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General McDowell had resumed his headquarters at the Arlington House, and was busily engaged in restoring order to his army, sending off the ninety-days men, and replacing them by regiments which had come under the three-years call. We were all trembling lest we should be held personally accountable for the disastrous result of the battle.
McDowell was to move from the defenses of Washington, and Patterson from Martinsburg. In the organization of McDowell's army into divisions and brigades, Colonel David Hunter was assigned to command the Second Division, and I was ordered to take command of his former brigade, which was composed of five regiments in position in and about Fort Corcoran, and on the ground opposite Georgetown.
The friends of liberty who were compelled to remain in the desecrated old capital appreciated the urgent necessity of acquainting General Beauregard with the designs of McDowell, and the arch-apostate, Scott; but all channels of egress seemed sealed; all roads leading across the Potomac were vigilantly guarded, to keep the great secret safely; and painful apprehensions were indulged for the fate of the Confederate army.
Rutherford's camp, Col. Locke marched with his forces, less than four hundred in number, stopped a short time in the night for rest and consultation, and arrived within a mile of Ramsour's at daylight without being observed by the Tories. The battle soon commenced by the mounted companies of Captains Falls, McDowell and Brandon.
Slowly the girl rose to her feet. It was then that Keith saw she was not a child. Perhaps she was eighteen, a slim, tired-looking, little thing, wonderfully pretty, and either on the verge of laughing or crying. Perhaps it was halfway between. To his growing discomfiture she came slowly toward him with a strange and wonderful look in her face. And McDowell still sat there staring.
The Federal army at Washington, commanded by General McDowell, amounted to 50,000 men; a portion of this force was already south of the Potomac, and Beauregard's 20,000 Confederates, at Manassas Junction, were seriously threatened. In West Virginia the enemy had advanced, moving, fortunately, in the direction of Staunton, at the southern end of the Valley, and not on Winchester. July 11.
"But," she writes, "none of these things turn me a hair's breadth, for I have the witness in myself that I have done as the Master commanded. Some tell me this is a judgment on me for sin committed; and some say it is a chastisement to Mr. McDowell for going away last summer."
At that time 7 a.m. my division was arranged as follows: First Brigade, composed of the Sixth Iowa, Colonel J. A. McDowell; Fortieth Illinois, Colonel Hicks; Forty-sixth Ohio, Colonel Worthington; and the Morton battery, Captain Behr, on the extreme right, guarding the bridge on the Purdy road over Owl Creek.
At 7 o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the 18th, in obedience to written orders from McDowell, it presses forward, on that "Pike," to Centreville, five miles nearer to the Enemy's position behind Bull Run Richardson's Brigade in advance and, at 9 o'clock, occupies it.
The organization of this Regiment was commenced and the duty of the organization was conferred on Major Malcolm McDowell, Paymaster U. S. A., and I may add here, that there is no visitor more welcome at the camp of the Seventh O. V. C., than the gallant old grandfather of the Reg't, as he is styled here.
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