May 23, 1861. |
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preparing for a defensive campaign, the enemies of the Government, moving aggressively and quickly, had taken full possession, unopposed, of one of the most important positions for the accomplishment of their object.
They attempted to do more.
Under Colonel Lee, the late occupant of Arlington House, they were preparing to fortify Arlington Hights, where heavy siege-guns would absolutely command the cities of Washington and Georgetown.
Fortunately for the country, this movement was discovered in time to defeat its object.
That discovery revealed the necessity of an immediate advance of National forces beyond the Potomac.
The advantages gained by the insurgents in having possession of the railways in that region was painfully apparent.
Already “Confederate” pickets were occupying Arlington Hights and the Virginia shore of the Long Bridge, which spans the Potomac at Washington City; and engineers had been seen on those rights selecting eligible positions for batteries.1
A crisis was evidently at hand, and the General-in-chief was now persuaded to allow an immediate invasion of Virginia.2 Orders were at once issued
for the occupation of the shores of the Potomac opposite, and also the city of Alexandria, nine miles below, by National troops.
General Mansfield was in command of about thirteen thousand men at the Capital.
Toward midnight, these forces in and around Washington were put in motion for the passage of the river, at three different points.
One column was to cross at the Aqueduct Bridge, at Georgetown; another at the Long Bridge, at Washington; and a third was to proceed in vessels, and seize the city of Alexandria.
The three invading columns moved almost simultaneously.
The one at Georgetown was commanded by General Irvin McDowell.
Some local volunteers crossed first, and drove the insurgent pickets from the Virginia end of the Aqueduct Bridge.
These were followed by the Fifth Massachusetts; the Twenty-eighth New York, from Brooklyn; Company B of the United States Cavalry; and the Sixty-ninth New York, which was an Irish regiment, under Colonel Michael Corcoran.
Their march across that lofty structure, in the bright light of a full moon, was a beautiful spectacle.
Thousands of anxious men and women saw the gleaming of their bayonets and the waving of their
1 James D. Gay, mentioned in note 1, page 418, visited the steamship Monticello on the 23d of May, then discharging Government stores at Georgetown, and while viewing Arlington Hights, not far from the Aqueduct Bridge, through a telescope, discovered Lee (according to his description) and some subordinate officers, apparently engaged, in the partial concealment of bushes and irregularities of the ground, in laying out fortifications. After satisfying himself that preparations were being made by the insurgents to plant batteries on Arlington Hights, Gay hastened to the Headquarters of General Mansfield and told him what he had seen, in detail. The General, not doubting that a battery would be built on Arlington Hights that night, went immediately to the War Department with his information. The order went out at once for the troops to move into Virginia and occupy Arlington Hights before the insurgents should gain absolute possession there. The success of the National troops on that occasion was a very severe blow to the conspirators. The loss of that opportunity to gain a position that would doubtless have secured their possession of Washington City, was at the time, and frequently afterward, spoken of in the Richmond press as one of the greatest of misfortunes.
2 On the previous day (May 22) a large National flag, purchased by the clerks of the Post-Office Department, in testimony of their loyalty, was raised over the General Post-Office, in Washington City, by the hand of President Lincoln. The air was almost motionless, and the banner clung ominously sullen to the staff and the halliards. In a few moments a gentle breeze came from the North, and displayed the Stripes and Stars in all their beauty and significance to the assembled crowd. “I had not thought to say a word,” said the President when he observed the incident, “but it has occurred to me that a few weeks ago the Stars and Stripes hung rather languidly about the staff, all over the nation. So too with this flag, when it was elevated to its place. At first it hung rather languidly, but the glorious breeze from the North came, and it now floats as it should. And we hope that the same breeze is swelling the glorious flag throughout the whole Union.”
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