Volume I Part 30 (1/2)
(Signed) ”Joseph E. Johnston,
”Brigadier-General, etc.”
”If it is proposed to strengthen us against the attack I suggest as soon to be made, it seems to me that General Beauregard might with great expedition furnish five or six thousand men for a few days.
J. E. J.”
As soon as I became satisfied that Mana.s.sas was the objective point of the enemy's movement, I wrote to General Johnston, [pg 346] urging him to make preparations for a junction with General Beauregard, and to his objections, and the difficulties he presented, replied at great length, endeavoring to convince him that the troops he described as embarra.s.sing a hasty march might be withdrawn in advance of the more effective portion of his command. Writing with entire confidence, I kept no copy of my letters, and, when subsequent events caused the wish to refer to them, I requested General Johnston to send me copies of them. He replied that his tent had been blown down, and his papers had been scattered. His letters to me, which would show the general purport of mine to him, have shared the fate which during or soon after the close of the war befell most of the correspondence I had preserved, and his retained copies, if still in his possession, do not appear to have been deemed of sufficient importance to be inserted in his published ”Narrative.”
On the 17th of July, 1861, the following telegram was sent by the Adjutant-General:
”Richmond, July 17, 1861.
”To General J. E. Johnston, Winchester, Virginia.
”General Beauregard is attacked. To strike the enemy a decisive blow, a junction of all your effective force will be needed. If practicable, make the movement, sending your sick and baggage to Culpepper Court-House, either by railroad or by Warrenton. In all the arrangements exercise your discretion.
(Signed) ”S. Cooper,
”Adjutant and Inspector-General.”
The confidence reposed in General Johnston, sufficiently evinced by the important command intrusted to him, was more than equal to the expectation that he would do all that was practicable to execute the order for a junction, as well as to secure his sick and baggage. For the execution of the one great purpose, that he would allow no minor question to interfere with that which was of vital importance, and for which he was informed all his ”effective force” would ”be needed.”
The order referred to was the telegram inserted above, in which the sending the sick to Culpepper Court-House might have been after or before the effective force had moved to the execution of the main and only positive part of the order. [pg 347] All the arrangements were left to the discretion of the General. It seems strange that any one has construed this expression as meaning that the movement for a junction was left to the discretion of that officer, and that the forming of a junction-the imperious necessity-should have been termed in the order ”all the arrangement,” instead of referring that word to its proper connection, the route and mode of transportation. The General had no margin on which to inst.i.tute a comparison as to the importance of his remaining in the Valley, according to his previous a.s.signment, or going where he was ordered by competent authority.
It gives me pleasure to state that, from all the accounts received at the time, the plans of General Johnston, for masking his withdrawal to form a junction with General Beauregard, were conducted with marked skill, and, though all of his troops did not arrive as soon as expected and needed, he has satisfactorily shown that the failure was not due to any defect in his arrangements for their transportation.
The great question of uniting the two armies had been decided at Richmond. The time and place depended on the enemy, and, when it was seen that the real attack was to be against the position at Mana.s.sas, the order was sent to General Johnston to move to that point. His letters of the 12th and 15th instant expressed his doubts about his power to retire from before the superior force of General Patterson, therefore the word ”practicable” was in this connection the equivalent of possible. That it was, at the time, so understood by General Johnston, is shown by his reply to the telegram.
”Headquarters, Winchester, July 18, 1861.
”General: I have had the honor to receive your telegram of yesterday.
”General Patterson, who had been at Bunker Hill since Monday, seems to have moved yesterday to Charlestown, twenty-three miles to the east of Winchester.
”Unless he prevents it, we shall move toward General Beauregard to-day....
(Signed) ”Joseph E. Johnston.
”General S. Cooper.”
[pg 348]
After General Johnston commenced his march to Mana.s.sas, he sent to me a telegram, the substance of which, as my memory serves and the reply indicates, was an inquiry as to the relative position he would occupy toward General Beauregard. I returned the following answer:
”Richmond, July 20, 1861.
”General J. E. Johnston, Mana.s.sas Junction, Virginia.
”You are a general in the Confederate Army, possessed of the power attaching to that rank. You will know how to make the exact knowledge of Brigadier-General Beauregard, as well of the ground as of the troops and preparation, avail for the success of the object in which you cooperate. The zeal of both a.s.sures me of harmonious action.