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Ruins of the Stone Bridge, looking along the Warrenton Turnpike toward the battle-field.
This view is from a photograph taken in March, 1862, the region having been left open to the Union forces by the Withdrawal of the Confederates.
The Confederate battery which in the first battle of Bull Run commanded the bridge was placed on the left in the felled timber, which formed an abatis across the road.
The battle was opened from beyond the small house, Van Pelt's, on the right, by the Rhode Island troops.-editors. |
cold hearing, or none, to any recommendations of mine.
Mr. Davis's friendship, warm at the early period of the war, was changed, some time after the
battle of Manassas, to a corresponding hostility from several personal causes, direct and indirect, of which I need mention but one.
My report of
Manassas having contained, as part of its history, a statement of the submission of the full plan of campaign for concentrating our forces, crushing successively
McDowell and
Patterson and capturing
Washington,
Mr. Davis strangely took offense thereat; and, now that events had demonstrated the practicability of that plan, he sought to get rid of his self-accused responsibility for rejecting it, by denying that any such had been submitted — an issue, for that matter, easily settled by my production of the contemporaneous report of
Colonel James Chesnut, the bearer of the mission, who, moreover, at the time of this controversy was on
Mr. Davis's own staff, where he remained.
Mr. Davis made an endeavor to suppress the publication of my report of the
battle of Manassas.
The matter came up in a secret debate in the Confederate Congress, where a host of friends were ready to sustain me; but I sent a telegram disclaiming any desire for its publication, and advising that the safety of the country should be our solicitude, and not personal ends.
Thenceforth
Mr. Davis's hostility was watchful and adroit, neglecting no opportunity, great or small; and though, from motives all its opposite, it was
