rses from the hospitals (themselves convalescents) who were able to
bear arms. That night the women nurses, who had already been in
attendance during the hours of the day, had to render double service.
Lincoln had himself in the afternoon stood on the works watching the
dust of the Confederate advance. Once more there came to the President
who had in his hands the responsibility for the direction of the War
the bitterness of the feeling, if not of possible failure, at least of
immediate mortification. He knew that within twenty-four or thirty-six
hours Washington could depend upon receiving the troops that were being
hurried up from Grant's army, but he also realised what enormous
mischief might be brought about by even a momentary occupation of the
national capital by Confederate troops. I had some personal interest in
this side campaign. The 19th army corps, to which my own regiment
belonged, had been brought from Louisiana to Virginia and had been
landed on the James River to strengthen the ranks of General Butler.
There had not been time to assign to us posts in the trenches and we
had, in fact, not even been placed in position. We were more nearly in
marching order than any other troops available and it was therefore the
divisions of the 19th army corps that were selected to be hurried up to
Washington. To these were added two divisions of the 6th corps.

Colonel Wisewell, commanding the defences of the city, realised the
nature of his problem. He had got to hold the lines of Washington, cost
what it might, until the arrival of the troops from Grant. He took the
bold step of placing on the picket line that night every man within
reach, or at least every loyal man within reach (for plenty of the men
in Washington were looking and hoping for the success of the South). The
instructions usually given to pickets were in this instance reversed.
The men were ordered, in place of keeping their positions hidden and of
maintaining absolute quiet, to move from post to post along the whole
line, and they were also ordered, without any reference to the saving of
ammunition, to shoot off their carbines on the least possible pretext
and without pretext. The armories were then beginning to send to the
front Sharp's repeating carbines. The invention of breech-loading rifles
came too late to be of service to the infantry on either side, but
during the last year of the War, certain brigades of cavalry were armed
with Sharp's breech-lo