Page:Journal history of the Twenty-ninth Ohio veteran volunteers, 1861-1865.djvu/24

 was filled by citizens eagerly marching to the defense of the National capital.

The rebels meanwhile were busily engaged in appropriating or destroying the available arms and munitions of war belonging to the Government. At Bull Run, a few miles from Washington, General Beauregard massed his rebel horde, and here, on July 21st, General McDowell gratified the insane "On to Richmond" cry, by giving them battle. The result was the complete overthrow of the Union army, which retreated in the wildest disorder to Washington. This event cast a deep gloom over the entire North (barring the copperhead element). More than twice the time allowed by the knowing(?) ones to crush the Rebellion (sixty days) had elapsed, and yet it was growing stronger every day. The North was not yet awake to the magnitude of the work it had undertaken. The first patriotic outburst was on the wane; the sympathy of England and the encouragement given to the rebels by the "copperheads" in the North, gave a prestige to the Southern cause which, to many, bespoke the final success of treason. In this dark hour of our country's peril, that brave old hero, Joshua R. Giddings, with B. F. Wade, E. B. Woodbury, and other well known associates, feeling that they had been disappointed in the acts of another regiment, made up in part of soldiers recruited in this district, obtained permission to organize regiment number Twenty-nine, which should be made up as far as possible, of those in political sympathy with the projectors. The report of the soldiers already returned from the three months' service, and who were generally ready to go again, seemed to indicate who they wished for commanders. Major Lewis P. Buckley, of Akron, educated at West Point, was generally desired as colonel, and Thomas Clark, of Cleve