Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[252] error. While the regulars and the cavalry were covering the flight of the army, and were the last to cross the little river which was to give its name to that fatal battle, Blenker's German brigade, which had not been in action, took a position on Cub Run, to the right and left of the road followed by the fugitives, whom it could not hope to arrest. Its excellent behavior succeeded, toward twilight, in checking the parties of Confederate cavalry who were pursuing the retreating Federals, and picking up prisoners and trophies of every kind, which were abandoned to them without any attempt at resistance. When night came at last to the assistance of the vanquished, this brigade fell back upon Centreville, where the whole of Miles's division, and the brigades of Schenck and Richardson, which had not been in the fights on the right bank of Bull Run, had assembled in good order. The condition of the army, however, did not admit of its remaining in that position; there were only five brigades left in fighting order; all the troops who had participated in the combats on the Warrenton turnpike had dispersed, and were proceeding, without order or leaders, in isolated groups, toward the fortifications of Arlington and Alexandria, under the shelter of which they hoped to find some safety. It was necessary to follow and protect them. The troops left Centreville during the night with the greatest part of the supply-trains that had gathered there; Richardson was the last to leave. During the whole of the 22d, fugitives were constantly arriving upon the borders of the Potomac; fear doubling their strength, they had marched all night long. The five brigades which formed a sad escort to these returning parties arrived also in the course of the evening, and on the following morning; on the 23d the remnants of the army which seven days before had taken the field with such imprudent confidence, gathered around the forts behind which they were to be reorganized. The dissolution of this army, too newly organized to resist the shock it had encountered, was almost complete. Nothing could repress the crowds of soldiers collected upon the right bank of the Potomac; they inundated Washington, and many of them found means to go as far as New York. They could talk of nothing else but the masked batteries that had decimated them, and of the formidable obstacles