At half past one, a heavy, growling detonation startled the city. Another followed, and another. Washington, recognizing the sound of artillery from the northern forts, was informed that it was besieged.
The President had spent the morning at Tennallytown, but in the heat of midday he was driving down to the Potomac. At the foot of Sixth Street, an eager crowd pressed forward. Steamers were landing at the wharf which, for more than two months, by day and night, had received the prostrate and agonized soldiers of the Army of the Potomac. The new arrivals were not like the comrades who had preceded them. Erect and armed, three brigades bounded down the gangplanks. Greek crosses gleamed in the summer sun, and the crowd hailed the Sixth Corps with jubilant, tumultuous cheers, incongruous in a beleaguered city. Traditions are quickly made in wartime. The corps, organized two years before, was already hailed as the old Sixth.
The column quickly formed, and went swinging up Seventh Street. General Horatio Wright, a precise and formal officer of engineers who had been made corps commander on Sedgwick’s death, was not immediately advised of the need for concentrating at Fort Stevens. One of his brigades was starting toward the Chain Bridge before Halleck sent word to Augur to “stop General Wright’s movement up the Potomac. . . .” The rhythm of tramping feet brought people running to the sidewalks to welcome back the Army of the Potomac. The city had had its queasy fill of militia and invalids and odds and ends in uniform. Washington knew veterans when it saw them. “It is the old Sixth Corps!” the soldiers heard voices exclaim. “The danger is over now!”
By late afternoon, the three brigades had marched out beyond the city limits, and were in the vicinity of Fort Stevens. Three more brigades arrived on Tuesday morning, bringing to Washington the entire first and second divisions of the corps—ten thousand effectives. For many of them, it was almost a home-coming. In these defenses, boys from New England, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey had learned to be soldiers. To some, the ordnance was as familiar as the rifles on their own shoulders. Wright himself, as one of Barnard’s assistant engineers, had taken part in constructing the fortifications.
Hard on the arrival of the first three brigades of the Sixth Corps, the advance of the Nineteenth Corps steamed up the Potomac. The sight of the sun-browned campaigners from Louisiana brought added reassurance to Washington. They were, however, a small force—only six hundred and fifty effectives—and the rest of the corps came too late to aid in the defense of the capital. Those who landed on Monday were sent out the Old Bladensburg Road to Fort Saratoga. General Gillmore, summoned from New York by Halleck, was placed in command of them.
From newspaper extras, the capital learned that a considerable force of Confederates, swerving east from the Rockville Road, had reached the Blair family’s farm at Silver Spring. Headlines announced fighting on the Seventh Street Road. Washington had been reading for years about that shifting and crucial area, the Front. Twice, on the plain of Manassas, thirty-odd miles away, it had lain uncomfortably close to the capital. But now it was as accessible as a suburban residence. The Front was a place which people could approach by taking the North Seventh Street cars; and pell-mell, out to the end of the car line and thence on foot, as well as in carriages and on horseback, went the Washington population, pardonably curious to discover what was going on. The confusion they witnessed told them little more than they already knew. Even the privileged officials who were permitted to visit Fort Stevens returned home scarcely wiser than they went. Yet to the sight-seers of that Monday evening, the trip out the Seventh Street Road must have been an unforgettable experience. The moon sailed in a tranquil sky, and from forests and fields came the ripe scents and murmuring sounds of a summer night; but along the road the breath of war blew like a hurricane to shatter the rural quiet. Toward Washington flocked the frightened refugees, men, women and children, trudging behind their laden wagons. Candles, stuck on fences along the way, lighted agitated dooryards where people were packing their household goods, loading muskets, piling up rude barricades. Fires, kindled by the roadside, hemmed the route with flame; and, in the distance, blazed the roaring bonfires of burning houses. On past the sentry post, squads of soldiers and galloping horsemen moved toward the flaring lights and flashing rifles in the forts. An armed host of patients from the hospitals shambled forward. Quartermaster General Meigs led out his sturdy force of employees, shouldering guns instead of whips and shovels. Through clouds of thin dust, silver under the moon, the teamsters and laborers marched to fill the rifle pits on either side of Fort Slocum, east of Fort Stevens. That night, Meigs slept in no humdrum quartermaster’s bed, but in an orchard, under a poncho, with his horse tethered to an apple tree.
