Three days before, and in utter unconsciousness of the fulmination which Beauregard was preparing, Gen. McDowell, in command of our forces in his front, had issued the following:
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to Dranesville when they heard the whistle of Gen. Schenck's locomotive.
Several rounds of grape were fired point-blank into the midst of the Ohio boys, who speedily sprang from the cars, and formed under the protection of a clump of trees on the side of the track.
The engineer, who was backing the train, and, of course, in the rear of it, instantly detached his locomotive, and started at his best speed for Alexandria, leaving the cars to be burnt by the Rebels, and the dead and wounded to be brought off in blankets by their surviving comrades.
The Rebels, deceived by the cool, undaunted bearing of our force, did not venture to advance, for fear of falling into a trap in their turn; so that our loss in men was but 20, including one captain.
The Rebels, of course, lost none.
Each party retreated immediately — the Rebels to Fairfax Court House.
As very much has since been said, on both sides, with partial justice, of outrages and barbarities, devastation and rapine, whereof “the enemy” is always assumed to be guilty, the following manifesto, issued by a Confederate chief at the very outset of the contest, and before it could have had any foundation in fact, casts light on many similar and later inculpations:
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