Part 13 (1/2)
”Lieutenant-Colonel TOWNSEND.”
”FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, July 21, 1861.
”The men having thrown away their haversacks in the battle, and left them behind, they are without food; have eaten nothing since breakfast. We are without artillery ammunition. The larger part of the men are a confused mob, entirely demoralized. It was the opinion of all the commanders that no stand could be made this side of the Potomac. We will, however, make the attempt at Fairfax Court House. From a prisoner we learn that 20,000 from Johnston joined last night, and they march on us to-night.
”IRWIN MCDOWELL.
”Colonel TOWNSEND”
”FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE, [July] 22, 1861.
”Many of the volunteers did not wait for authority to proceed to the Potomac, but left on their own decision. They are now pouring through this place in a state of utter disorganization. They could not be prepared for action by to-morrow morning even were they willing. I learn from prisoners that we are to be pressed here to-night and tomorrow morning, as the Enemy's force is very large, and they are elated. I think we heard cannon on our rear-guard. I think now, as all of my commanders thought at Centreville, there is no alternative but to fall back to the Potomac, and I shall proceed to do so with as much regularity as possible.
”IRWIN MCDOWELL.
”Colonel TOWNSEND.”
”ARLINGTON, July 22, 1861.
”I avail myself of the re-establis.h.i.+ng of telegraph to report my arrival. When I left the forks of the Little River turnpike and Columbia turnpike, where I had been for a couple of hours turning stragglers and parties of regiments upon this place and Alexandria, I received intelligence that the rear-guard, under Colonel Richardson, had left Fairfax Court House, and was getting along well. Had not been attacked. I am now trying to get matters a little organized over here.
”IRWIN MCDOWELL.
”Brigadier-General.
”E. D. TOWNSEND.”
McDowell had unquestionably been repulsed, in his main attack, with his Right Wing, and much of his Army was badly demoralized; but, on the other hand, it may be well to repeat that the Enemy's plan of attack that same morning had been frustrated, and most of his forces so badly shattered and demoralized that he dared not follow up the advantage which, more by our own blunders than by his prowess, he had gained.
If the Union forces-or at least the Right Wing of them-were whipped, the Enemy also was whipped. Jackson himself confesses that while he had, at the last moment, broken our centre, our forces had turned both of his flanks. The Enemy was, in fact, so badly used up, that he not only dared not pursue us to Was.h.i.+ngton-as he would have down had he been able-but he was absolutely afraid McDowell would resume the attack, on the right of the original Bull Run line, that very night! For, in a letter to General Beauregard; dated Richmond, Virginia, August 4, 1861, Jefferson Davis,-who was on the ground at Bull Run, July 21st,-alluding to the Battle of Bull Run, and Beauregard's excuses for not pursuing the Union troops, says: ”I think you are unjust to yourself in putting your failure to pursue the Enemy to Was.h.i.+ngton, to the account of short supplies of subsistence and transportation. Under the circ.u.mstances of our Army, and in the absence of the knowledge since acquired-if, indeed, the statements be true-it would have been extremely hazardous to have done more than was performed. You will not fail to remember that, so far from knowing that the Enemy was routed, a large part of our forces was moved by you, in the night of the 21st, to repel a supposed attack upon our right, and the next day's operations did not fully reveal what has since been reported of the Enemy's panic.”
And Jefferson Davis's statement is corroborated by the Report of Colonel Withers, of the 18th Virginia, who, after starting with other regiments, in an attempt to cut off the Union retreat, was recalled to the Stone Bridge,-and who says: ”Before reaching the point we designed to occupy (near the Stone Bridge) we were met by another order to march immediately to Mana.s.sas Junction, as an attack was apprehended that night. Although it was now after sunset, and my men had had no food all day, when the command to march to Mana.s.sas was given, they cheerfully took the route to that place.”
Colonel Davies, who, as we have seen, commanded McDowell's stubborn Left Wing, was after all, not far wrong, when, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he declared, touching the story of the Bull Run Battle: ”It ought to have read that we were victorious with the 13,000 troops of the Left Wing, and defeated in the 18,000 of the Right Wing. That is all that Bull Run amounts to.”
In point of fact, the Battle of Bull Run-the first pitched battle of the War-was a drawn battle.
War was now fully inaugurated-Civil War-a stupendous War between two great Sections of one common Country; those of our People, on the one side, fighting for the dissolution of the Union-and incidentally for Free Trade, and for Slavery; those on the other side, fighting for the preservation of the Union-and incidentally for Protection to our Free Industries, and for the Freedom of the Slave.
As soon as the Republican Party controlled both Houses of Congress it provided Protection to our Free Industries, and to the Free Labor engaged in them, by the Morill Tariff Act of 1860-the foundation Act of all subsequent enactments on the subject. In subsequent pages of this work we shall see how the Freedom of the Slave was also accomplished by the same great Party.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COLORED CONTRABAND.
When the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, its sullen echoes sounded the funeral knell of Slavery. Years before, it had been foretold, and now it was to happen. Years before, it had been declared, by competent authority, that among the implications of the Const.i.tution was that of the power of the General Government to Emanc.i.p.ate the Slaves, as a War measure. Hence, in thus commencing the War of the Rebellion, the South marched with open eyes upon this, as among other of the legitimate and logical results of such a War.
Patrick Henry, in opposing the ratification by Virginia of the Federal Const.i.tution, had declared to the Slaveholders of that State that ”Among ten thousand implied powers” which Congress may a.s.sume, ”they may, if we be engaged in War, liberate every one of your Slaves, if they please, * * * Have they not power to provide for the General Defense and Welfare? May they not think that these call for the abolition of Slavery? May they not p.r.o.nounce all Slaves Free? and will they not be warranted by that power? * * * They have the power, in clear, unequivocal terms, and will clearly and certainly exercise it.”
