At a little stream a caisson in mad flight was presently overturned, obstructing a bridge. A great cloud of panic-stricken soldiers and citizens seeking an avenue of flight was collected there almost in an instant. Then up came Kemper of the cannon, powder-grimed and weary but flushed with the victory. Using two guns he opened fire upon the confused crowd at short range, with an effect like that produced upon a flock of partridges when a charge of shot is fired into its midst. Then a little squad of Stuart's cavalry men—ten or a dozen in number—drew sabers and charged, and a minute later the creek was full of struggling and drowning men, but no organized force remained to be charged except a body of eighty infantry men fully armed, with bayonets fixed, who stood away on the left. Upon these the insignificant squad of cavalry men made a dashing charge, calling out as they galloped: "Throw down your arms or we'll put you to the sword!" And so completely demoralizing had the panic become that these eighty who could instantly have swept the little band of cavalry men off the face of the earth, not only dashed their arms to the ground but broke ranks and ran, every individual man seeking such escape as might be possible to him.
The men who were so panic-stricken on that fateful Sunday were not cowards. Many of them fought valiantly and stalwartly later in the war. They were simply victims of an insensate and highly contagious panic. They were not yet soldiers. They had not yet learned the first lesson of the soldier, namely, the imperative necessity of preserving organization, fighting every force encountered, and waiting for orders that must be obeyed at all costs, especially before giving way to the enemy. Their imaginations had been inflamed by the stories related at their camp fires respecting Stuart's mythical Mamelukes and their terrible skill in horsemanship.
In brief all courage, all cohesion, and all soldierly quality had completely gone out of the Federal army. Men who had fought courageously an hour before had become as hares fleeing from pursuing hounds, and their flight knew no halting until they had passed the long bridge into the streets of Washington, where they paused only to gather breath for a still further flight if such should become necessary.
In all this the confusion was increased and multiplied by the presence among the fugitives of a multitude of panic-stricken picnickers—Congressmen, civilians of every sort, and lavishly dressed women—who had gone out in carriages and carryalls to see the spectacle of a Federal army walking over the Confederates, and to follow the fleeing rebels all the way to Richmond, feasting meanwhile upon the champagne, the boned turkey, the sandwiches and the truffled game with which they had so lavishly supplied themselves that the Confederates fed fat for days afterwards upon the provisions that the picnickers abandoned in their flight.
The presence of these people within the lines of a fighting army was in itself a conspicuous illustration of the utterly unmilitary and undisciplined condition of that army. Imagine, if it be possible to imagine, such a horde of sightseers attempting to follow Grant into the Wilderness, or Sherman on his march to the Sea! But the war was very young when the battle of Manassas was fought, and so these people were permitted to be there, to add to the completeness of a rout that could never have been equaled in its insanity at any later period of the conflict.
As to the total number of men engaged on either side at Manassas, the statistics are varying and untrustworthy. It is certain that there was no very great or decisive disparity of numbers. The Federal army outnumbered that of the Confederates by only three or four thousand men. General Beauregard has estimated his total force, including the necessary garrison of the works, which of course was not actually engaged, at a total of 29,188 men. According to Dr. Rossiter Johnson, an unusually accurate and conscientious historian on the Northern side whose means of information are of the very best, McDowell's total force, including those detached to guard the line of retreat upon Washington, was about 34,000 men.
Exact statistics in such a case are of no moment. Where armed mobs, undisciplined, ill-organized, and unused to the strenuous work of war, meet in battle quite other things than numbers are apt to be decisive.
The Federal commanders reported a loss of 470 killed, 1,071 wounded and 1,793 missing—a total loss of 3,334 men. The Confederate loss was officially reported at 387 killed, 1,582 wounded and 13 missing, making a total of 1,982.
If greater attention is here given to this first important battle than to others of larger magnitude to be treated in future pages of this work, it is because of the extraordinary effect the battle had, as will be set forth in the next chapter, and because of the peculiar danger to which the Confederate victory for a time subjected the Federal cause.