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and Ordnance; Major Cabell, Chief Quarter-master; Capt. W. H. Fowle, Chief of Subsistence Department; Surgeon Thos. H. Williams, Medical Director, and Assistant Surgeon Brodie, Medical Purveyor of the General Staff attached to the army of the Potomac, were necessarily engaged, severally, with their responsible duties at my Headquarters at Camp Pickens, which they discharged with an energy and intelligence for which I have to tender my sincere thanks.
Messrs. McLean, Wilcoxen, Kincheloe, and Brawner, citizens of this immediate vicinity, it is their due to say, have placed me and the country under great obligation for the information relative to this region, which has enabled me to avail myself of its defensive features and resources.
They were found ever ready to give me their time, without stint or reward.
Our casualties, in all 68 killed and wounded, were fifteen1 killed and fifty-three wounded, several of whom have since died.
The loss of the enemy can only be conjectured; it was unquestionably heavy.
In the cursory examination which was made by details from Longstreet's and Early's brigades, on the 18th July, of that part of the field immediately contested and near Blackburn's Ford, some sixty-four corpses were found and buried, and at least twenty prisoners were also picked up, beside 175 stand of arms, a large quantity of accoutrements and blankets, and quite one hundred and fifty hats.
The effect of this day's conflict was to satisfy the enemy he could not force a passage across Bull Run in the face of our troops, and led him into the flank movement of the 21st July, and the battle of Manassas, the details of which will be related in another paper.
Herewith I have the honor to transmit the reports of the several brigade commanders engaged, and of the artillery.
Also, a map of the field of battle.
The rendition of this report, it is proper to say in conclusion, has been unavoidably delayed by the constantly engrossing administrative duties of the commander of an army corps composed wholly of volunteers-duties vitally essential to its well-being and future efficiency, and which I could not set aside or postpone on any account.
I have the honor to be, General,
Your obedient servant, P. G. T. Beauregard, General Commanding. To General L. Cooper, Adjutant and Inspector-General, C. S. A.
Washington Star narrative.
Fairfax Court House, July 18, 6 P. M.
According to your instructions, at 10 A. M. I started after the main body of the army, via Germantown, where I found three of the fine buildings of which the village has been comprised burned to the ground.
The only citizens visible were females, looking intensely woebegone, as though crushed to earth by the previous oppression of the secessionists, and the recent vandal acts of arson committed by our then uncontrolled troops.
They said that all the able-bodied men of the village had been pressed into the traitor service on the day before at tile point of the bayonet, before which they were driven in the direction of Manassas.
Leaving there for Centreville, I found our troops strewed along on each side of the road, resting at their noon halt.
The whole road was lined with them thus.
A portion of Col. Heintzelman's division was in the rear, in and around Germantown.
Those seen on the road to Centreville were principally of Gen. Tyler's column — the Maine, Connecticut, and other regiments.
Two and a half miles east of Centreville I heard firing in the advance, and, on reaching there, learned that an engagement was evidently in progress before the enemy's intrenchments at Bull Run, half way from that village to Manassas Junction.
I learned that the enemy had evacuated his slight Centreville works as early as 1 A. M. this morning.
They were situated on the crest of the ridge immediately east of the village, consisting of thirty or forty poor and straggling houses, stretching down the west slope of the ridge on either side of the Warrenton turnpike.
No male citizens were visible in the village, and the few white females there wore brighter countenances than their sisters of Germantown.
When the enemy evacuated the place, (its males having been impressed the day before,) the women fled to the woods with their children and movables, leaving one only there.
They had been told that it was the purpose of the d — d Yankees to burn the town and kill all the male white children.
The women left, on realizing that no harm whatever was being done to person or property by our advance on entering the village, and brought those who had fled back, by a negro messenger.
I found no detachment of our troops in the abandoned works or the village, though Federal stragglers were lounging about both.
Gen. Tyler had ordered all the front doors to be left open, (to prevent assassin shots from the houses,) and the men were freely passing in and out of them, for water, &c. Not a disrespectful word even had been uttered in Centreville, by a single Federal soldier, nor had any one there been robbed to the value of a penny by them.
The effect of their capital behavior there has been most happy, indeed, making up for it at Fairfax and Germantown.
I proceeded as soon as possible on towards the direction of the firing, and 2 1/2 miles out of Centreville saw on the crest of a ridge scattered soldiers and civilians evidently watching the battle in progress at or near its west base.
On rising the hill it was in full view.
A portion of Sherman's battery, which had been in the advance, had opened upon the enemy 