was realized now that General Scott was too infirm for the duties of the position, even of command of the operations there, let alone command of the armies of the United States, which latter position, however, he continued nominally to hold until November 1, 1861. He was, in fact, an invalid, borne down by weight of years and by illhealth. For his own sake and that of the people, the burden of any chief command should not have been placed upon him. At the beginning of the war General Scott's first choice had been General Robert E. Lee, but he thought that his duty lay with his native State, Virginia. It is not by any means a wild supposition that, if General Lee, with his military genius, had come, through General Scott (as would have been inevitable, had he cast his lot differently), into the chief command of the Union armies, the Confederacy would have been dealt at the beginning such stunning blows as to have caused its collapse at once. But the fates ordered it otherwise. The valiant Army of the Potomac was doomed, headless for a long time, to hold in check the fierce energies of a force directed by a hand so capable that it might fitly be described, as a character of Dumas' styled one of the first swordsmen of France, as une lame vivante. Considering all things, the Army of the Potomac was a marvel in fortitude. Nothing but the undaunted Roman legions, defeated time and again by Hannibal, can parallel its morale, maintained steadfastly until it fell under worthy leadership. Even the Continental armies, amidst the promiscuous blows of Napoleon, had occasionally some respite; but to the Army of the Potomac there was for a long time none.

It only remains now to dispel a popular error by showing that it was put out of the power of General Patterson to save the day at Bull Run, if the day could have been saved.

General Patterson demanded at once a court of inquiry, and could not get it, upon the plea that, as he had been honorably discharged, that was recognition of the value of his services. He did not think so, especially as public prints in various parts of the country represented him to be a brotherin-law of General Johnston's (which was not the fact) and a secret friend of the Southern cause. He spoke to the President, who gave him five hours of his precious time, and became satisfied, from an examination of his orders, of the injustice that was being done him. He applied to Congress, Congress in turn applying to the War Department for the papers of the case. The War Department declined to furnish them, on the ground of the interests of the public service. So General Patterson had to suffer obloquy in many quarters until the end of the war, when he brought out a pamphlet containing the official record and everything else appertaining to his case, proving that it was not he, but General Scott, who had been responsible for that for which he had to bear censure. But so difficult is it to suppress the echoes of many-tongued rumor, that even at this late day there is not one man in a hundred who does not believe that, but for General Patterson's default, the battle of Bull Run would not have been lost to the Union cause. It is, therefore, my purpose to show conclusively, as a part of the history of the battle, and in justice to the man who was so wronged, that the public impression was entirely erroneous regarding General Patterson.

General Patterson, to begin with, has been spoken of in connection with the battle as a man of seventy years of age, and also as a man who had had no military education, thus by implication attributing to him disabilities which did not exist. General Patterson was a very able man in mind, and of so robust a constitution of body that, at nearly ninety years of age, he continued vigorous, and at seventy he

was not really older than the average healthy man of fifty. He had been educated in the best of military schools, that from which some of the greatest captains of all time have been graduated-the school of actual war. He had been an officer in the War of 1812, and he had served with great credit in the Mexican War, in 1846. With him, in the campaign near Washington, were some of the ablest officers of the army, with whom General Scott instructed him to confer, and with whom he did confer, they coinciding with him entirely as to what he did. But now, as the object here is not to prove that high military authorities agreed with him, but to show that he was controlled at every turn, and then censured for not doing what had been rendered impossible, we must follow the course of events from the period when Patterson took command of the troops which were to occupy the Shenandoah Valley for the purpose of detaining Johnston in Winchester so that he could not reinforce Beauregard.

In a letter of instructions from General Scott to General Patterson, dated June 8, 1861, he tells him that he approves of the projected expedition against Harper's Ferry, but adds that there must be no reverse, and then goes on to say that. he had just ordered Burnside's Rhode Island regiment of infantry, with its battery, to join him; also that he is to be reinforced by a company of the Fourth Artillery, which, however, may not reach him in time. Towards the end of the letter General Scott refers again to its being indispensable that there shall be no reverse, because that would result in engendering high hopes in the enemy. He concluded his letter by reiterating the same idea that he had twice before expressed about a reverse, in the following words: "Take your measures, therefore, circumspectly; make a good use of your engineers and other experienced staffofficers and generals, and attempt nothing without a clear

prospect of success, as you will find the enemy strongly posted and not inferior to you in numbers."

Johnston retreated from Harper's Ferry and fell back towards Bunker Hill. Patterson pushed his forces across the Potomac to pursue, but when his column was actually astride of the river he received a telegram from General Scott which read as follows: "What movement, if any, in pursuit of the enemy, do you propose to make consequent on the evacuation of Harper's Ferry? If no pursuit, and I recommend none, specifically, send to me at once all the regular troops, horse and foot, with you, and the Rhode Island regiment."

In reply to this telegram General Patterson begged to be allowed to keep the regulars, and to be allowed to transfer his base from Williamsport to Harper's Ferry, and to open and maintain communication east and west along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and to hold at Harper's Ferry, Martinsburg, and Charlestown strong forces; securely advancing, as the troops are prepared, portions of them towards Winchester, and thence towards Woodstock, and thus cut off the enemy's communication with the west.

General Scott objected to this plan that, if a detachment were sent towards Winchester it would, if strong enough, drive the enemy away from Winchester and Strasburg, to Manassas Junction and greater concentration, and if the detachment were not strong enough, it would be lost. The telegram concluded by saying that the regulars with Patterson were most needed in Washington, and by directing him to send them and the Rhode Island regiment as fast as disengaged.

General Scott telegraphed again, on the 17th of June: "We are pressed here. Send the troops I have twice called for, without delay." This order left General Patterson without a single piece of artillery and with only one troop of

cavalry. The Hon. John Sherman, at that time on General Patterson's staff, wrote him the following August: "The great error of General Scott undoubtedly was that he gave way to a ceaseless apprehension that Washington was to be attacked before the meeting of Congress, and therefore weakened you when you were advancing. No subsequent movement could repair that error."

On the 21st of June General Patterson, by request, sent by telegraph to General Scott a plan of operations. This, abbreviated, is as follows: To occupy Maryland Heights (which is the key of Harper's Ferry); to cross the Potomac with horse, foot, and artillery near Point of Rocks; to make a junction with Colonel Charles P. Stone at Leesburg. Observe, that where Patterson wanted to go was to Leesburg, whence he could have gone by rail to Alexandria, and thence nearly to Centreville, in a shorter time than Johnston, at Winchester, could go thence to Manassas Junction, because Johnston would have had a long day's march before he could strike from Winchester the line of the Manassas Gap Railroad. It will appear, as we proceed, that General Patterson was not allowed to go to Leesburg, but was kept on the front of Johnston almost up to the last moment.

On June 23d General Patterson was at Hagerstown, still recommending that Maryland Heights be occupied and a supporting force left in the valley, the whole command to be about twenty-five hundred men.

On June 25th General Scott telegraphed to Patterson to "Remain in front of the enemy while he continued in force between Winchester and the Potomac. If you are in superior or equal force you may cross and attack him. If the enemy should retire upon his resources at Winchester, it is not enjoined that you should pursue him to that distance from your base of operations without a well-grounded confidence in your continued superiority. Your attention is