Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

1 See page 485.

2 The people who were shouting “Forward to Richmond!” had no conception of the time and labor required to organize, equip, and provide for the feeding of an army sufficient for the emergency. When the war broke out, the preparations for it by the Government, as we have observed, were very meager. Every thing had to be provided — created, as it were — with inadequate means for doing the work. The armories and the armorers were few. The materials for making cannon and small-arms and munitions of war had to be collected. Agents had been sent to Europe to purchase arms for use until they could be manufactured at home. None of these had yet arrived; and the only ordnance that had crossed the ocean, for use by the National troops, was a battery of six Whitworth cannon, which were sent over and presented to the Government by loyal Americans residing in England. They were 12-pounders, and each bore the inscription:--“from loyal Americans in Europe to the United States Government, 1861.” The funds for their purchase were collected chiefly by R. G. Moulton, then residing in Manchester, England. The cost of the six guns, including the freight, was

Whitworth cannon.

In addition to a lack of arms was a want of means for transportation. The men who fight must be fed; and it required seven hundred and fifty wagons, three thousand horses, and almost a thousand teamsters, to carry provisions, tents, intrenching tools, et coetera, for an army of fifty thousand men, such as was ordered to engage in the business of going forward to Richmond. These wagons had to be made, and the horses purchased, and the teamsters engaged, before that army could move efficiently, for it was going into an enemy's country. Only about ten weeks had been allowed for these preparations to be made, when “Forward to Richmond!” was the war-cry of the people.