2nd Manassas The Rear Guard on the Retreat Back to Washington

Andy Cardinal

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I have been looking for good accounts about the retreat to Washington, particularly the attitude of the soldiers following the defeat at Second Manassas. This account is from James A. Wright's memoir of the 1st Minnesota, No More Gallant a Deed (pp. 187-193]. The 1st Minnesota appears to have been the last regiment to reach Washimgton, thus making them the true rear guard of Pope's retreat.

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James A. Wright, 1st Minnesota
James Wright and the 1st Minnesota marched as part of the rear guard. “The road was -- or had been -- a good ‘pike,’” Wright recalled, “but grinding wheels and trampling feet, aided by copious moisture, had worked it into an adhesive mortar or pools of liquid mud.” The men marched through the night. Although the rain had stopped, it was an extremely dark night. As Wright phrased it, “a darkness blacker than a traitor’s heart settled over the woods and field, rendering everything invisible. No words of mine can fittingly describe that stumbling, floundering, wearying march over and through those execrable roads.”

They reached the area around Chantilly at daybreak, where they saw evidence of the battle that had taken place the night before, and halted for a short time. “Coming inside the lines at that early hour -- hungry, splattered with mud, and weary from marching all night -- to be met at the picket line with the news of another drawn battle and the death of two of our hopeful leaders did not cheer the present or brighten the future,” Wright wrote. Resuming their march, they continued to Fairfax, where they halted, ate breakfast, and went into position expecting another Confederate attack. The men tried to get what sleep they could.

Around noon, the troops began moving out. As the rear guard, the 1st Minnesota held the position as the others resumed the retreat. “As the troops near me moved out, I lay on the ground and watched them,” Wright recalled. “Regiment after regiment filed out of the field into the road, the dark line of blue relieved occasionally by the brighter colors of a Zouave regiment. Ordinarily quite susceptible to inspiring instances of martial array and moving battalions, I must confess that what I saw did not stir my patriotic blood to quicker flow. On the contrary. Despondent thoughts filled my mind as I looked on the moving regiments with their soiled and torn banners and thinned ranks; the men in mud-stained clothing with rusty rifles and faces that told of weariness of mind and body, and of battles and marches recently past. Marches and battles still lay between us and victory, and the outlook was not cheerful.”

The 1st Minnesota, now numbering roughly 300 men, stood alone with a battery as the rest of the army continued to retreat. They clashed with Confederate cavalry as the sun began to go down. Fire was exchanged for a short time and the cavalry was driven off, and the Minnesotans resumed their retreat. “We were now a long distance in the rear,” Wright wrote, “open to renewed attacks and liable to be intercepted by this mounted force passing us on some by-road and getting between us and the column we were guarding.” Wright remembered it was a “dark night, and the stars were shining, so that we were able to make our way fairly well, except when the road was through the woods, when it became more difficult.” The moon came up, shedding a little more light. Then there was “a flash like ‘heat lightning’ from a hill on our right,” Wright recalled. “There was noise and a commotion on the road in front of us, fitful flashes of light were seen; the sound of firing heard.” Horsemen were heard approaching, and the Minnesotans quickly got off the road and prepared to defend themselves. A “body of mounted men swept by us -- yelling, swearing, firing. At this instant a scattering volley came from the same direction of the horsemen, and the ‘minnies’ came spitting and spattering among us.” The Minnesotans opened fire, the horsemen disappeared down the road, and the firing ended. “The whole affair had scarcely exceeded a minute in duration,” Wright recalled. “But in that brief interval, brave men who had periled their lives together in defense of their country suffered death and wounds at the hands of each other. A number of men had been hit. There were calls for help, suppressed cries, and calls for comrades. In too many instances those called for could answer but feebly or not at all.” The 1st Minnesota suffered 11 casualties in this friendly fire episode, including two killed.

Orders came to resume the march, but there were no ambulances and Colonel Alfred Sully refused to leave his dead and wounded behind. “It was here that that grim old regular … showed that he had a kind heart beneath his rough exterior and, by his action on that occasion, formed a new tie of attachment between himself and the men of the First Regiment whom he had so ably commanded on several trying occasions,” Wright recalled. When the orders to continue the march were repeated, Sully again refused. “He declared that he never had abandoned dead or helpless comrades except when actually forced to do so, and that he would not do it now,” Wright wrote. “When the order was repeated, he grew wrathy, used a few of his strongest cuss words, and declared that there would be more dead and wounded to keep them company before he left them behind.” Some wagons were obtained a few minutes later, the dead and wounded were placed in them, and the retreat toward Washington was resumed.

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Colonel Alfred Sully, 1st Minnesota
“The moon was now high in the sky and shining as brightly and peacefully as if there was no such thing as war or strife in the world,” Wright recollected. “However it may have appeared to the ‘man in the moon,’ we weary mundane mortals marching on through the night knew differently and reflected bitterly on recent experiences. The quiet moonlit evening seemed like a mockery as we passed on as rapidly as we could to close up with the brigade.” Wright recalled that the men marched in “depressed silence.” At one point, one of the Hamline boys broke the silence by quoting Shakespeare. “He believed in an overruling Providence and frequently quoted, ‘There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may,’ Wright remembered. “As he made the quotation that night, in the middle of a period of silent marching, it indicated that his customary faith had been materially weakened, for it was to this effect: ‘There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may.’” [Wright didn't identify the soldier. Many students from Hamline University served in Wright's company.]

It was approximately 2:00 in the morning [September 3] when they reached their bivouac near the Chain Bridge. They stacked arms and lay down, exhausted. “As we laid down, we heard cheering not far off,” Wright recalled, “and we were wondering what anyone could find to cheer about, when someone came by and told us that McClellan had been placed in command of the defenses of Washington and was at that time visiting the camps of the troops which had come in during the day.” They were too tired to respond very enthusiastically, Wright remembered, “but it was good news, as it made it certain that there would be some sort of orderly direction of affairs to take the place of the disorder and confusion we had observed everywhere since we had landed at Alexandria nearly a week before.” Within ten minutes, nearly everyone was asleep -- “forgetful of the early evening’s accidents, personal troubles, and public calamities.”
 
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