July 2011

Excerpts from 13 diary entries and letters that tell more of the news of the major battle about 25 miles west southwest of the U.S. President’s home.

Susan Bradford Eppes – A telegram this afternoon tells of the deaths of Generals Bee and Bartow, both Georgians and both relatives of the Whitehead family.  (read more: Through Some Eventful Years.)

Rutherford B. Hayes (diary entry) – We had heard the first rumor of a great defeat, but this gave us the details. A routed army, heavy loss, demoralization, on our side; a great victory, confidence, and enthusiasm, on the other, were the natural results to be expected. Washington in danger, its capture probable, if the enemy had genius. (read more: Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes.)

Mary Boykin Chesnut – Witnessed for the first time a military funeral. As that march came wailing up, they say Mrs. Bartow fainted. The empty saddle and the led war-horse —we saw and heard it all, and now it seems we are never out of the sound of the Dead March in Saul. It comes and it comes, until I feel inclined to close my ears and scream. (read more: A Diary From Dixie.)

Jane Eliza Woolsey – God be praised for that telegram! What a day was yesterday to us; and what a day must it have been to you, my dear Eliza! The terrible news, the conflicting reports, the almost unendurable suspense we were in, the distance from you at such a time! Altogether it was a time to be remembered! (read more: Letters of a Family During the War for the Union.)

Judith White McQuire – Our loss, when compared with that of the enemy, was small, very small; but such men as have fallen! How can I record the death of our young friends, the Conrads of Martinsburg, the only sons of their father, and such sons! (read more: Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War.)

Elisha Franklin Paxton – It is a miracle that I escaped with my life, so many falling dead around me. Buried two of our comrades on the field. God bless my country, my wife, and my little ones! (read more: Letters from camp and field while an officer in the Confederate Army.)

Georgeanna Woolsey – Everything was in our hands and success seemed certain at Bull Run, when from some cause or other a panic was created, our men fell back, the rebels seized the moment for a bold rush and we were entirely routed. Joe says there never was a more complete defeat. All last night the soldiers were arriving in all sorts of conveyances, and on horses cut from ambulances and baggage wagons. An officer from Bull Run told us he saw four soldiers on one horse; and so they came flying back to Washington in all directions. (read more: Letters of a Family During the War for the Union.)

Josiah Marshall Favill – Dodd and I dressed up in our best clothes, and walked to the city, first going to the telegraph office, where we had to wait a long time for our turn, to notify our families at home that we were not killed, wounded, or missing. (read more: Diary of a Young Officer.)

Robert Shaw Howland – Of course the first thought of us civilians is to take care of the wounded. I send enclosed a cheque from Cousin Edward and one from myself. If you find you cannot use these amounts satisfactorily at Washington let us know and we will send materials as they may be wanted. (read more: Letters of a Family During the War for the Union.)

Horatio Nelson Taft – Yesterday was a rainy day and the poor Soldiers were coming in all day wet and cold. We had our house full of members of our Lyons Co. to tea, and made them as comfortable as we could. Today I have taken down to the camp for them two pairs of pantaloons, bot tobacco for the Zuaves and helped them “out” all I could. The City is full of returning soldiers, many in a bad condition, wounded & tired out. (The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft.)

Charles Francis Adams, Jr. – I don’t see any good in my saying anything of the disgraceful and disastrous battle of yesterday. The impression here is very general that Scott’s policy was interfered with by the President in obedience to what he calls the popular will and at the instigation of Sumner, Greeley and others, and the advance was ordered by Scott only after a written protest. The result was a tremendous and unaccountable panic, such as raw troops are necessarily liable to on a field of battle in a strange country, and it all closed in the loss of guns, colors, equipage, and even honor. (read more: A Cycle of Adams Letters.)

Rutherford Birchard Hayes (letter). – The Washington affair is greatly to be regretted; unless speedily repaired, it will lengthen the war materially. The panic of the troops does not strike me as remarkable. You recollect the French army in the neighborhood of the Austrians were seized with a panic, followed by a flight of many miles, caused merely by a runaway mule and cart and “nobody hurt.” (read more: Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes.)

William Howard Russell. – The morning was far advanced when I awoke, and hearing the roll of waggons in the street, I at first imagined the Federals were actually about to abandon Washington itself; but on going to the window, I perceived it arose from an irregular train of commissariat carts, country waggons, ambulances, and sutlers’ vans, in the centre of the street, the paths being crowded as before with soldiers, or rather with men in uniform, many of whom seemed as if they had been rolling in the mud. Poor General Mansfield was running back and forwards between his quarters and the War Department, and in the afternoon some efforts were made to restore order, by appointing rendezvous to which the fragment of regiments should repair, and by organising mounted patrols to clear the streets. (read more: My Diary North and South.)