"For
ten days I have not been able to change clothes and
only now and then to wash my face--sleeping under
trees or on the unsheltered earth-- and generally
vagabonding up and down the Rappahannock."
A tired command tramps into bivouac past
a Zouave outpost. Based on a drawing by Edwin Forbes.
In the
weeks following the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Williams
was incommunicado. He desperately struggled, amid the
confusion of Pope's army, to reorganize his ravaged
command while simultaneously as temporary Corps Commander
for the again absent Banks. The Lee's rebel army, having
seized the initiative, out maneuvered the larger and
better armed Union armies and brought them to defeat at
the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 29-30 and to near
destruction at Chantilly on September 1, 1862. Williams'
only letter in the period prior to Bull Run evinced his
weariness and growing contempt for the pompous Pope.
"I have not been able to
write you for two good reasons. 1, I have had nothing
to write on. 2, A general order has stopped all
letters going out. I might add a third--that day and
night we have been literally under arms, liable at
any moment to be called into action or into a
fatiguing march. If I ever get settled, I will give
you a detailed history of the last week. I have had
hard service and hard traveling, but I think the past
week's experience puts all other labor and privations
to the shame. All our baggage has been forty miles
from us and we have been at times, officers and men,
literally with [out] bread or meat. Every minute came
a new order--now to march east and now to march west,
night and day...
"Where
all this will end, I cannot guess. We are getting
some reinforcements but nothing to what we should
have. A few of us--my division reduced in the late
battle to half its muster and almost without officers
are compelled to do an immense duty, enough to kill
iron men. We have been under fire of shells almost
continuously and at times most incessant and
tremendous. After hard labor and great losses of life
we are back where we were when Gen. Pope published
his famous order that we must look to no lines of
retreat and that in his western campaigns he never
saw the backs of his enemies. In short he boasted
greedy, at which we all laughed and thought he would
do better to stay where we then were till he got men
enough to do half what he threatened. But I have room
for no more....
The
assessment of Pope Following the events at Bull Run,
Williams was ordered to retreat, with the rest of the
Union Army, behind the defenses of Washington. As part of
the Union force maneuvered out the battle his path took
him around Manassas and thence into Alexandria. Writing
later he describes the retreat...
"Early the next morning
Gen. Banks sent for me and showed me an order to burn
all public property and march via Brentsville. The
rail road bridge had been burned by the Rebels,
leaving on the south side hundreds of our wounded and
sick, besides miles of cars full of army stores and
provisions. The wounded and sick we had taken off to
Centerville by wagon, but the goods were there and
the torch was soon applied and a tremendous bonfire,
whose smoke went up high into the heavens, broke out
for miles along the railroad. At the same time our
ammunition wagons were set on fire and many of our
ambulances. Explosions followed like salvos of
artillery. I had for my headquarters carriage an
ambulance and one wagon, which we had contrived to
secure to carry our forage and food. These I
determined to keep. I got them off safely and have
them yet. Gen. Banks burnt up his private baggage
almost wholly...
There
would be no rest for Williams and his weary command.
Lee's triumphant army invaded Maryland on September 4
encamping near Frederick. Sent westward through
Washington to confront the invasion force, Williams found
himself encamped at Rockville, again in temporary command
of the corps, and facing the difficulties of
incorporating raw regiments with only a months' training
into the corps.
To
make matters worse, Lee's army had disappeared behind the
Blue Ridge. His weariness and frustration spills over in
the following emotional passages penned on September 8 at
the nadir of his war experiences and, perhaps, of the
American Republics' as well.
"All
this is the sequence of Gen. Pope's high sounding
manifestoes. His pompous orders issued in Washington
and published in the daily telegraphs all over the
country with great commendation of the press and
apparently of the people greatly disgusted his army
from the first. When a general boasts that he will
look only on the backs of his enemies, that he takes
no care for lines of retreat or bases of supplies;
when, in short, from a snug hotel in Washington he
issues after-dinner orders to gratify public taste
and his own self-esteem, anyone may confidently look
for results such as have followed the bungling
management of his last campaign. A splendid army
almost demoralized, millions of public property given
up or destroyed, thousands of lives of our best men
sacrificed for no purpose. I dare not trust myself to
speak of this commander as I feel and believe.
Suffice it to say (for your eye alone) that more
insolence, superciliousness, ignorance, and
pretentiousness were never combined in one man. It
can with truth be said of him that he had not a
friend in his command from the smallest drummer boy
to the highest general officer. All hated him...
"We
are now within a few miles of where I began my
service with the old brigade a year ago. What a
contrast. The three regiments of that brigade (one
has been transferred) are here yet in name, but
instead of 3,000 men they number altogether less than
400 men present! Not a field officer nor adjutant is
here! All killed or wounded! Of the 102 officers not
over 20 are left to be present! Instead of hopeful
and confident feelings we are all depressed with
losses and disasters. Instead of an offensive
position the enemy is now actually in Maryland and we
are on the defensive. What a change! After such vast
preparations and such vast sacrifices. This has been
called a "brainless war." I can't tell you
of the future. We are accumulating troops this way
and shall doubtless have some severe conflicts. If we
fail now the North has no hope, no safety that I can
see. We have thrown away our power, and prestige. We
may become the supplicant instead of the avenger....
Little
did Williams suspect that in five days he would have in
his hands a seemingly insignificant piece of
paper, found wrapped around three
cigar, containing the location and plans of Lee's
disappeared army.
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