Morning came, and with it, in the rain just beginning to fall, came numbers of jaded, weary, footsore, and lately badly frightened soldiers, full of tales of how their regiments had been cut to pieces and they alone had survived. For days the number of these increased; they wandered about the streets; they begged from door to door; they added to the general confusion and alarm; and thus disorganized, without orders, officers, or abidingplace, the military authorities permitted them to remain, until the foreign ministers had to call for guards to protect their residences from intrusion.

Some of the early fugitives halted not at Washington, but took the first train for the North. One of them, being met in New York, was asked how he happened to be there. "Why," he replied, "our Colonel told us to fall back, and I have never had any order to stop, so I have got back to New York."

That Beauregard, after the battle of Bull Run, could have taken the capital by direct assault, is not probable; but that he might have crossed the Potomac, either above or below Washington, and by an invasion of Maryland have threatened both Baltimore and Washington, and perhaps captured both, was possible.

It is now known that the battle of Bull Run came near being a Union victory; that it was one of the bestplanned conflicts of the Rebellion, and was to the great portion of the Union soldiers a nowise discreditable affair. But for many months the country believed that our entire army had fled in most disgraceful rout. No Northern man could bear to hear Bull Run spoken of; it was our sore spot, and to mention it was to touch us on the raw. A year afterward, Artemus Ward, the great humorist, declared that as an American citizen he should always be proud of the masterly advance our troops made on Washington from Bull Run; the people laughed, and Bull Run came to be a subject that could be calmly considered and judged.

Bull Run we now know was not in its ultimate results a calamity. We now realize that success at the beginning of the war would have left slavery substantially undisturbed, if not more strongly intrenched; and by the uprising that followed that battle, we know that a great and free people cannot be stampeded or dismayed by the panic or the folly of a few, or by the misfortune or mistake of all.

MARCH OF THE CAVALRY FROM HARPER'S

FERRY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1862.

BY WILLIAM M. LUFF.

THE

[Read January 13, 1887.]

HE Twelfth Illinois Cavalry Regiment, in which the writer was a lieutenant commanding a company, arrived at Harper's Ferry from Martinsburg, Va., on Friday, the 12th day of September, 1862, being a part of the command of Brigadier-General Julius White, whose march from Martinsburg to Harper's Ferry had been made upon the advice of General Wool, commanding the department.

The Eighth New York Cavalry, Colonel B. F. Davis, a squadron of the First Maryland Cavalry under command of Captain Charles H. Russell, the Seventh Squadron of Rhode Island Cavalry under Major Augustus W. Corliss, and a squadron of the First Maryland Potomac Home Brigade Cavalry under Captain H. A. Cole, were already at Harper's Ferry, forming part of the command of Colonel Dixon S. Miles, then in charge of the post.

General White, although superior in rank to Colonel Miles, for good reasons declined to take the command from that officer; but he was constantly and actively engaged in the most exposed situations, and did all that could be done for the defence of the place. At the time of General White's arrival the capture of Harper's Ferry by the enemy was a foregone conclusion, and it was not possible with the means at hand to prevent that result. The commendation which General White received from the Military Commission, organized to inquire into the

surrender, was well earned by gallant and arduous services rendered under the most trying circumstances. His conduct was approved by the Secretary of War and by Generals Grant and Sheridan.

When General White's command arrived at Harper's Ferry, the movement of General Lee's forces from Maryland into Virginia was in full progress. Jackson had crossed the Potomac at Williamsport on the 11th, and had followed White closely. He arrived on the 13th, and took position near Bolivar Heights.

The Rebel General Walker was en route from a point in Maryland near the mouth of the Monocacy River, by way of Point of Rocks, to Loudoun Heights, and McLaws from Frederick City through Crampton's Gap, to Maryland Heights.

The movement of Lee for the capture of Harper's Ferry was ill-advised. He had but little to gain by the capture or dispersal of the Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley and at Harper's Ferry; and while he might hope to replenish his supplies of food and material, this advantage would be more than counterbalanced by the wear and waste necessarily incident to the long marches of Jackson, Walker, and McLaws.

Had the Union forces in the Valley and at Harper's Ferry been under the control of a more active general, whose movements were not hampered and his efforts neutralized by the timorous policy of the government, they would have formed a serious obstacle to Lee's escape from McClellan's army; but, under the circumstances then existing, there was no necessity for Lee to clear these troops from his path in advance.

The losses of Jackson, Walker, and McLaws, from straggling, were very heavy; and the comparatively small forces with which these generals were able to take part in the battle of Antietam were worn and exhausted with long marches on scanty rations. Had Lee been able to fight this battle with his whole army in good condition,