batteries themselves, passing alternately from the grasp of either antagonist into that of the other. Three times the Confederates overran Griffin's battery, and three times they were repulsed; while thrice also the Union forces surged in vain against the Confederate position. The Union advance seemed, at three o'clock, effectually checked, and an alternate roll forth and back in the attempts to carry or to hold the high plateau which formed the Confederate position, appeared to be the fate of the rest of the day.

Had the assaulting army been what it late was when it streamed up Marye's heights or stormed the salient at Spottsylvania, had its brigade and battalion commanders been already the trained soldiers who later manipulated corps d'armee or stood at the head of great armies, the plateau would inevitably have been carried; for it was really an untenable position. But had the raw the raw Confederates been the firetempered troops who threw themselves on Cemetery Ridge, and passed through the terrific musketry of Antietam, they would have repulsed their assailants; for the latter were already exhausted, and, besides, were fighting without definite plan. But in truth, their later skill, the offspring of experience, was wanting to both leaders and soldiers on both sides.

So, then, from noon of the sultriest day in the year, scorched by the merciless sun, the parched and panting combatants fiercely grappling, writhed hither and thither over an indecisive field. For hours, on the slopes leading up to the table-land, nought was discernible, amid the choking clouds of dust and the heavy, slow-wreathing volumes of cannonsmoke, but the unsupported and fruitless attacks of gallant subdivisions - brigades or battalions shooting out here or yonder in a brief spurt of triumph, to be forced back in as sure a retrograde. Three o'clock had passed. McDowell still felt that the day, begun with prosperous omens, could be made his own. The Confederates, unwillingly compelled to throw in everything in the desperate attempt to hold the

plateau, had stripped even the lower fords of their proper defences, and, in a choice of threatened evils, had resolved to risk the menace of Miles and Richardson, in order to meet the actual and present peril offered by McDowell. Accordingly, Ewell's brigade had been hurriedly ordered up from Union Mills Ford; Holmes's brigade came in from the rear of Ewell's; Early's marched up from McLean's Ford, bursting in at the very crisis of the battle; two regiments and a battery of Bonham had been early taken from Mitchell's Ford, and a third regiment followed. The brigades of Evans, Cooke, Bee, Jackson and Bartow were all in. It was absolutely necessary to leave Jones and Longstreet at the lower fords, to watch the entire reserve division of Miles. While the Confederates were thus pressed for more troops, McDowell had two brigades almost fresh, besides Burnside's, in reserve since noon. Howard's brigade was accordingly marched up to the front, and prepared to take part in the contest, and, meanwhile, Tyler having marched down to Stone Bridge, and dislodged the batteries there, had just succeeded, with his engineers, in clearing of abatis the whole length of the turnpike, and seizing the country adjoining. Then McDowell, ordering Schenck's fresh brigade across Stone Bridge to turn the Confederate right, prepared to make what might yet prove a final and triumphant effort.

At that moment, the loud cheers of fresh troops and a heavy rattle of musketry were heard directly on the right flank and rear of the Union forces who were struggling over the ridge at the Henry house. It was the van of the longawaited column from the Shenandoah Valley, whose advance brigade, Elzey's, led by Kirby Smith in person, had plunged into the battle at its very critical point. Alive to the momentous consequences hanging on a single hour's delay of these troops, Johnston himself had gone to hasten them forward, and had sagaciously ordered that, instead of continuing down the railroad to the Junction, the cars should be stopped

opposite the battle-field, and the troops marched across the country to his hard-pressed left. The plan was even wiser than it seemed; for, in the mean time, the Union troops had so far fought onward in "striving," as Johnston says, "to outflank and drive back our left, and thus separate us from Manassas," that Smith's brigades, on arriving, instead of joining on the Confederate left, struck full upon the flank and rear of the Union right.