So, too, in his great speech of May 25, 1836, in the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams had declared that in ”the last great conflict which must be fought between Slavery and Emanc.i.p.ation,” Congress ”must and will interfere” with Slavery, ”and they will not only possess the Const.i.tutional power so to interfere, but they will be bound in duty to do it, by the express provisions of the Const.i.tution itself.” And he followed this declaration with the equally emphatic words: ”From the instant that your Slave-holding States become the theatre of War-civil, servile, or foreign-from that instant, the War powers of Congress extend to interference with the Inst.i.tution of Slavery in every Way by which it can be interfered with.”
The position thus announced by these expounders of the Const.i.tution-the one from Virginia, the other from Ma.s.sachusetts-was not to be shaken even by the unanimous adoption, February 11, 1861, by the House of Representatives on roll call, of the resolution of Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, in these words: ”Resolved, That neither the Congress of the United States nor the people or governments of the non-Slaveholding States have the Const.i.tutional right to legislate upon or interfere with Slavery in any of the Slaveholding States in the Union.”
Ex-President J. Q. Adams's cogent exposition of the Const.i.tution, twenty-five years before, in that same House, demonstrating not only that Congress had the right but the Const.i.tutional power to so interfere-and his further demonstration April 15, 1842, of his statement that under the laws of War, ”when a Country is invaded, and two hostile armies are set in martial array, the Commanders of both Armies have power to Emanc.i.p.ate all the Slaves in the invaded territory”-as not to be overcome by a mere vote of one House, however unanimous. For the time being, however, it contributed, with other circ.u.mstances, to confuse the public mind and conscience. Indeed as early as May of 1861, the att.i.tude of our Government and its troops toward Negro Slaves owned or used by Rebels in rebellious States, began to perturb the public, bother the Administration, and worry the Military officers.
For instance, in Major-General McClellan's proclamation to the Union men of West Virginia, issued May 26, 1861, he said: ”The General Government cannot close its ears to the demand you have made for a.s.sistance. I have ordered troops to cross the river. They come as your friends and brothers-as enemies only to armed Rebels, who are preying upon you; your homes, your families, and your property are safe under our protection. All your rights shall be religiously respected, notwithstanding all that has been said by the Traitors to induce you to believe our advent among you will be signalized by an interference with your Slaves. Understand one thing clearly: not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand crush any attempt at insurrection on their part.”
On the other hand, the very next day, May 27, 1861, Major-General Butler, in command of the ”Department of A Virginia,” wrote to Lieutenant-General Scott as follows: ”Since I wrote my last dispatch the question in regard to Slave property is becoming one of very serious magnitude. The inhabitants of Virginia are using their Negroes in the batteries, and are preparing to send the women and children South. The escapes from them are very numerous, and a squad has come in this morning to my pickets bringing their women and children. Of course these cannot be dealt with upon the theory on which I designed to treat the services of able-bodied men and women who might come within my lines, and of which I gave you a detailed account in my last dispatch. I am in the utmost doubt what to do with this species of Property.
”Up to this time I have had come within my lines men and women with their children, entire families, each family belonging to the same owner. I have, therefore, determined to employ, as I can do very profitably, the able-bodied persons in the party, issuing proper food for the support of all, and charging against their services the expense of care and sustenance of the non-laborers, keeping a strict and accurate account as well of the services as of the expenditure, having the worth of the services, and the cost of the expenditure, determined by a Board of Survey, to be hereafter detailed. I know of no other manner in which to dispose of this subject and the questions connected therewith.
”As a matter of Property to the Insurgents, it will be of very great moment, the number that I now have amounting, as I am informed, to what, in good times, would be of the value of sixty thousand dollars. Twelve of these Negroes, I am informed, have escaped from the batteries on Sewall's Point, which, this morning, fired upon my expedition as it pa.s.sed by out of range. As a means of offense, therefore, in the Enemy's hands, these Negroes, when able-bodied, are of the last importance. Without them the batteries could not have been erected, at least for many weeks.
”As a Military question it would seem to be a measure of necessity to deprive their masters of their services. How can this be done? As a political question and a question of humanity, can I receive the services of a father and mother, and not take the children? Of the humanitarian aspect I have no doubt. Of the political one I have no right to judge. I therefore submit all this to your better judgment, and as the questions have a political aspect, I have ventured, and I trust I am not wrong in so doing, to duplicate the parts of my dispatch relating to this subject, and forward them to the Secretary of War.”
In reply to the duplicate copy of this letter received by him, Secretary Cameron thus answered: ”WAs.h.i.+NGTON, May 30, 1861.
”SIR: Your action in respect to the Negroes who came within your lines from the service of the Rebels is approved. The Department is sensible of the embarra.s.sments which must surround officers conducting Military operations in a State by the laws of which Slavery is sanctioned.
”The Government cannot recognize the rejection by any State of the Federal obligations, nor can it refuse the performance of the Federal obligations resting upon itself. Among these Federal obligations, however, none can be more important than that of suppressing and dispersing armed combinations formed for the purpose of overthrowing its whole Const.i.tutional authority.
”While, therefore, you will permit no interference by the persons under your command, with the relations of Persons held to Service under the laws of any State, you will, on the other hand, so long as any State, within which your Military operations are conducted, is under the control of such armed combinations, refrain from surrendering to alleged masters any Person who may come within your lines.