This shows conclusively how little General Johnston had thought of leaving Winchester, and how utterly improbable it is that he had planned a battle to be fought at Manassas, through a junction of his forces with those of General Beauregard. Does it not show, besides, how unwilling he was to move at all, unless assured that there was no exaggeration in General Beauregard's anticipation of a powerful impending attack? It was necessary to telegraph to him again before he finally agreed to put his troops in motion. Hence their late arrival, some of them not coming up until the latter part of the battle. General Johnston had, evidently, no plan of his own when he reached Manassas. That he drew up no plan after his arrival there is quite as evident. He had no time in which to do so. The circumstances were too pressing. He knew nothing of the position of our own forces, and still less of that of the enemy. He was obliged to rely on the knowledge which General Beauregard had of the whole country at and around Manassas, and, though the superior in rank, he very wisely declined to assume the responsibility of a battle in the preparaations for which he had had no share. In his report General Beauregard says: ‘Made acquainted with my plan of operations and dispositions to meet the enemy, he (General Johnston) gave them his entire approval, and generously directed their execution under my command.’ This passage of General Beauregard's report corroborates and completes the passage quoted above from General Johnston's report. Had not such an understanding existed
This text is part of:
‘
[193]
capacity.’
And well may General Johnston have been impressed with the opinion that it was necessary to attack the enemy the next morning; for General Beauregard, in several letters to him, in messages delivered by special aids (Colonel Chisolm among them), and by his telegram dated July 17th, had clearly announced his determination, if reinforced, to attack and crush the enemy.
Before proceeding further, we think it our duty to add that General Johnston is certainly mistaken when he asserts that General Beauregard's telegram asking—we might almost say imploring—him to move on immediately, was only received on the 18th, when his answer to it is dated July 17th, and reads as follows:
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.