The office of the Messenger was in the Law Building, a four-storied structure erected in 1846 on the southeast corner of Capitol Square, fronting on Franklin Street.  Here he was hard at work, making the Messenger worthy of its former editors, his predecessor, Mr. Thompson, Mr. White, of early days, Edgar A. Poe, and a succession of brilliant writers, only less widely known, when the guns before Sumter tempted the new editor to the field, a position for which he was ill fitted as to physical strength, whatever might be the force of his patriotism.  He was soon running risks of pneumonia from the effects of over-drilling and the chilling breezes from Bull Run Mountain, and making up his mind “not to desert, but to get killed at the first opportunity,” that being the most direct route he could think of to the two prime essentials of life, a clean shirt and solitude.  He neither deserted nor was killed, but was detailed to write letters and papers for one of the officers, and slept through the fight of the 18th at Manassas as a result of playing night orderly from midnight to morning.

Under the cloudless sky of the perfect Sunday, the twenty-first, he watched the progress of the battle till the cheer that rang from end to end of the Confederate line told him that the South had won.  After midnight that night he carried to the telegraph office the message in which President Davis announced the victory and, walking back through the clear, still night, saw the comet, forerunner of evil, hanging over the field, as if in recognition of a fiery spirit on earth akin to its own.  At headquarters on Monday, the 22d, he looked out at the pouring rain and raged over the inaction which kept the victorious army idle on the field of victory instead of following up the advantage by a march into the enemy’s Capital, a movement which he thought could have been carried through to complete success.

Having watched over his wounded friend, Lieutenant James K. Lee, until death came with eternal peace.  Dr. Bagby was sent with the dead soldier to Richmond and soon afterward was discharged because of ill health, “and thus ended the record of an unrenowned warrior.”

He returned to his work on the Messenger and the editorial sanctum became the meeting place of the wits of Richmond.  It was here that the celebrated Confederate version of “Mother Goose” was evolved from the conjoined wisdom of the circle and written with the stub of the editorial pencil on the “cartridge-paper table-cloth,” one stanza dealing with a certain Northern general thus: 

    Little Be-Pope came on with a lope,
      Jackson, the Rebel, to find him;
    He found him at last, then ran very fast,
      With his gallant invaders behind him.

The various authors were astonished to find their productions in the next issue of the Messenger and were later dismayed when the verses were read at a meeting of the Mosaic Club, each with the name of the writer attached.