Memoir of Joseph Eggleston Johnston CHAPTER II

Memoir of Joseph Eggleston Johnston CHAPTER II

Movement of Troops to Manassas. -- Discouragements of the March. -- Arrival at Manassas. -- President Davis's Telegram. -- General Beauregard's Proposed Plan of Attack approved. -- General McDowell anticipates it. -- Battle of Manassas. -- Arrival of President Davis. -- Reasons why an Advance on Washington was impracticable.

The troops left their camps about noon, Jackson's brigade leading. After the march was fairly begun, and the rear had left Winchester a mile or two, the different regiments were informed, at the same time, of the important object in view, of the necessity of a forced march, and exhorted to strive to reach the field in time to take part in the great battle then imminent.

The discouragement of that day's march to one accustomed, like myself, to the steady gait of regular soldiers, is indescribable. The views of military command and obedience, then taken both by officers and privates, confined those duties and obligations almost exclusively to the drill-ground and guards. In camps and marches they were scarcely known. Consequently, frequent and unreasonable delays caused so slow a rate of marching as to make me despair of joining General Beauregard in time to aid him. Major Whiting was therefore dispatched to the nearest station of the Manassas Gap Railroad, Piedmont, to
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ascertain if trains, capable of transporting the troops to their destination more quickly than they were likely to reach it on foot, could be provided there, and, if so, to make the necessary arrangements. That officer met me at Paris, after executing his instructions, with a report so favorable as to give me reason to expect that the transportation of the infantry over the thirty-four miles between Piedmont and Manassas Junction would be accomplished easily in twenty-four hours.

Jackson's brigade, his leading men, that is to say, reached Paris, seventeen miles from Winchester, about two hours after dark. The four others halted for the night on the Shenandoah, having marched thirteen miles; Jackson's brigade marched the six miles from Paris to Piedmont before eight o'clock, Friday morning; and, as trains enough for its transportation were found there, it moved in an hour or two. The other brigades came up separately in the afternoon -- Bartow's first. Other trains, capable of transporting two regiments, being in readiness about three o'clock, the Seventh and Eighth Georgia regiments were dispatched in them. No other infantry had the means of moving that day, although the president of the railroad company had promised that the last regiment should reach Manassas Junction Saturday morning -- nine thousand men -- before sunrise.

The artillery and cavalry were directed to continue their march by the wagon-road, under Colonels Stuart and Pendleton.

At night, Captain Chisholm, an officer of General Beauregard's staff, arrived, bringing a suggestion from him to me, to march by Aldie and fall upon the
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rear of the Federal right, at Centreville, while his troops, advancing from Bull Run, assailed that army in front. I did not agree to the plan, because, ordinarily, it is impracticable to direct the movements of troops so distant from each other, by roads so far separated, in such a manner as to combine their action on a field of battle. It would have been impossible, in my opinion, to calculate when our undisciplined volunteers would reach any distant point that might be indicated. I preferred the junction of the two armies at the earliest time possible, as the first measure to secure success.

Enough of the cars, sent down in the morning to convey about two regiments, were brought back before midnight, but the conductors and engineers disappeared immediately, to pass the night probably in sleep, instead of on the road. And it was not until seven or eight o'clock Saturday morning that the trains could be put in motion, carrying the Fourth Alabama and Second Mississippi regiments, with two companies of the Eleventh. General Bee and myself accompanied these troops. Brigadier-General E. Kirby Smith was left at Piedmont to expedite the transportation of the remaining brigades -- about three-fifths of the army.

We reached General Beauregard's position about noon. The Seventh and Eighth Georgia regiments were united to the detachment just arrived, to form a temporary brigade for General Bee.

As the army had not been informed, in the usual way, of the promotion of Generals Cooper, Lee, and myself, to the grade of general, I had, after leaving Winchester, requested the President, by telegraph, to
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state what my rank in the army was, to prevent the possibility of a doubt of the relative rank of General Beauregard and myself in the mind of the former. His reply was received on the 20th. His excellency said, in his telegram: "You are a general in the Confederate army, possessed of all the powers attaching to that rank."