted lines fell into the trenches around Centreville for a few hours' respite. At dawn Jackson was struggling with his tired victorious division to again turn Pope's flank, get into his rear and cut off his retreat.

A cold and drenching rainstorm delayed his march and the rabble that was once Pope's army succeeded in getting into the defenses of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Davis' army took seven thousand prisoners and picked up more than two thousand wounded soldiers whom their boastful commander had left on the field to die. Thirty pieces of artillery and twenty thousand small arms fell into Lee's hands.

Pope's losses since Jackson first struck his advance guard at Culpeper Court House had been more than twenty thousand men and his army had been driven into Was.h.i.+ngton so utterly demoralized it was unfit for further service until reorganized under an abler man.

For the moment the North was stunned by the blow. Deceived by Pope's loud dispatches claiming victory for the first two days it was impossible to realize that his shattered and broken army was cowering and bleeding under the shadow of the Federal Capitol.

Even on the night of August thirtieth, with his men lying exhausted at Centreville where they had dropped at ten o'clock when Lee's army had mercifully halted, poor Pope continued to send his marvelous messages to the War Department.

He reported to Halleck:

”The enemy is badly whipped, and we shall do well enough. Do not be uneasy. We will hold our own here. We have delayed the enemy as long as possible without losing the army. We have damaged him heavily, and I think the army ent.i.tled to the grat.i.tude of the country.”

To this childish twaddle Halleck replied:

”My dear General, you have done n.o.bly!”

Abraham Lincoln, however, realized the truth quickly. He removed Pope and in spite of the threat of his Cabinet to resign called McClellan to reorganize the dispirited army.

The North was in no mood to listen to the bombastic defense of General Pope. They were stunned by the sudden sweep of the Confederate army from the gates of Richmond on June first, to the defenses at Was.h.i.+ngton within sixty days with the loss of twenty thousand men under McClellan and twenty thousand more under Pope.

The armies of the Union had now been driven back to the point from which they had started on July 16, 1861. It had been necessary to withdraw Burnside's army from eastern North Carolina and the forces of the Union from western Virginia. The war had been transferred to the suburbs of Was.h.i.+ngton and the Northern people who had confidently expected McClellan to be in Richmond in June were now trembling for the safety of Pennsylvania and Maryland, to say nothing of the possibility of Confederate occupation of the Capital.

An aggressive movement of all the forces of the South under Lee in the East and Bragg and Johnston in the West was ordered.

In spite of the fact that Lee's army could not be properly shod--the supply of army shoes being inadequate and the lack of shoe factories a defect the Confederacy had yet been unable to remedy, the Southern Commander threw his army of barefooted veterans across the Potomac and boldly invaded Maryland on September the fifth.

The appearance of Stonewall Jackson on his entrance into Frederick City, Maryland, was described by a Northern war correspondent in graphic terms:

”Old Stonewall was the observed of all observers. He was dressed in the coa.r.s.est kind of homespun, seedy, and dirty at that. He wore an old hat which any Northern beggar would consider an insult to have offered him.

In his general appearance he was in no respect to be distinguished from the mongrel barefoot crew who followed his fortunes. I had heard much of the decayed appearance of rebel soldiers,--but such a looking crowd!

Ireland in her worst straits could present no parallel, and yet they glory in their shame!”

Lee's army was now fifty miles north of Was.h.i.+ngton, within striking distance of Baltimore. His strategy had completely puzzled the War Department of the Federal Government. McClellan was equally puzzled.

Lincoln and his Cabinet believed Lee's movement into Maryland a feint to draw the army from the defense of the Capital, and, when this was accomplished, by a sudden swoop the Southern Commander would turn and capture the city.

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