THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

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not exposed during the war by any murmurs of mine, it bruited sometimes incertain quarters of its own force. Thus, when in January, 1862, the Westernrepresentatives expressed a desire that I should separate myself for a timefrom my Virginia forces and go to the defense of the Mississippi Valley fromthe impending offensive of Halleck and Grant, it was furthered by the Execu-tive with inducements which I trusted,—in disregard of Senator Toombs’ssagacious warning, that under this furtherance lurked a purpose to effect mydownfall, urged in one of his communications through his son-in-law, Mr.Alexander, in words as impressive as they proved prophetic: “ Urge GeneralBeauregard to decline all proposals and solicitations. The Blade of Joab.Verbiim Sapienti .” After going through the campaign of Shiloh and Corinth,not only with those inducements unfulfilled, but with vital drawbacks fromthe Government, including the refusal of necessary rank to competent subor-dinates to assist in organizing my hastily collected and mostly raw troops, Iwas forced, the following June, in deferred obedience to the positive order ofmy physicians, to withdraw from my immediate camp to another point in mydepartment for recovery from illness, leaving under the care of my lieuten-ant, General Bragg, my army, then unmenaced and under reorganization witha view to an immediate offensive I had purposed. In anticipation and exclu-sion of the receipt of full dispatches following my telegram, the latter wastortuously misread, in a manner not creditable to a school-boy and repug-nant to Mr. Davis’s exact knowledge of syntax, so as to give pretext to the. shocking charge that I had abandoned my army, and a telegram was sent innaked haste directly to General Bragg, telling him to retain the permanentcommand of the army. The “ Blade of Joab ” had given its thrust. The repre-sentatives in Congress from the West and South-west applied to Mr. Davis ina body for my restoration; and when, disregarding his sheer pretext that I hadabandoned my army, they still insisted, Mr. Davis declared that I should notbe restored if the ivhole tvorld should ask it ! This machination went to suchlength that it was given out in Richmond that I had softening of the brainand had gone crazy. So carefully was this report fostered (one of its talesbeing that I would sit all day stroking a pheasant \) that a friend of mine,a member of the Confederate Congress, thought it his duty to write me aspecial letter respecting the device, advising me to come directly to Rich-mond to confound it by my presence — a proceeding which I disdainedto take. I had not only then, but from later, still more offensive prov-ocation, imperative cause to resign, and would have done so but fora sense of public obligation. Indeed, in my after fields of action thesame hostility was more and more active in its various embarrassments,reckless that the strains inflicted upon me bore upon the troops andcountry depending on me and relatively upon the cause, so that I often

\ This silly tale was borrowed from an incident to place it in a cage, as I intended sending it as aof Shiloh. Toward the end of the first day’s hat- pleasant token of the battle to the family of Judgetie a soldier had found a pheasant cowering, ap- Milton Brown, of Jackson, Tennessee , from whomparently paralyzed under the ceaseless din, and I had received as their guest, while occupying thatbrought it to my headquarters as a present to place, the kindest attentions; but in the secondme. It was a beautiful bird, and I gave directions day’s conflict the poor waif was lost.— G. T. B.

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