In a moment, the battle was ended. The raw militia, exhausted by ill-conducted marching since midnight, and by a five hours' battle, faint from lack of food and thirsting for water-results of their own improvidence-broken up in organization by their successful advances, as well as by the day's losses did not for an instant resist the impact of the fresh foe hurled full upon their flank and rear. Under the sweeping cross fire of Elzey's and Early's brigades of infantry, Stuart's brigade of cavalry, and Beckham's battery, the right wing, which had thitherto clung to the slopes, or surged forward on them, at once melted away. Like wildfire ran from man to man the cry that "Johnston's troops had come!" Crushed alike by the knowledge and the physical experience of that new presence, the Union troops gave way in absolute and irretrievable disorder. At once their commander saw that all was lost, and, knowing well the composition of his forces, felt that the escape of anything must be a matter of fortune, the chance in his favor being the equally raw composition of the forces opposing. Howard's brigade had been swept back in the tide of retreat, but it was of no consequence, for McDowell had no longer the offensive purpose for which he was beginning to use it. Schenck had not crossed the bridge; but it was idle for him to do so. McDowell wisely contented himself with throwing his seven hundred and fifty or eight hundred regulars on the hill opposite the one surmounted by the Henry house, to cover as well as he might the confused retreat.

The news of Kirby Smith's arrival had spread as quickly through the Confederate as the Union ranks, there producing as much relief and joy as to their opponents it had carried despair and ruin. With exulting shouts, the whole army rose and pressed forward in pursuit. But the work was already entirely over, and, save an exchange of shots with Sykes's sullen and stubborn handful of regulars, as they closed in behind the beaten army, nothing remained but to pick up here and there the exhausted or wounded stragglers in the flight. No longer now a triumphant army, but a disorganized collection of men, the Union troops finally abandoning their oft-captured and oft-recovered artillery, streamed confusedly over the Warrenton turnpike, crowding that and the fields adjoining, and recrossed Bull Run. The fording of that rivulet wrecked what faint shadow of organization there had been on retreating from the battle-field. Like the waters bursting from a broken dyke, the troops spread over all roads and fields, and so swept back to Centreville. There an assemblage of camp-followers, Congressmen, correspondents and civilian teamsters, was collected. A stray shell or two from an advanced Confederate battery run forward to Cub Run, burst among the wagons of the hireling teamsters, and instantly began a groundless panic there, a hundred-fold greater than the defeat of the troops on the field; and, blocking the road with their abandoned wagons, and flinging away property in their flight, the throng of civilians and teamsters streamed back on Washington. Thither also the soldiers, soon coming up, continued their retreat; for McDowell, observing the condition of the army and its lack of supplies, saw that little could be gained by an effort to rally at Centreville. Leaving, therefore, the greater part of three divisions to wander unorganized back to their works on the Virginia side of the Potomac, McDowell bent himself to the task of covering the retreat with the very large reserves which had not been in the battle. This was easily accom

plished: Miles had foolishly withdrawn from Blackburn's Ford to Centreville, endangering the retreat of the whole army. On the heights, however, he remained, and there Schenck's brigade, too, of Tyler's division, being tolerably uninjured, and the handful of cavalry were drawn up to check the expected pursuit. Howbeit no pursuit of importance was made. The Southern troops, excepting the fresh arrivals, were as badly used up as their adversaries, and in getting hastily over Bull Run, had also, like them, almost broken up what organization they possessed; nor did the commanders dare to go too far with their raw troops. They moved a few miles over the field to Cub Run, and then stopped on observing beyond, as Gen. Johnston says, "the apparent firmness of the United States troops at Centreville, who had not been engaged, which checked our pursuit." These latter waited and watched till the great broken army behind them had rolled off out of sight, talking over the battle as they marched, and till the victorious Confederates, heedless of pursuit, were seen to be content to pick up the trophies dropped by their discomfited enemy. Then, at midnight, the cavalry which had bivouacked in the same field it occupied the night preceding, was roused up, and the Union rear-guard formed column and marched away from sight and sound of the battle-field.

III.

RESULTS OF BULL RUN.

SUCH was Bull Run-a battle which, being fought soon after the rise of the war, so entirely effected its subsequent course, that it is hard to picture what might have been its sequel, but for this event. What Hallam declares so strongly of Charles Martel's victory at Tours, in its import upon the world's destiny, may be averred of the influence of the battle of Bull Run upon the entire struggle of North and South :"a contrary event would have essentially varied the drama in