the whole, it was an interesting but sad scene; and I still carry in my memory the President's weary look, and the disappointed faces of the applicants, who, after long waiting, and perhaps going through with this same ceremony day after day, received no intimation that the object of their hopes was near its accomplishment.

ON TO MANASSAS.

81

CHAPTER X.

BULL RUN.

TAKING the train at Washington, and crossing the long railroad bridge which spans the Potomac, I entered again a portion of Virginia rendered celebrated and desolate by war.

Running down to Alexandria, and making a short stop there, we rattled on towards Manassas. All the names throughout that region are historical, stamped and re-stamped upon the memory of America by the burning brand of war. The brakeman bawls in at the door of the car words which start you with a thrill of recollection. The mind goes back through four fiery years of conflict to the campaign of '61, until it grows bewildered, in doubt whether that contest or this journey is unreal,- for surely one must be a dream! That first season of disaster and dismay, which associated the names of Fairfax Court House, Centreville, Bull Run, Manassas, with something infinitely horrible and fatal, had passed away like a cloud; the storm of the subsequent year, still more terrible, except that we had grown accustomed to such, had also passed, dissolving in thin vapor of history; and one would never have guessed that such things had been, but for the marks of the wrath of heaven, which had left the country scathed as with hailstones and coals of fire.

Yes, those skirmishes and dire contests were realities; and now this quiet journey, this commonplace mode of travel into what was then the "enemy's country," with hot-blooded Virginians (now looking cool enough) sitting upon the seats next us, and conversing tamely and even pleasantly with us when we accosted them, no murderous masked batteries in front, no guerrillas in the woods waiting to attack the train; in short,

no danger threatening but the vulgar one of railroad disasters, of late become so common; this too was a reality no less wonderful, contrasted with the late rampant days of Rebel defiance.

From Alexandria to Manassas Junction it is twenty-seven miles. Through all that distance we saw no signs of human industry, save here and there a sickly, half-cultivated cornfield, which looked as if it had been put in late, and left to pine in solitude. There were a few wood-lots still left standing; but the country for the most part consisted of fenceless fields abandoned to weeds, stump-lots, and undergrowths.

"Manassas Junction!" announced the brakeman; and we alighted. A more forbidding locality can scarcely be imagined. I believe there were a number of houses and shops there before the war, but they were destroyed, and two or three rumshanties had lately sprung up in their place. A row of black bottles, ranged on a shelf under a rudely constructed shed, were the first signs I saw of a reviving civilization. Near by a

new tavern was building, of so fragile and thin a shell, it seemed as if the first high wind must blow it down. I also noticed some negroes digging a well; for such are the needs of an advancing civilization: first rum, then a little water to put into it. All around was a desolate plain, slightly relieved from its dreary monotony by two or three Rebel forts overgrown with weeds.

A tall young member of the Western press accompanied me. I went to a stable to secure a conveyance to the battle-field; and, returning, found him seated on the steps of one of the "Refreshment Saloons," engaged in lively conversation with a red-faced and excitable young stranger. The latter was speaking boastingly of "our army."

"Which army do you mean ? for there were two, you know," said my friend.

"I mean the Confederate army, the best and bravest army that ever was!" said he of the red face, emphatically.

"It seems to me," remarked my friend, "the best and bravest army that ever was got pretty badly whipped."

"The Confederate army never was whipped! We were overpowered."

"I see you Southern gentlemen have a new word. With us, when a man goes into a fight and comes out second best, the condition he is in is vulgarly called whipped."

"We were overpowered by numbers!" ejaculated the Rebel. "Your army was three times as big as ours."

"That 's nothing, for you know one Southerner was equal to five Yankees."

"And so he is, and always will be! But you had to get the niggers to help you.'

"What are a few niggers? They would always run, you know, at sight of their masters, while of course such a thing was never known as their masters running from them!"

The unhappy member of the "overpowered" party flushed and fumed a while, not knowing what answer to make, then burst forth,

"It was the foreigners! You never would have beaten us if it had n't been for the foreigners that made up your armies!" "What!" said my friend, " you, an American, acknowledge yourself beaten by foreigners! I am ashamed of you!"

And the wagon arriving, he jumped into it with a laugh, leaving the Southerner, not whipped of course, but decidedly "overpowered" in this little contest of wit. It was quite evident that he was not equal to five Yankees with his tongue. "That young fellow you was talking with," said our driver, "was one of Mosby's guerrillas. There are plenty of them around here. They are terrible at talking, but that is about all."

The wagon was an ambulance which had cost the government two hundred and fifty dollars a few months before. The springs proving inferior, it was condemned, and sold at auction for twenty-four dollars. "I paid a hundred and twenty-five for it the next day," said the driver; "and it's well worth the money." It was a strong, heavy, well-built vehicle, well suited to his business. "I was down here with my regiment when I got my discharge, and it struck me something might be made by

taking visitors out to the battle-fields. But I have n't saved a cent at it yet; passengers are few, and it 's mighty hard business, the roads are so awful bad."

Worse roads are not often seen in a civilized country. "It makes me mad to see people drive over and around these bad places, month after month, and never think of mending 'em! A little work with a shovel would save no end of lost time, and wear and tear, and broken wagons; but it's never done."

The original country roads had passed into disuse; and, the fences being destroyed, only the curious parallel lines of straggling bushes and trees that grew beside them remained to mark their course. Necessity and convenience had struck out new roads winding at will over the fenceless farms. We crossed thinly wooded barrens, skirted old orchards, and passed now and then a standing chimney that marked the site of some ruined homestead; up-hill and down-hill, rocking, rattling, jolting, and more than once nearly upsetting. I remember not more than three or four inhabited houses on our route. In a wild field near the shelter of some woods was a village of half-ruined huts, interesting as having served in wartime as Rebel winter-quarters. At last, eight miles north from the Junction, we reached the scene of the first battle of Bull Run.

This was the plateau, from which our almost victorious forces had driven and re-driven the enemy, when Johnston's reinforcements, arriving by the railroad which runs obliquely towards the Junction on the west, changed what was so nearly a triumph for our arms into a frightful disaster. The ground is well described in Beauregard's official report. "It is enclosed on three sides by small watercourses which empty into Bull Run within a few rods of each other, half a mile to the south of Stone Bridge. Rising to an elevation of quite one hundred feet above Bull Run at the bridge, it falls off on three sides to the level of the enclosing streams in gentle slopes, but which are furrowed by ravines of irregular direction and length, and studded with clumps and patches of young pines "Completely surrounding the two houses

and oaks."