John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[164] joined him immediately afterward, so that Patterson's army now numbered eighteen thousand two hundred according to his own estimate, or over twenty-two thousand according to the estimate of others, opposed to the rebel army, which, altogether, Johnston states to have been less than twelve thousand men.

It would appear that at this time two impulses struggled for mastery in Patterson's mind. Apparently he was both seeking and avoiding a battle. He had called a council of war at Martinsburg on the 9th; and verifying the military adage that a council of war never fights, his officers had advised him that he was on a “false line,” and that he could most advantageously threaten Johnston from Charlestown. Accordingly, on July 12th, Patterson asked permission to transfer his forces to that line; while a dispatch from General Scott of the same date, in reply to a former letter, in substance accorded him the permission, but accompanied it with the significant reminder: “Consider this suggestion well, and except in an extreme case do not recross the Potomac with more than a sufficient detachment for your supplies on the canal.”

Such a movement upon Charlestown, made promptly at that date and under the then existing conditions, might have been judicious. But Patterson's dispatches show that from this on he found nothing but reasons for fear and justification for inaction and retreat. He wanted a regiment of regulars; he said the time of the three months regiments was about to expire; that his men were barefooted; that the enemy was reinforced and fortified; that “to attack under such circumstances, against the greatly superior force at Winchester, is most hazardous.”

Under these renewed manifestations of timidity General Scott's patience began to give way, and he now sent Patterson