# The Ifs of History/Chapter 21

THERE have been a great many attempts to excuse or minimize the failure of General Joseph E. Johnston to follow up the tremendous Confederate victory won by his second in command, General G. T. Beauregard, at Bull Run, July 21, 1861. That the Federal army was beaten literally to a pulp there can be no doubt. General Irwin McDowell, who commanded the Union forces, officially reported, after the battle, that all his troops were in flight "in a state of utter disorganization." "They could not," he ​wired on July 22d, "be prepared for action by to-morrow morning even were they willing. The larger part of the men are a confused mob, entirely demoralized." They were actually running away in such a state of panic that they could not get away, for commissary and ammunition wagons, congressmen's and other spectators' horses and carriages, artillery and sutlers' wagons were blocking the road, and panicstricken soldiers were falling over one another. When General McClellan came to take command after McDowell had been superseded, he reported this state of affairs: "I found no army to command—a mere collection of regiments cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others dispirited by defeat."
To reach the spot where the beaten raw recruits were thus cowering, General Johnston and General Beauregard had to advance only twenty miles, over a road every foot of ​which was well known to them. That the Federal army was in ignominious flight they were well aware, for they reported it joyfully to the government at Richmond. Why did they settle down into utter inaction and allow McClellan to fortify the capital and organize, drill and inspire with hope and confidence a great army?
There are a good many "ifs" in connection with the actual fighting of the battle of Bull Run, but this "if" that comes after it—if the elated and triumphant Confederate army had immediately advanced to the Potomac, invested the intrenchments at Arlington Heights and, very likely, effected a crossing above or near the Great Falls of the river, and flanked the capital of the Union—is the greatest and most interesting of them all.
General Beauregard actually commanded at the battle on the 21st, because General Johnston, who ranked him, had but just arrived on the scene and was unfamiliar with the ​ground and the disposition of the troops. But he, Johnston, became responsible for the further prosecution of the campaign, once the battle was won. It was in large measure his fault that the fruits of victory were not reaped.
The commonly accepted explanation of the matter is that the Confederates were "almost as much disorganized by victory as the Federals were by defeat;" that they had no fresh troops and no cavalry with which to pursue, and that Arlington Heights were too well fortified to be attacked.
But General Beauregard, sore at the attempt to rob him of the laurels of victory, has been able to show that all of the Confederate brigades of Ewell, Holmes, D. R. Jones and Longstreet, and two regiments of Bonham's brigade, were perfectly fresh and unharmed after the fight; that Early's brigade had hardly been under fire; that new regiments had ​come up during the day; that the fresh troops in all numbered at least fifteen thousand; that more than half the Confederate army, in fact, had not been engaged—a very unusual proportion after an important battle. "The remaining forces, after a night's rest," says Beauregard himself, "would have been instantly reorganized and found thoroughly safe to join the advance."
Apparently nothing but shame on the Northern side, and an unwillingness on the Southern side to discredit their great generals, has prevented a full acknowledgment of the fatal tactics which prevented an advance on the Potomac after Bull Run.
Now let us see what would have resulted from a Confederate investment of Washington in the summer of 1861. Federal troops had already been attacked in the streets of Baltimore. That city was preponderantly disloyal, and had to be garrisoned with Union troops. Missouri had not yet ​been won to the Union. Maryland, Delaware and Kentucky, all of which were necessary to the maintenance of the Northern position, were slave States, and their loyalty was doubtful. If the capital of the Union had been taken, all these States, in spite of their previous unwillingness to join the secession movement, would probably have been impelled by strong self-interest to range themselves on the side of the other slave States; and the Confederacy would have been strengthened by the addition of at least four States.
There was an important party among the Confederates from the western Southern States—it was led by Postmaster-General John H. Reagan and included General Albert Sidney Johnston—who believed in advancing at the very outset into Kentucky and making the Ohio River the first line of Southern defense. The plan was rejected by Davis and his advisers. It was an unfortunate re​jection. The Confederacy was finally beaten because it was flanked in the west and cut in two at Vicksburg. But if Washington had been captured or invested after Bull Run, it is certain that the Confederate line would have been pushed to the Ohio, and it would probably have been held there. The advantage gained by McClellan in West Virginia would have been lost, for he would practically have found himself within the Confederate lines and would have been compelled to withdraw into Pennsylvania.
Even as matters were, the position of the Union was highly precarious all through the summer and autumn of 1861. There were signs of a demand for peace in the North. Lincoln's own party was turning against him. The sympathy of Europe was rapidly passing over to the Confederacy. But so long as Lincoln stood firm in the White House and Congress sat at the capital, "the gov​ernment at Washington still lived," and the people felt it. The truce so kindly, so inexplicably permitted by Davis and Lee and Johnston enabled McClellan to organize and drill a great army, to fortify the capital, to spread renewed confidence in the North, and, in short, to establish a fulcrum for future victory.
This was not the last time that opportunity knocked at the door of the Confederacy. It knocked again, and loudly, as will be shown in the next chapter, the same year. Either event, taken alone, appears decisive. For as we contemplate the events of the 21st of July, 1861, it quite appears as if the flag of two republics—three, perhaps, and conceivably four—might have been flying over this great American domain to-day if Johnston had pressed his advance down the Warrenton turnpike early Monday morning, July 22d. Wars, divisions, European intrusion, retrogression and darkness would have been America's ​fate, instead of that imperial advance, with liberty and union, which has dazzled and heartened the whole world.