The Provisional Congress adjourned in May, “to meet again on the 20th of July, at Richmond,” the President being authorized to select some other place “if any public emergency should render it impolitic to meet at Richmond.” Shortly after the adjournment of Congress the hostile demonstrations of the Federal Government against Virginia caused the President to proceed to Richmond, and to order the removal thither of the Executive Departments and their archives as soon as could be conveniently done. Richmond was the place best adapted for the execution of all necessary measures for the defence and protection of Virginia, which the accumulation of hostile forces on the Potomac sufficiently demonstrated to be destined to an early aggressive movement.
At Richmond, the forces that had assembled there from other States of the Confederacy were divided into three armies, which occupied the most important positions threatened: one, at Harper’s Ferry, covering the valley of the Shenandoah, under General J. E. Johnston; another, under General Beauregard, at Manassas, covering the direct approach from Washington to Richmond; and the third, under Generals Huger and Magruder, at Norfolk and on the peninsula between the James and York Rivers, covering the approach from the seaboard.
The armies of Johnston and Beauregard, although both were confronted by forces greatly superior in numbers to their own, and although separated by the Blue Ridge, yet had such practicable communication with each other as to render their junction possible when the necessity should be foreseen.
General R. E. Lee, as commander of the army of Virginia, had established his head-quarters in Richmond. He possessed my unqualified confidence both as a soldier and a patriot, and the command he had exercised over the army of Virginia, before her accession to the Confederacy, gave him that special knowledge which at the time was most needful.
Various skirmishes between Confederate and Federal troops demonstrated the fact that the individuality, self-reliance, and habitual use of small arms by the people of the South was, to some extent, a substitute for military training; and that the want of such training made the Northern new levies inferior to the same kind of Southern troops.
Military reasons rendered it desirable to hold Harper’s Ferry as long as was consistent with safety, especially to secure the removal of the valuable machinery and material in the armory there which the enemy had failed to destroy. General Johnston earnestly insisted on being allowed to retire to a position near Winchester, and was authorized by the War Department to exercise his own discretion in doing so.
Meanwhile, the massing of troops in Washington indicated the intention of an invasion of Virginia at an early date. As soon as I became satisfied that Manassas was the objective point of the intended movement, I urged General Johnston to make preparations for a junction with General Beauregard; and on the 17th of July he was notified by telegraph that General Beauregard had been attacked, and that, to strike an effective blow, a junction of all of his effective force was needed.
In order to avert any possible complication and misunderstanding between the two generals, which I had some reasons to fear, I decided to go to the army in person at the earliest moment.
I delivered my message to Congress on Saturday, July 20th, and on the following morning I left for Manassas. As we approached Manassas Railroad Junction I found a large number of men bearing the usual evidence of those who leave the field of battle under a panic. They crowded around the train with fearful stories of a defeat of our army. The coolest man among them repeated that our line was broken, that all was in confusion, that the army and the battle were lost. Proceeding onward, by detaching a locomotive, we soon reached head-quarters, and, procuring horses, started to the field. The stragglers soon became numerous, and we were earnestly warned not to proceed. As we advanced, the storm of the battle was rolling westward and its fury became more faint. When I met General Johnston he informed me that we had won the battle. I left him, and rode still farther to the west. In riding over the ground it seemed quite possible to mark the line of a fugitive’s flight — there was a musket, there a cartridge-box, there a blanket or overcoat or haversack, as if the runner had stripped himself as he ran of all impediments to speed.
As we approached toward the left of our line the signs of an utter rout of the enemy were unmistakable, and justified the conclusion that the watchword of “On to Richmond” had been changed to “Off for Washington.”
On the extreme left of our field of operations I found the troops whose opportune arrival had averted impending disaster or had so materially contributed to our victory. Some of them, under General E. K. Smith, after arriving at the Manassas Railroad Junction, hastened to our left; others, under General (then Colonel) Early, made a rapid march, under the pressing necessity, from the extreme right of our line to and beyond our left, so as to attack the enemy in flank, thus inflicting on them the discomfiture by oblique movement they designed to inflict on us. All these troops and the others near them had gone into action without supplies and camp equipage. Weary, hungry, and without shelter, night closed around them where they stood, the blood-stained victors on a hard-fought field.
It is not my purpose in this volume to describe the battles of the war. To the reports of officers serving in the field with the armies of both governments the student of history must turn for knowledge of the details. My sole object is to vindicate the rightful action of the Southern people in maintaining the sovereignty of their States against wrongful and unconstitutional usurpation of power by their common agent, the Federal Government, and to defend them from the aspersions of unscrupulous partisans who have maligned as rebels and traitors men true to their allegiance and defenders of the Constitution. The military operations of the Confederate States need no defence; the bravery of our armies and the genius of their commanders were displayed on many battlefields, and the results, which could neither be misrepresented nor ignored, have made it impossible even for the most partisan zeal to withhold the admiration always, however reluctantly, awarded to devotion to country, backed by self-sacrificing courage and fortitude. The limits of this volume will permit little more than a passing reference to the battles of the Confederacy — a bald statement of the numbers engaged, the names of their commanders, and the result of the more important engagements.
The battle of Manassas — as it was called by the South — or of Bull Run — as it was called by the North — had an important influence on the subsequent conduct of the war. It produced a panic in the North, and taught the enemy that the policy of subjugation could only be successful by the employment of all its resources of money and men. In the South, if the great victory excited intense feeling and inspired an overweening confidence, it also removed all doubt as to the intent to wage war upon us, and begat an increased desire to enter the military service. But for our want of arms and ammunition we could have enrolled an army little short of the number of able-bodied men in the Confederate States.
When the smoke of battle had lifted from the field of Manassas, and the rejoicing over the victory had spread over the land and spent its exuberance, some who, like Job’s war-horse, sniffed the battle from afar, but in whom the likeness there ceased, asked why the fruits of this victory had not been gathered by the capture of Washington City, and promulgated the allegation that the President had prevented the generals from making an immediate and vigorous pursuit of the routed enemy. This slanderous accusation was afterward refuted by the generals in command: it did not rest on any semblance of truth. I had in no way interfered with the plans or action of the officers in charge, and only note the slander now because it has been repeated, since the war, by writers who have never seen, or have chosen to ignore, the official refutation of the calumny.