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Beauregard extended his left to outflank
McDowell's shattered, shortened, and disconnected line, and the
Federals left the field about half-past 4. Until then they had fought wonderfully well for raw troops.
There were no fresh forces on the field to support or encourage them, and the men seemed to be seized simultaneously by the conviction that it was no use to do anything more and they might as well start home.
Cohesion was lost, the organizations with some exceptions being disintegrated, and the men quietly walked off. There was no special excitement except that arising from the frantic efforts of officers to stop men who paid little or no attention to anything that was said.
On the high ground by the
Matthews house, about where
Evans had taken position in the morning to check
Burnside,
McDowell and his staff, aided by other officers, made a desperate but futile effort to arrest the masses and form them into line.
There, I went to
Arnold's battery as it came by, and advised that he unlimber and make a stand as a rallying-point, which he did, saying he was in fair condition and ready to fight as long as there was any fighting to be done.
But all efforts failed.
The stragglers moved past the guns, in spite of all that could be done, and, as
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Uniform of the Garibaldi Guards, Colonel D'utassy. |
stated in his report,
Arnold at my direction joined
Sykes's battalion of infantry of
Porter's brigade and
Palmer's battalion of cavalry, all of the regular army, to cover the rear, as the men trooped back in great disorder across
Bull Run.
There were some hours of daylight for the
Confederates to gather the fruits of victory, but a few rounds of shell and canister checked all the pursuit that was attempted, and the occasion called for no sacrifices or valorous deeds by the stanch regulars of the rear-guard.
There was no panic, in the ordinary meaning of the word, until the retiring soldiers, guns, wagons, congressmen, and carriages were fired upon, on the road east of
Bull Run.
Then the panic began, and the bridge over
Cub Run being rendered impassable for vehicles by a wagon that was upset upon it, utter confusion set in: pleasure-carriages, gun-carriages, and ammunition wagons which could not be put across the
Run were abandoned and blocked the way, and stragglers broke and threw aside their muskets and cut horses from their harness and rode off upon them.
In leaving the field the men took the same routes, in a general way, by which they had reached it. Hence when the men of
Hunter's and
Heintzelman's divisions got back to
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Uniform of Blenker's 8th New York volunteers. |
Centreville, they had walked about 25 miles. That night they walked back to the
Potomac, an additional distance of 20 miles; so that these undisciplined and unseasoned men within 36 hours walked fully 45 miles, besides fighting