Washington, awakening on Tuesday to the noise of artillery, found itself without mails or newspapers from the North. The railroad had been badly damaged above Baltimore. During the day, rebel cavalry struck the tracks between Baltimore and Washington. At noon, the telegraph wires to the North were cut.
The city’s isolation could be marked, not only in the absence of news, but in the destitution of the markets. Only the supply of beef was plentiful. Herds of cattle, driven south to escape Early’s cavalry, stampeded into town, and were freely offered for sale. Some grocers, in hopeful anticipation of a prolonged siege, set famine prices on flour and potatoes. Agents of Baltimore firms were closing their accounts with the local merchants and refusing to take more orders, because of the precarious situation of the capital.
The Washington secesh, after a long period of glum repression, went flying about in high glee. They glibly assured the rest of the residents that the city was doomed. The Confederates had made a successful assault, they said, and the President had been wounded. Loyal inhabitants were conscious of an enemy within, as well as without the gates. Young men were stealing through the lines to join the invading army. A few of the quartermaster’s employees had been conspicuously absent during the call to military duty. Some of the Navy Yard workmen, ordered to take up arms on Tuesday, refused to obey. Confederate flags were being secretly manufactured to celebrate Early’s triumphal entry, and at least one of them was found and confiscated. It was firmly believed in Washington that spies, by means of a signal service, were keeping the rebels informed of conditions in the northern defenses.
The capital, in 1864, was too sophisticated for panic. No city ever heard the noise of cannon in its suburbs with a greater appearance of sang-froid. People were eager to learn the facts. They bought and devoured every newspaper extra. “The city shows no signs of alarm,” wrote Doster, the former provost marshal, “except being as subdued as children in a thunderstorm, listening and waiting for the issue. It seems funny to hear the rumbling of street cars mixed with the rumbling of hostile cannon. . . .” Sight-seers were still thronging out toward Fort Stevens, some of them seeking word of relatives and friends in the Second District Regiment. They were so numerous that they interfered with the movement of the army wagons, and orders were issued to turn them back. The varied business of the city went on as usual. Both on Monday and Tuesday, according to schedule, premiums were distributed at the Smithsonian to meritorious pupils of the public schools. Shoemakers hammered, said Doster, clerks copied, lawyers pleaded and ladies shopped. Perhaps some of the indifference to danger was affected. Nonchalance had become the fashion in Washington. Major French said that he was chiefly discomforted by the heat. He supposed that the “ugly mugs” of the rebels were in front of Washington; but he also supposed that there were “brave men enough to give ’em hell,” if they tried to come in.
The brave men on whom the capital was relying were the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac. It would have needed a superhuman optimism to derive reassurance from the military goings on within the city itself. Under the direction of Brigadier-General Peter Bacon, the worthy grocer who commanded the District militia, companies were being ordered to assemble at the City Hall, in Franklin Square and in various vacant lots which served as parade and muster grounds. To arms! bawled the Chroni
cle, as, in flamboyant editorials, it implored able-bodied citizens to die to a man in the trenches, rather than permit the rebel flag to float from the Capitol dome. Major Doster went into Bacon’s grocery store, and asked where the militia head-quarters was. “Damned if I know,” said Bacon’s brother.
The War Office still lacked definite information about the Confederate force and, for want of fresh cavalry, was unable to procure it. The enemy appeared to be massed at Silver Spring, but it was by no means certain that Fort Stevens would be their main point of attack. The War Office was also fearful of an assault on the fortifications south of the Potomac. Reports that Early’s soldiers were moving east from Silver Spring caused the muster-in of the Navy Yard workmen. The defenses in the northeastern section of the line, which guarded the railroad and the approaches from Bladensburg, were ill-prepared to meet an attack. Halleck gratefully accepted the services of several naval officers who happened to be in town, and the superannuated sea dog, Admiral Goldsborough, was placed in command of the Navy Yard carpenters and mechanics, who were sent to fill the rifle pits at Fort Lincoln.
