Jubal Anderson Early, Ruth Hairston Early, Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early , C. S. A.

I cannot better explain the truth of the matter than by giving the following extract of a letter from General Johnston himself to me, which is in entire accordance with the facts coming within my knowledge on the field as far as they go, and will not be doubted by any one who knows General Johnston. He says: “General Beauregard's influence on that occasion was simply that due to my estimate of his military merit and knowledge of the situation. As soon as we met I expressed to him my determination to attack next morning, because it was not improbable that Patterson might come up Sunday night. He proposed a plan of attack which I accepted. It was defeated, however, by the appearance of Tyler's troops near the Stone Bridge soon after sunrise. He then proposed to stand on the defensive there and continue the offensive with the troops on the right of the road from Manassas to Centreville. This was frustrated by the movement which turned Cocke and Evans, and the battle fought was improvised on a field with which General Beauregard and myself were equally unacquainted. Early in the day I placed myself on the high bare hill you may remember a few hundred yards in rear of Mitchell's Ford, and General Beauregard soon joined me there. When convinced that the battle had begun on our left, I told him so, and that I was about to hasten to it. He followed. When we reached the field and he found that I was about to take immediate control of the two brigades engaged, he represented that it would be incompatible with the command of the army to do so, and urged that he should have the command in question. I accepted the argument. This, however, left him under me, and was the command of a small fraction of troops.”

This places the matter in its true light and does not detract at all from the very great credit to which General Beauregard is entitled for thwarting the enemy's