John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion

[195] alarmed for the final result, when Griffin's and Ricketts' batteries were destroyed; but for the greater part it was looked upon as an untoward accident, and operated rather to inspire the already related efforts for their recovery. The feeling of course gradually changed with the successive failures to gain and permanently hold the hill. As brigade after brigade melted away in the repeated efforts, even the men in the ranks could not omit to note the rapid diminution of the available strength. Some of the repulsed regiments kept their organization and returned heroically to the charge. Others, on the contrary, not having that slowly acquired force of discipline which makes cohesion a second nature of the soldier and creates an instinctive reliance on mutual support as the surest means of safety, considered their duty done with a single charge, and, once driven back, went to pieces like the adjournment of a mass meeting. In this shortcoming, officers were as culpable as the men, for war combines art with science, and the superior work of the veteran comes through long years of practice. It must be remembered that these were only three months volunteers, and besides, as such, the most impulsive and independent men in their several communities, whose innate promptness of thought and action had brought them to the very forefront of the civil war. Lacking long drill and discipline, they acted upon individual judgment and impulse, rather than as organized bodies merely executing the orders of their officers. This explains to us the remarkable statement of Captain Woodbury, that , “at four o'clock, on the 21st, there were more than twelve thousand volunteers on the battle-field of Bull Run who had entirely lost their regimental organization. They could no longer be handled as troops, for the officers and men were not together. Men and officers mingled together promiscuously; and it is ”