Assistant War Secretary Charles A. Dana telegraphed Grant, begging for orders. Grant should appoint a head in Washington, Dana said. Augur commanded the defenses of the city, “with McCook and a lot of brigadiers under him,” but he was not permitted to move from Washington. Wright commanded the Sixth Corps, and Gillmore had been temporarily assigned to the arrivals from the Nineteenth. Advice and suggestions were not enough, Dana bluntly informed Grant. “Unless you direct positively and explicitly what is to be done, everything will go on in the deplorable and fatal way in which it has gone for the past week.” Without mentioning Halleck’s name, Dana could scarcely have made more plain the reason for the muddle in Washington. The city, which had no love for the grouchy bureaucrat, spitefully criticized Halleck. At his residence on Georgetown Heights, he kept great military state, with a guard of invalid soldiers and nightly bugle-blowing of tattoo and taps. Irritable persons suggested that it would be no serious loss if the rebels marched down Rock Creek and captured him.
All day Tuesday, there was skirmishing in front of Fort Stevens. White puffs of smoke rose from the entrenched line of Federals in the valley, and from the groves and orchards and farmhouses where the Confederate sharpshooters were posted. At intervals, the discharge of musketry was drowned by the booming of guns from Fort Stevens and its neighboring strongholds, De Russy and Slocum. Over the green meadows and waving cornfields, solid shot whistled, and shells shrieked defiance to the invaders. As the Confederates did not show themselves in heavy force, the artillery did little execution. It was mainly directed at demolishing the trees and houses which sheltered the enemy’s skirmishers.
The Federal skirmish line was made up of soldiers of the Sixth Corps, who, at McCook’s request, had relieved his pickets on Monday evening. This was in contravention of War Office orders that Wright’s command was to be held in reserve. It was McCook’s understanding that he had been ordered to take command of the entire line of northern defenses, Gillmore commanding under him on the right, Meigs in the center and Hardin on the left. The War Department had no clear-cut idea of the commands, and from various contradictory reports it is apparent that McCook did not actually control the northern line. Conflict of authority between him and General Wright made for further inefficiency. The Sixth Corps was eager for action. Wright, if he had not been deterred by Augur, would have advanced to clean out the enemy’s skirmishers as soon as his men came up on Monday evening. The veterans, encamped on either side of Rock Creek, in the vicinity of Fort Stevens, found it irksome to remain in the rear, while militia, invalids and quartermaster’s employees were on active duty. Some of them went into the rifle pits between Forts Stevens and De Russy, creating disorganization in this section of the line, because of the intermingling of troops under different commanders. On the other hand, heavy artillerists of the Sixth Corps were, to their mortification, not permitted to touch the ordnance, though Forts Stevens and Slocum needed skilled reinforcements so badly that they welcomed feeble gunners from the Washington hospitals.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, a brigade of the Sixth Corps was ordered to make an assault for the purpose of driving Confederate sharpshooters from two houses, situated on either side of the Seventh Street Road. A number of notable civilians had congregated in Fort Stevens: the President, some members of the Cabinet and of Congress, and other Government officials. Mrs. Lincoln had driven out with her husband, and several other ladies had accompanied General Wright and his staff. The hill beside the fort was occupied by other spectators, influential enough to secure passes and sufficiently adventurous to tolerate, from the shelter of trees and bushes, the whizzing of bullets from the enemy’s long-range rifles.
Presently, a small brigade of veterans approached, with their portly commander, Colonel D. D. Bidwell, at their head. They marched past the fort into the valley, and formed behind the Federal skirmish line. The batteries of Forts Stevens and Slocum opened on the Confederate positions. As the firing ceased, General Wright gave the signal for the charge from the parapet of Fort Stevens. Bidwell’s brigade dashed forward. The Confederates obstinately held their ground. The crack of the rifles turned to a rattle, then to a continuous roar. As the rebels at last gave way, the civilians at Fort Stevens clapped their hands and shouted.
