privateers, and that a Confederate naval bureau was established. The first vessel of the Confederate navy was named the Lady Davis; and when the National  Congress assembled on the 4th of July, there were no less than twenty Confederate armed vessels afloat and depredating upon the commerce of the United States. So early as the 1st of June they had sent twenty vessels, captured on the sea, into the port of New Orleans alone, as prizes. One of these privateers (the Savannah) was captured, and her crew were tried and condemned as pirates; but the Government found it expedient to treat them as prisoners of war. Another (the Petrel) went out of Charleston harbor and mistaking the United States frigate Lawrence for a richly-laden merchantman, attempted to capture her. She opened her ports, and instantly the Pet, el became a wreck. A flash of fire, a thunder-peal, the crash of timbers and engulfment in the sea, was the experience of a minute for her crew, four of whom were drowned, while the vessel went swiftly to the bottom of the ocean. Other privateers active during the war will be noticed hereafter.
It was now midsummer, 1861. A large body of troops were gathered around the National capital. General Irwin McDowell was in command of the Department of Virginia, with his  headquarters at Arlington House. At Manassas junction, about halfway between the eastern range of the Blue Ridge and the Potomac at Alexandria, and thirty miles from Washington, were about forty thousand Confederate troops. It was considered the strongest military position between Washington and Richmond, and is connected with the capital of Virginia and the fertile Shenandoah Valley by railways. It was fortified by strong redoubts on which were mounted heavy Dahlgren guns, which the insurgents had seized at the Gosport Navy-yard, and these were managed by naval officers who had deserted their flag. At Winchester, Johnston had almost as strong a force, to prevent McClellan and his troops issuing from the mountain region and joining General Patterson on the Potomac River.
The loyal people had become impatient because of the delay of the troops at the capital in moving against the insurgents. They were delighted when, on the afternoon of the 16th of July, the telegraph spread the news over the land that fifty thousand soldiers, under General McDowell, had begun to move toward Manassas, leaving fifteen thousand behind to guard the capital. They were in five divisions, commanded respectively by Brigadier-Generals Daniel Tyler and Theodore Runyon, and Colonels David Hunter, Samuel P. Heintzelman, and Dixon S. Miles. The Confederate forces against whom they moved were distributed along Bull Run, a tributary of the Occoquan, from Union Mills, where the Orange and Alexandria Railway crosses the stream, to the stone bridge on the Warrenton turnpike, a distance of about eight miles, with reserves near Manassas junction. They also had an outpost at Centreville, and slight fortifications at Fairfax Court-House, ten miles from their main army, in the direction of Washington.
General Patterson was at Martinsburg, charged with the duty of keeping General Johnston from reinforcing Beauregard. He had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport on the 2d of July; and near Falling Waters, his advance-guard under Colonel Abercrombie, chiefly composed of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania troops, horse and foot, with a section of battery, encountered Johnston's advance led by "Stonewall" Jackson, assisted by J.E.B. Stuart and his afterward famous cavalry corrs. They fought sharply for half an hour, when Colonel George H. Thomas's brigade, coming to the support of Abercrombie, caused the Confederates to flee. They were hotly pursued five miles, when a heavy Confederate force appearing, the chase was abandoned. On the following
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