July 18, 1861 - A passing encounter with Lincoln before Bull Run begins

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.

July 17, 1861 - "No system, no order, no knowledge, no dash!" among Northern officers

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.

In fact, the North is not prepared for this fight.

July 17th. I went up to General Scott s quarters, and saw some of his staff young men, some of whom knew nothing of soldiers, not even the enforcing of drill and found them reflecting, doubtless, the shades which cross the mind of the old chief, who was now seeking repose. McDowell is to advance to-morrow from Fairfax Court House, and will march some eight or ten miles to Centreville, directly in front of which, at a place called Manassas, stands the army of the Southern enemy. I look around me for a staff, and look in vain. There are a few plodding old pedants, with map and rules and compasses, who sit in small rooms and write memoranda ; and there are some ignorant and not very active young men, who loiter about the head-quarters halls, and strut up the street with brass spurs on their heels and kepis raked over their eyes as though they were soldiers, but I see no system, no order, no knowledge, no dash !

July 10, 1861 - Civil war censorship

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. 

Here, in an excerpt from Russell's My Diary North and South, is his take on censorship imposed by the commander of Union forces in the name of what's known today as "national security." Russell says his fellow reporters claim they will obey, but won't, and the government will not keep its promises either. Russell argues that a free country has to give the press free rein.

July 10. ... The Government have been coerced, as they say, by the safety of the Republic, to destroy the liberty of the press, which is guaranteed by the Constitution, and this is not the first instance in which the Constitution of the United States will be made nominis umbra [a shadow of its reputation]. The telegraph, according to General Scott's order, confirmed by the Minister of War, Simon Cameron, is to convey no dispatches respecting military movements not permitted by the General ; and to-day the newspaper correspondents have agreed to yield obedience to the order, reserving to themselves a certain freedom of detail in writing their despatches, and relying on the Government to publish the official accounts of all battles very speedily. They will break this agreement if they can, and the Government will not observe their part of the bargain. The freedom of the press, as I take it, does not include the right to publish news hostile to the cause of the country in which it is published ; neither can it involve any obligation on the part of Government to publish despatches which may be injurious to the party they represent. There is a wide distinction between the publication of news which is known to the enemy as soon as to the friends of the transmitters, and the utmost freedom of expression concerning the acts of the Government or the conduct of past events ; but it will be difficult to establish any rule to limit or extend the boundaries to which discussion can go without mischief, and in effect the only solution of the difficulty in a free country seems to be to grant the press free license, in consideration of the enormous aid it affords in warning the people of their danger, in animating them with the news of their successes, and in sustaining the Government.

Engraving of William Howard Russell from "Harper's Weekly" courtesy The American Library in Paris

July 6, 1861 - W.H. Russell meets Gen. McDowell, who'll command Union forces at Bull Run

War correspondent W. H. Russell, a key contact for Our Man in Charleston, reporting from Washington, D.C.

July 6th. I breakfasted with Mr. Bigelow this morning, to meet General McDowell, who commands the army of the Potomac, now so soon to move. He came in without an aide de camp, and on foot, from his quarters in the city. He is a man about forty years of age, square and powerfully built, but with rather a stout and clumsy figure and limbs, a good head covered with close-cut thick dark hair, small light-blue eyes, short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft somewhat of the French type, and affecting in dress the style of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and agree able, and he did not hesitate to speak with great openness of the difficulties he had to contend with, and the imperfection of all the arrangements of the army.

As an officer of the regular army he has a thorough contempt for what he calls  "political generals," the men who use their influence with President and Congress to obtain military rank, which in time of war places them before the public in the front of events, and gives them an appearance of leading in the greatest of all political movements. Nor is General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in Mexico, and has from what he saw there formed 

As the President pulled the halyards and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag, half detached from the staff.

rather an unfavorable opinion of their capabilities in the field. He is inclined, however, to hold the Southern troops in too little respect ; and he told me that the volunteers from the Slave States, who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did not make good their words, and that they suffered especially from sickness and disease, in consequence of their disorderly habits and dissipation. His regard for old associations was evinced in many questions he asked me about Beauregard, with whom he had been a student at West Point, where the Confederate commander was noted for his studious and reserved habits, and his excellence in feats of strength and athletic exercises.

As proof of the low standard established in his army, he mentioned that some officers of considerable rank were more than suspected of selling rations, and of illicit connections with sutlers for purposes of pecuniary advantage. The General walked back with me as far as my lodgings, and I observed that not one of the many soldiers he passed in the streets saluted him, though his rank was indicated by his velvet collar and cuffs, and a gold star on the shoulder strap.