This sharp skirmish was the President’s only opportunity of seeing troops in action. He had no concern for his personal safety. Both on Monday and Tuesday, with nearly half of his tall form exposed above the parapet, he was under fire at Fort Stevens. During the charge of Bidwell’s brigade, he clambered on top of the parapet, where General Wright and a few others were standing. A surgeon was killed by a sharpshooter’s bullet within three feet of Lincoln. The President remained, after Wright had cleared the parapet of everyone else, and the general ordered him to withdraw. Wright’s remonstrance was couched in dignified, if peremptory terms; and it was left for his exasperated young aide, Lieutenant-Colonel Oliver Wendell Holmes, to shout at the Chief Executive, “Get down, you fool!”
Dusk began to shadow the distant valley. There was little more to be seen, and the spectators looked for their carriages. Still, on the evening air, the noise of musketry sharply sounded. The enemy’s line had been reinforced, and the contest continued until dark. Bidwell’s brigade, which numbered only about one thousand men, lost nearly three hundred killed and wounded. Men, borne on stretchers or leaning on the shoulders of their comrades, passed slowly to the rear of Fort Stevens, where the barracks had been turned into a hospital. The scattered dead, New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians, were laid that night in rude graves on the common. There they awaited a more ceremonious burial in a little cemetery presently established on the right of the Seventh Street Road.
At sunset, military men had remarked that dense clouds of dust, in the rear of the Confederates, appeared to be receding toward the northwest. The streets of the Northern Liberties were lively all evening with small boys and females, pressing as close as possible to the scene of action. Vendors of ice cream and cake did a rushing business. The lights from the signal tower at the Soldiers’ Home streaked brilliantly across the sky, and Washington expected a night attack. In the morning the suspense was over. The enemy was gone.
The dust settled behind the last skedaddling rebel pickets on the Rockville Road. The siege of Washington had not been such an important matter, after all. The main body of the Confederates had never appeared before the defenses, but had remained encamped at Silver Spring and beyond. They had about forty pieces of artillery, and there were newspaper reports that a battery was erected near Fort Reno, and that another rebel gun was placed near the Bladensburg station. These, however, were said to have done no damage. Early himself stated that not a piece of his artillery was fired in front of Washington. The Federal casualties, aside from those of Bidwell’s brigade, were less than a hundred killed and wounded by sharpshooters.
It was only in contemplation of what mi
ght have been that Wallace’s stand on the Monocacy assumed the proportions of a deliverance. Remembering the confused disorder of Sunday, Washington shuddered at a narrow escape. The ineptitude of the War Department had been made as crystal-clear as the folly of confiding in staunchly built earthworks. The final disillusionment was the turnout of the District militia on Wednesday morning, after the enemy had departed. Only one company of the National Rifles had succeeded in recruiting to full strength. A few companies of volunteers were sworn in. War Department clerks went on guard duty; and two companies of the Treasury Guard and a battalion of Union League members spent a night at Fort Baker across the Eastern Branch. The quartermaster’s men were the only Government employees who saw service at the front.
On Wednesday morning, the suburbs north of Washington lay serene in the haze of July. The soldiers of the Sixth Corps lay encamped “in a loafer-like, gipsy style among the trees.” Some slept under the shelter of their little tents. Squads were filling their canteens at the farmers’ pumps. A smell of coffee and frying meat came from the campfires. Muskets stood in pyramidal stacks, and the fences fluttered with flags and banners. From the Seventh Street Road, the alarms of war had vanished overnight, leaving a scene as empty of initiative as the brain of General Halleck. Early’s forces were well on their way toward the upper Potomac, before General Wright received his orders, and the Sixth Corps started in pursuit.
Beyond the line of the defenses, the countryside was defaced by breastworks, riddled trees and scarred and trodden fields. Smoldering ruins of houses were reminders of the guns which yesterday had thundered from the forts. Severely wounded Confederates had been left behind. Stragglers were marched back to the Washington prisons. Gray uniforms lay sprawled here and there in the grass, and a squad of contrabands went out to bury the rebel dead.
Reveille in Washington Page 54