Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it
happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if
you will, First Manassas. While Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the
groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed),
his friend William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle
everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia.
Rumors abound about fighting that hasn’t taken place. The
battle has been postponed for two days. Amid the furor, a passing encounter
with Lincoln crossing Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s had a special telegraph set up
to communicate with the general in the field.
July
18. … At the War-Office, at the Department of State, at the Senate, and at the
White House, messengers and orderlies running in and out, military aides, and
civilians with anxious faces, betokened the activity and perturbation which
reigned within. I met Senator Sumner radiant with joy. “We have obtained a
great success ; the rebels are falling back in all directions. General Scott
says we ought to be in Richmond by Saturday night.” Soon afterwards a United
States officer, who had visited me in company with General Meigs, riding
rapidly past, called out, “ You have heard we are whipped ; these confounded
volunteers have run away.” I drove to the Capitol, where people said one could
actually see the smoke of the cannon ; but, on arriving there, it was evident
that the fire from some burning houses, and from wood cut down for cooking
purposes, had been mistaken for tokens of the fight. …
On
my way to dinner at the Legation I met the President crossing Pennsylvania
Avenue, striding like a crane in a bulrush swamp among the great blocks of
marble, dressed in an oddly cut suit of gray, with a felt hat on the back of
his head, wiping his face with a red pocket-handkerchief. He was evidently in a
hurry, on his way to the White House, where I believe a telegraph has been
established in communication with McDowell s head-quarters. …
On
my return to Captain Johnson s lodgings I received a note from the
head-quarters of the Federals, stating that the serious action between the two
armies would probably be postponed for some days. McDowell s original idea was
to avoid forcing the enemy s position directly in front, which was defended by
movable batteries commanding the fords over a stream called “ Bull s Run.” He
therefore proposed to make a demonstration on some point near the centre of
their line, and at the same time throw the mass of his force below their extreme
right, so as to turn it and get possession of the Manassas Railway in their
rear ; a movement which would separate him, by the by, from his own
communications, and enable any General worth his salt to make a magnificent
counter by marching on Washington, only 27 miles away, which he could take with
the greatest ease, and leave the enemy in the rear to march 120 miles to
Richmond, if they dared, or to make a hasty retreat upon the higher Potomac,
and to cross into the hostile country of Maryland.
McDowell,
however, has found the country on his left densely wooded and difficult. It is
as new to him as it was to Braddock, when he cut his weary way through forest
and swamp in this very district to reach, hundreds of miles away, the scene of
his fatal repulse at Fort Du Quesne. And so, having moved his whole army,
McDowell finds himself obliged to form a new plan of attack, and, prudently
fearful of pushing his underdone and over-praised levies into a river in face
of an enemy, is endeavoring to ascertain with what chance of success he can
attack and turn their left.
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