Having written some letters, I walked out with Captain Johnson and one of the attaches of the British Legation, to the lawn at the back of the White House, and listened to the excellent band of the United States Marines, playing on a kind of dais under the large flag recently hoisted by the President himself, in the garden. The occasion was marked by rather an ominous event. As the President pulled the halyards and the flag floated aloft, a branch of a tree caught the bunting and tore it, so that a number of the stars and stripes were detached and hung dangling beneath the rest of the flag, half detached from the staff.

Engraving of Gen. McDowell from "Harper's Weekly" courtesy of The American Library in Paris

July 5, 1861 - Capitol Hill as the battle nears

William Howard Russell, the most famous war correspondent for the most powerful newspaper on earth, The Times of London, was in close contact with Consul Robert Bunch,  Our Man in Charleston. As the battle looms in northern Virginia, he visits Capitol Hill.

July 5, 1861—… Mr. Bigelow [the “whilom editor of the ‘Evening Post’” and “a leading Republican”] was of opinion that the army would move at once ; “But,” said I, “where is the transport, where the cavalry and guns?”

“Oh,” replied he, “I suppose we have got everything that is required. I know nothing of these things, but I am told cavalry are no use in the wooded country towards Richmond.”

I have not yet been able to go through the camps, but I doubt very much whether the material or commissariat of the grand army of the North is at all adequate to a campaign. The presumption and ignorance of the New York journals would be ridiculous were they not so mischievous. They describe “this horde of battalion companies unofficered, clad in all kinds of different uniform, diversely equipped, perfectly ignorant of the principles of military obedience and concerted action,” for so I hear it described by United States officers themselves, as being “the greatest army the world ever saw ; perfect in officers and discipline ; unsurpassed in devotion and courage; furnished with every requisite; and destined on its first march to sweep into Richmond, and to obliterate from the Potomac to New Orleans every trace of rebellion.”

The Congress met to-day to hear the President’s Message read. Somehow or other there is not such anxiety and eagerness to hear what Mr. Lincoln has to say as one could expect on such a momentous occasion. It would seem as if the forthcoming appeal to arms had overshadowed every other sentiment in the minds of the people. They are waiting for deeds, and care not for words. The confidence of the New York papers, and of the citizens, soldiers, and public speakers, contrast with the dubious and gloomy views of the military men ; but of this Message itself there are some incidents independent of the occasion to render it curious, if not interesting. The President has, it is said, written much of it in his own fashion, which has been revised and altered by his Ministers ; but he has written it again and repeated himself, and after many struggles a good deal of pure Lincolnism goes down to Congress. …

There is always a ruinous look about an unfinished building when it is occupied and devoted to business. The Capitol is situated on a hill, one face of which is scarped by the road, and has the appearance of being formed of heaps of rubbish. Towards Pennsylvania Avenue the long frontage abuts on a lawn shaded by trees, through which walks and avenues lead to the many entrances under the porticoes and colonnades ; the face which corresponds on the other side looks out on heaps of brick and mortar, cut stone, and a waste of marble blocks lying half buried in the earth and cumbering the ground, which, in the magnificent ideas of the founders and planners of the city, was to be occupied by stately streets. The cleverness of certain speculators in land prevented the execution of the original idea, which was to radiate all the main avenues of the city from the Capitol as a centre, the intermediate streets being formed by circles drawn at regularly increasing intervals from the Capitol, and intersected by the radii. The speculators purchased up the land on the side between the Navy Yard and the site of the Capitol; the result the land is unoccupied, except by paltry houses, and the capitalists are ruined.

The Capitol would be best described by a series of photographs. Like the Great Republic itself, it is unfinished. It resembles it in another respect : it looks best at a distance ; and, again, it is incongruous in its parts. The passages are so dark that artificial light is often required to enable one to find his way. The offices and bureaux of the committees are better than the chambers of the Senate and the House of Representatives. All the encaustics and the white marble and stone staircases suffer from tobacco juice, though there is a liberal display of spittoons at every corner. The official messengers, doorkeepers, and porters wear no distinctive badge or dress. No policemen are on duty, as in our Houses of Parliament; no soldiery, gendarmerie, or sergens-de-ville in the precincts ; the crowd wanders about the passages as it pleases, and shows the utmost propriety, never going where it ought not to intrude. There is a special gallery set apart for women; the reporters are commodiously placed in an ample gallery, above the Speaker’s chair ; the diplomatic circle have their gallery facing the reporters, and they are placed so low down in the somewhat depressed chamber, that every word can be heard from speakers in the remotest parts of the house very distinctly. …

The galleries were by no means full, and in that reserved for the diplomatic body the most notable person was M. Mercier, the Minister of France, who, fixing his intelligent and eager face between both hands, watched with keen scrutiny the attitude and conduct of the Senate.

Balloon view of the unfinished Capitol dome and Washington D.C. from "Harper's Weekly" courtesy of The American Library of Paris. Look closely. Can you find the White House?