Civil War letter details horrors of Bull Run

A startling letter detailing horrors from one of the first major actions of the Civil War — written by an eyewitness — was donated to the University of South Carolina on Thursday.

The note gives a surprisingly blunt commentary of what Sgt. Maj. William Sidney Mullins saw at the first Battle of Manassas, also known as Bull Run.

One passage focuses on the moans of the wounded, including cries to "the passersby to kill them to relieve their agony." He added, "If it please God, to stop this war, I will unfeignedly thank them."

The letter is dated Aug. 6, 1861, weeks after the July 21 battle, which was held within marching distance of Washington.

The note also makes criticisms of rebel President Jefferson Davis, other Confederate leaders and the inadequate resources for treating the sick and wounded. There also are descriptions of the fighting's results.

"Of the dead hideous in every form of ghastly death: heads off, arms off, abdomens protruding, every form of wound, low groans, sharp cries, convulsive agonies as the souls took flight," he wrote.

More than 30 members of Mullins' extended family of descendants, including some from the Charleston area, were behind the gift that went to the university's South Caroliniana Library in Columbia.

One of the donors, Charleston lawyer Mullins McLeod, said the family felt it was important that the letter be available to the public, not in a private collection. The family bought the letter for $11,500 at auction in Columbia, fending off another bidder.

Patrick McCawley, accessions archivist for the S.C. Department of Archives and History, said the letter gives insight from a South Carolina soldier who was both at the battle and speaking out of step with the patriotic whip of the day.

"In the first months of the war, South Carolinians, including politicians, were quick to volunteer, believing that the war would be swift," McCawley said. "They didn't want to miss what they thought would be a grand adventure and a chance to bathe in military glory. The Battle of Bull Run was a dash of cold water in the face of many who thought that war was pageantry, but instead found it was hell."

The letter was part of a much-publicized batch of more than 440 notes and state Civil War-era documents that were center stage in a legal duel between their owner and the state of South Carolina. The owner had wanted to sell them at auction, but Attorney General Henry McMaster stepped in to claim them as official records that never stopped being state property.

The letters were in a collection of Civil War-era South Carolina governmental documents taken by train out of Columbia as Union forces closed in. The papers include letters to two governors and various military leaders, as well as three handwritten dispatches from Robert E. Lee.

The fight ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court but ended in April 2007 when a lower U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling was allowed to stand that the letters had become private.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at 937-5551 or skropf@postand courier.com.