Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/253

 The Federal and C'>nfederate Armies. 247

The scene shifts, and Stonewall Jackson's corps is again on the

istoric field of Bull Run, the field which only thirteen months before

ive him his immortal sobriquet, " Stonewall." He had been guilty a piece of Napoleonic rashness, which was the marching of his

>rps, in forty-eight hours, fifty -six miles, and quietly taking a posi- tion on the enemy's line of communication at Manassas, having Pope's army of 60,000 to 70,000 and Rapidan river between his own little army and that of General Lee, while to the north of him and distant only a few miles, lay the garrison of Washington city, 40,000 strong. After having destroyed many army supplies he begins to retreat, assailed as he was by all of Pope's available army. He fights a great battle on the 28th, holding the surging masses of the enemy at bay till nightfall. The next day Pope's entire army gir- dled him as with a zone of fire, but at this fateful moment a very sun- burst of glittering bayonets pours through Thoroughfare Gap and adjacent hills, and the banner which floats over them is that of Long- street. The field was an open one, and nerved, perhaps, by the memories of the First Bull Run, prodigies of valor were performed by both armies, but at the close of the day Pope's veterans had fret- ted themselves away against Jackson's ironsides and Longstreet's " Hearts of Oak," and, routed, riven, they flee, and the bulk of that proud army finds itself, in less than forty-eight hours, safe under the guns of Washington.

General Pope had in this battle 63,000 effectives (See "Battles and Leaders'' Vol. II, pp. 499-500), while on the same authority Lee's army numbered 54,000.

Federal loss, killed, 1,747; wounded, 8,452; captured, 4,263; total, 14,462. Confederate loss, killed, 1,553; wounded, 7,812 ; cap- tured, 109; total, 9,474.

August melts itself away, and Indian summer hangs its veil of film-like witchery over the hills of "Maryland, my Maryland." Pope has been replaced, and McClellan controls the united armies of the James and the Potomac. Lee's army, after a series of minor conflicts, finds itself brought to bay on the plateau between the Antietam and the Potomac. It is a glorious battlefield for armies of equal strength. It was full of danger to the smaller army, with a great river in its rear in case of disaster. McClellan comes to retrieve the disasters of Richmond, and to infuse new life in the vanishing morale of Pope's disheartened army. It is an open field and a fair fight. It was a conflict between two chiefs who had walked face to