rior sentinels, and fired on with canister; and finding the ground impracticable for cavalry at night, sent for the infantry. When it arrived, he directed General Trimble to rest his centre on the railroad and advance, which was immediately done, and after a brief contest the place was captured, Colonel Wickham, with a portion of the cavalry, cutting off the enemy's retreat.

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The amount of arms and stores captured at Manassas was very large. Eight pieces of artillery; seventy-two horses and equipments; three hundred prisoners; two hundred negroes; two hundred new tents; one hundred and seventy-five additional horses, exclusive of artillery horses; ten locomotives; two railroad trains of enormous size, loaded with many millions' worth of stores; fifty thousand pounds of bacon; one thousand barrels of beef; twenty thousand barrels of pork; several thousand barrels of flour, and a large quantity of forage, fell into Jackson's hands. In addition to these public stores, were the contents of the sutlers' shops, containing, says an eye-witness, "an amount and variety of property such as I had never conceived of.” The same writer says: "Twas a curious sight to see our ragged and famished men helping themselves to every imaginable article of luxury or necessity, whether of clothing, food, or what not. For my part I got a tooth-brush, a box of candles, a quantity of lobster salad, a barrel of coffee, and other things which I forget. The scene utterly beggared description. Our men had been living on roasted corn since crossing the Rappahannock, and we had brought no wagons, so we could carry little away of the riches before us. But the men could eat one meal at least. So they were marched up, and as much of every thing eatable served out as they could carry. To see a starving man eating lobster salad and drinking Rhine wine, barefooted and in tatters, was curious; the whole thing was indescribable."

This vast mass of public and private stores, with the exception of what the men consumed or carried away with them, a bakery, furnishing daily fifteen thousand loaves of bread, and all the public buildings of the place, were consigned to the flames

and utterly destroyed. Jackson was not to hold the place without a further struggle, however, on the part of the enemy.

Intelligence of the danger to which this great magazine of stores was exposed having reached Washington, a brigade of New Jersey troops, under General Taylor, was promptly ordered forward by railroad to defend it. The train reached the bridge over Bull Run about seven in the morning of the 27th; the troops were disembarked, and the entire command hurried forward as rapidly as possible toward Manassas. The Confederate skirmishers, who had been posted along the crest of hills overlooking Bull Run, fell back before the enemy, and they were thus drawn on toward the fortifications, where the infantry and dismounted cavalry awaited them in silence. They had advanced in line of battle within close and deadly range, when suddenly the artillery in the breastworks opened, and a storm of shot and shell greeted them. They fell back behind a sheltering crest, and were at once attacked by the Confederate infantry, who drove them through Blackburn's ford, to the opposite side of Bull Run. Here they were fired into by the Stuart Horse Artillery, under Major Pelham. General Taylor was killed; his son, nephew, and at least one-half of his officers wounded, and the enemy fell back in full retreat.

Hill's and Jackson's divisions were now in the neighborhood of Manassas, and had driven off some of the Federal cavalry and artillery which still hovered near in the direction of the old battle-field. Ewell's division had remained at Bristoe. This was to receive the first attack of Pope's column, pressing forward to guard his rear. The advance force of General Pope was led by General Hooker, an officer of energy and ability, and it soon became apparent that the whole of General Pope's army had fallen back from the Rappahannock, and was about to throw itself upon the comparatively small force opposed to it.

The enemy appeared in Ewell's front in the afternoon, and their forces were visible as far as the eye could see. The Confederate commander saw that he was largely outnumbered, and could effect nothing against this great force, but he nevertheless

advanced to the attack, determined to hold them in check until Jackson had accomplished his work at Manassas. The 6th and 8th Louisiana regiments and the 60th Georgia were promptly thrown forward to engage two Federal brigades which were now within close range; and Ewell opened with a rapid fire of artillery, which drove the Federal advance force back in confusion. Their places were, however, taken by fresh columns of Federal troops, and heavy reënforcements were rapidly moved to the front, General Pope evidently desiring to bring on a general engagement immediately. Ewell, however, declined the proffered battle, and, drawing up Early's brigade to protect his rear, fell back in the direction of Manassas. Two regiments of cavalry, under Munford and Rosser, covered Early's rear; Captain Boswell, of the engineers, destroyed the bridge, and the column fell back unpursued.

