was dead, Hampton of the Lion Heart was badly wounded, and the future of the Confederate arms was in desperate straits, when far to the left came the whistle of the locomotive.

The train stopped where the Manassas Gap rail branches from the Virginia Midland, then Orange & Alexandria Railroad. It held Elzey's brigade, First Maryland, Tenth and Thirteenth Virginia, Third Tennessee. The booming of heavy guns could be heard way off toward the rising sun. Elzey got his troops out promptly, and was forming his regiments in the road, by the side of the railroad, piling their knapsacks in charge of a guardwhen Kirby Smith dashed up in a strain, "The watchword is Sumpter," he said. "The signal is this," throwing his hand over his forehead, palm outward, "forward, to the sound of the firing." Elzey's brigade was one of two which had been assigned to Kirby Smith as a division, and the latter assumed command as soon as it got within his reach.

The brigade moved through Manassas and out towards Young's branch, bearing to the left. Passing Cash and Kershaw's South Carolina regiments, it was led by Smith toward the left of the whole Confederate line, and Smith, having been shot from his horse, Elzey resumed control and directed himself still to the left. At length he struck the extreme left of the Federal line, crushed it like an eggshell, and the battle of First Manassas was

won.

The troops, tired by their quick march of five miles, were utterly exhausted, and laid down by some captured

guns of Griffin's and Rickett's batteries. A half a dozen horsemen came rattling down the line, and the cheers which followed them, roused the men. When the word passed, "It's Jeff Davis, Johnston and Beauregard," a wounded boy raised himself on one elbow, took off his cap with one hand, swung it over his head— "Hurrah for Jeff Davis," he cried, and fell back dead. It was literally his last breath.

Elzey's brigade was at once moved over the stone bridge and for three miles toward Centreville, when about sundown it was ordered back and bivouacked on the east bank of Bull Run.

The men had been on their feet since twelve o'clock midnight of July 20-21, and had not had a mouthful during that eighteen hours of march, battle and excitement. About ten o'clock that night hard bread and ham, sent out by the forethought and care of Beauregard, were issued and the soldiers got "filled up."

IT

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE VICTORY.

T must be borne in mind that no man on either side had ever seen so many men in battle before. Scott's army of occupation of eight thousand in Mexico, had been the largest number that any of them had ever served with. Johnston had never seen volunteers march or fight before, and his observation of their marching power on the route from Winchester to Piedmont, had convinced him that they were utterly incapable yet awhile of accomplishing any thing with their legs. President Davis, on the contrary, had not seen the army of the Shenandoah march, but he had seen the First Mississippi regiment, with him as colonel, march and fight at Monterey and Buena Vista.

While the one underestimated, the other exaggerated the value of the American volunteer.

It was not until after the Seven Days' Battles that the docility, the intelligence, the endurance of the Southern volunteer was appreciated by Gen. Lee. I do not believe that any Union general-in-chief but McClellan and Grant ever fully understood the value of the Northern volunteer. The fact that General Johnston did not accupy Washington in the few days after the rout at Manassas, force recognition by the foreign powers and achieve independence for the South, has been greatly complained of among the Confederates, and criticised in

the North, and by a foreign writer. President Davis has left on record his opinion that Johnston ought to have taken Washington, and that if he had acted on his advice he would have done so. The Count of Paris thinks that while he could not have taken Washington, he ought to have sent a few brigades across the Potomac to worry and harass the enemy.

General Johnston himself was satisfied of the wisdom of his course and never changed his opinion.

The light which time and experience throws over events and situations gives us clearer views that the actors had. Gen. Johnston was of opinion that his army, exhausted by the combat and the marching of Sunday, 21st, without wagons, rations, cooking utensils or shoes, could not have marched the thirty miles from the Stone Bridge to the fortifications of Arlington and carried them, nor have crossed the navigable Potomac, dominated by war vessels. But Gen. Johnston did not know, for at that time no one could know, the enormous force of morale in men, the prodigious power of enthusiasm.

When armies meet in death struggle, and one overcomes the other, the courage, the enthusiasm, the high spirit, the morale, which the beaten army looses is attracted to and absorbed by the victorious army.

The pursuit is always more capable of supreme effort than the retreat. The victor is stronger, more enduring, more spirited, than the vanquished. He can march farther, fight harder, eat less, sleep less, work more than his unsuccessful opponent.

Jackson was the first man on either side who discovered this fact and had a full appreciation of it.

On the night of July 21st, no one had any idea of the

It rained all night after the

22d, Col. J. E. B. Stuart

extent of the Federal rout. battle, and at daylight of was sent with the First Virginia cavalry and Elzey's brigade to Fairfax Court House. On that march, the symptoms of disorder were so remarkable that Stuart refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. He suspected that a ruse was being used and a trap being laid. The road was filled with debris-perfect muskets, accoutrements, uniforms, suttlers' wagons, handsome carriages filled with the choicest delicacies for a fete champetre; in one place a soldier picked up twenty double eagles, dropped in a woodpath at a foot apart. At another place a man's arm was lying on top of the top rail of a fence, the most surprising collection of surprising sights that the eye of man ever saw. At Fairfax the court house was packed full of brand new gray overcoats and the yard full of new wall tents.

By the afternoon of the 22d, Gen. Johnston knew the extent of the rout. A year after he would have marched until the last man was barefoot; he would have crossed the Potomac at White's Ford-have taken Washington in reverse and by Thursday, July 25, he would have issued his orders from the White House in Washington. Marching toward the enemy, his men would have found shoes on the wayside, they would have picked up their rations on the march, they would have found everything that was necessary. They were green troops; that was the way to season them; they were inexperienced; that was the way to give them experience.