War is a cruel thing. Apparently there are but two ways of carrying it on. At all times there have been burning, sack, and pillage. Let us hope that the intention of the Federal Government, in authorizing such devastations, was to have done more promptly with the horrors of war, and that the chiefs who accepted such a mission reluctantly fulfilled it. CHAPTER IV. PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS.-CONFEDERATE VICTORY AT BULL'S RUN. THE time of hesitation, skirmishing, uncertainty, had passed: it was for the cannon to speak. On the 17th of April, 1861, the feeble detachments of Federal troops stationed to guard the different arsenals and forts on the Virginian territory retired. The military arsenal of Norfolk, at the mouth of the James River, (so called in honour of King James I.), was given to the flames. Nevertheless, the Virginians arrived in time to save a great amount of war-material, as well as a great many ships and munitions, and a considerable quantity of artillery. Fortress Monroe, situated on a small island at some distance from the coast, alone remained in the power of the Federals. This fortress commanded the entrance of the James River. On the other hand, divers corps of Virginian troops were placed in such a manner as to cover the points which the Northern forces had power to menace. This country, over which for four years all the horrors of war were about to be unchained, was, in 1861, a charming district, peopled by a race of generous and hospitable men. Peace and prosperity, joined to upright and patriarchal manners, somewhat behindhand if you like, had made it a corner of the world where the white race and the black race lived peaceably together, needful to each other, and insensibly bringing about the gradual emancipation of slaves by those thousands of daily relationships. which blot out prejudices and engender sympathy. In 1861, Virginia, which Sir Walter Raleigh had so named, in E 1584, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, included an area of 55,958 square miles, a little more than one-fourth the surface of France. From east to west its extreme length was 326 miles, and from north to south the average distance was 193 miles. On looking at a map of Virginia, one is struck with all that nature has done to render it rich and prosperous. Very easy of access, it presents a vast plain, little broken except near the mountains. Numerous rivers, with their affluents, offer so many means for penetrating to the heart of the country. The Potomac, with a course of 367 miles, serves as a boundary to the north, through two-thirds of its extent, between Maryland and Virginia. The James has a length of 280 miles. The York, Rappahannock, Pamunkey, and Rapidan are deep rivers, which, rising to the west, in the Alleghanies, all flow towards the east, not very far apart, and fall into the Atlantic by large mouths. The neighbouring zone of sea-board resembles the rest of the southern coasts of the United States. The Atlantic coasts are low and sandy; marshes where the pitch-pine abounds and engenders pestilential fevers. There are bays and creeks innumerable, but life is wanting: there is but one harbour worthy of the name-Norfolk-and very little commerce; for the rest, the coast is of small extent, compared with the area of the Virginian territory. This narrow belt once passed the country becomes very healthy. The soil is fertile, although dusty, (i.e. light,) and even stony where the first undulations of the Alleghanies appear; but, on the other hand, along the rivers there are tracts of alluvial soil of great fertility, where cotton, maize, and tobacco grow to perfection. The inhabitants are occupied in breeding cattle, felling timber in the widely extending woods, and agriculture on a very grand scale. At Richmond there were already a large number of arts and manufactures; coal and iron abound in Upper Virginia, and several blast-furnaces were established there. About 185 miles from the sea the vapour-clad outline of the The Alleghany Blue Ridge, a long line of mountains, is seen. Mountains, divided into two principal parallel chains from north to south, one the Blue Ridge, the other, more to the west, preserving the name of Alleghanies, cut Virginia into two equal parts, called, one the Eastern district, that which extends from the Atlantic to the mountains, the other the Western district, which extends from the mountains to Ohio and the borders of Kentucky. Between these two ranges, parallel to the mountains, run long valleys, often very wide. The soil here is richer than in any other part of the state. It is the region known as the Valley of Virginia. It extends northwards to the Potomac. This spot, besides being one of the most fertile, is also one of the most picturesque of North America. The eye, wearied with the monotony of unbroken plains, rests with pleasure on the varied outline of the Blue Ridge or Alleghanies in the distance, rising to the sky. With change of place and level there is also a change of aspect. Far away extend these laughing valleys, which, more than any other American scene, remind one of the landscapes of old Europe. The population of this part of Virginia is purely English, intermingled here and there with Scottish blood, settled in the country in the early days of the colony. These men, honourable and frank, devoted to agriculture, always in the saddle, inured to fatigue, tall, strong, simple in their habits, wearing wide-brimmed. felt sombreros, riding-boots, and gloves with beaver-skin backs, like the cavaliers of the time of Charles I.; these men, Virginians above all things, furnished Jackson and Lee their most valiant soldiers. The belt beyond the Alleghanies, stretching towards the Ohio, belongs to the Mississippi basin. It is quite another country, higher and colder than Eastern Virginia. It produces cereals, is rich in ore, and covered with thick timber. Winter rains cover the plains of Eastern Virginia with deep reddish sticky mud; the roads become impassable. When the heat comes, deep cracks and bottomless ruts replace the liquid mud, and render the maintenance of the roads very onerous. The climate, very warm in summer, becomes, in winter, rainy, and, in the part near the mountains, it is as cold as in the north of France. Snow falls everywhere in the Alleghanies after the month of November. The state was divided into 119 counties or communes. The number of inhabitants amounted, in 1861, to 1,569,083 souls, of whom 490,887 were negroes, and of them 54,333 were free. There remained, therefore, 1,078,196 whites. It was with such a feeble population that Virginia prepared herself for the struggle pro aris et focis. Harper's Ferry, at the entrance of the Shenandoah Valley, the beginning of the great Valley of Virginia, was guarded by General Joseph Johnston, an officer of the old United States army. General Beauregard, a Frenchman of Louisiana, was stationed at Manassas Junction, the meeting-place of three railways, coming from the north, south, and west,-that is to say, from Washington, Richmond, and the Virginian Valley. This most important place was in the plain, and permitted any one who was master of it, either to block the Richmond road, or march on Washington, only 35 miles off, or, in the face of superior forces, to retire to the west, through the Manassas Pass, into the valley. General Huger, a descendant of the refugee Huguenots, also belonging to the old army, held the command at Norfolk. All the approaches to this town, and all the important points at the entrance of the James River, were carefully fortified. The Confederate Government was transported to Richmond, which thus became the capital of the new republic. Volunteers poured in from the other states, and presently the number of troops gathered in Virginia was considerable. In West Virginia, the command was entrusted to General Garnett, who had just displayed great activity as adjutant to General Lee. It was for him to assemble and drill the volunteers |