This affair was claimed by the Federal commander as an important success, his impression being, apparently, that he had thus repulsed, without difficulty, Jackson's entire force. The intelligence was telegraphed to Washington, where it was printed; and this was the origin of the opinion held throughout the North, for the moment, that Jackson was "cut off," and would inevitably be captured.

The Confederate cavalry had meanwhile exerted all their activity. During the entire day they were engaged in observing the enemy, reporting his movements, and capturing detached parties in all directions. General Fitz Lee was sent on an expedition toward Fairfax Court-House, to still further damage the Federal communications, and, if possible, cut off the retreat of Taylor's brigade; and the entire region was scoured by efficient officers of cavalry, who notified General Jackson of every

movement.

At nightfall Manassas was evacuated; and when the enemy took possession on the following morning, Stuart's few remaining cavalry falling back before them, they found only smoking ruins, and the burnt and blackened remains of their great masses of stores.

The destruction of these stores was of vital importance to General Jackson. It doubtless seemed hard to his hungry soldiers, that after a march of fifty miles, almost without food, they should be called upon to destroy the tempting commissary stores, and innumerable luxuries of the sutlers' shops, almost before they had satisfied the cravings of nature. But the personal comfort of the army was at that moment a very small item in the account. The destruction of these stores was one of the greatest objects of the expedition; General Pope depended upon them for the subsistence of his army; and the success or failure of the grand operations about to commence was largely involved in depriving the enemy of their benefit.

General Pope's official report shows how thoroughly he was crippled by the capture of Manassas. He rests his apology for the defeat which followed upon the want of rations for his men and forage for his horses. Describing his starving condition, and inveighing against General McClellan for refusing to despatch trains of supplies without an escort of cavalry, he attributes all to the destruction at Manassas. There were some grounds for his statement. Even if General Fitz Lee's cavalry had permitted a convoy to pass, it could not have arrived in time; and General Pope declares in his report, that whether defeating Jackson, or defeated by him, it was a simple question of time whether he should fall back behind Bull Run, toward his supplies, or "starve." He adds that the battle of Saturday was fought because he had no option in the matter, and could not delay an engagement. "Starvation" for men and horses stared him in the face, and drove him to renew the action.

Such were the excellent results immediately achieved by Jackson in the capture of the enemy's magazines at Manassas. That historic place had thus been twice destroyed by the Confederate commanders-first by Johnston, and then by Jackson.

It had twice been occupied by the enemy, on the next day, but under different circumstances. The troops which took possession when Johnston evacuated and destroyed it in March, were the advance guard of an army thoroughly provisioned and

in high spirits. Those who entered it on the 28th of August were hungry, and with spirits already darkened by the shadow of Jackson.

CHAPTER XIII.

JACKSON AT BAY.

JACKSON turned his back on the burning houses of Manassas at nightfall.

His position was now perilous in the extreme. The main body of Lee's army was in motion, and marching by the same route which he had followed, to his assistance; but General Pope was moving to attack him, and the head of the Federal column had already come in collision with General Ewell. Lee had the arc of the circle to follow, while his adversary moved over the chord; and all now depended upon the former's celerity, and Jackson's strategy in meanwhile keeping the enemy at bay. If General Pope could once come up with and strike Jackson before Lee and Longstreet arrived, the contest would be desperate, as the Confederates would be greatly outnumbered; and to ward off the threatened blow until the main body came to his succor, was now the aim of General Jackson.

The movement brought into play all his resources of energy, nerve, prudence, and generalship. He might have retired without difficulty before the enemy, in the direction of Aldie, and turning the Bull Run Mountain at its northern extremity, formed a junction with Longstreet, and defied the foe; but this withdrawal of the advance force was no part of the plan of General Lee. The design of that commander was to engage the enemy with his whole force in the neighborhood of Manassas, while they were laboring under the embarrassments occasioned by the destruction of their stores and communications-while the men and horses were hungry and exhausted-and before supplies could reach them from Alexandria. The retreat toward Aldie,