"On the night of the thirtieth, the enemy occupied the battle-field and buried the dead of both armies. And thus it was that Bull Run again ran red with patriot blood and witnessed the retreat of the Union battalions.
"By what strange fatality General Pope was allowed to struggle on alone against an army twice the size of the Federal force, has not been satisfactorily explained. One is almost tempted to believe, with astrologists, that baleful stars sometimes preside with malign influence over the destinies of battles, as they are said to do over individuals and nations."
After the battle of Manassas, the Harris Light Cavalry was so reduced in numbers that it was ordered into camp at Hall's Hill, near Washington, with a view of recruiting its wasted strength and equipment. They remained at that point until November, when they were again moved forward to form the principal picket line along the front, prior to the Federal disaster at Fredericksburg.
Burnside, having strongly secured the mountain passes in the neighborhood, in order to conceal from Lee his real object, made a feint in the direction of Gordonsville; but the keen eye of the Confederate generalissimo penetrated his true design and took measures to defeat its accomplishment. Upon the eighth of this month, a lively encounter between the Harris Light and a detachment of Confederate cavalry resulted in the defeat of the latter, and soon after, the regiment joined the main army.
As all know, the battle of Fredericksburg was fought and lost during the three days intervening between the thirteenth and sixteenth of December. Burnside's gallant army, in the midst of darkness, rain and tempestuous wind, came reeling back from a conflict of terrible ferocity and fatality. Six times in one day Meagher's gallant Irishmen were literally hurled against Marye's Heights, a point of almost impregnable strength, and which, even if carried, would still have exposed them to the commanding fire of other and stronger Confederate positions.
Twenty times had charge and counter-charge swept the tide of battle to and fro—at what terrible cost, the killed and wounded, strewing the ground like leaves in the forest, made answer. Twelve thousand men lay dead on the field when the battle ended, and one thousand prisoners were taken, besides nine thousand stand of arms.
Although this battle seems to have been well planned by General Burnside, a want of capacity to meet unforeseen emergencies doubtless contributed to his defeat. He committed a fatal error at a critical moment, by sending General Franklin an equivocal recommendation, instead of an order to attack the enemy in force. The enemy, however, though having nobly held their ground, could not boast of having advanced their lines by so much as a foot. There were, indeed, but few even of the Confederate officers, who knew they had been victorious, and the amazement of their army was beyond description when the gray dawn of the fourteenth of December revealed the deserted camps of the Federals, who had withdrawn their entire command during the night to the north side of the river.
Had General Franklin brought his men into action, as he should have done, at the critical moment when the issue of the fight was trembling in the balance, the fortunes of this day would have terminated differently. Had the splendid divisions of brave Phil. Kearney or "Fighting Joe Hooker" been ordered into the arena, and lent the inspiration of their presence to this hour of need, the scales of victory would have turned in an opposite direction.
The "might have beens" always grow thickly on the soil of defeat.
Among the lamented dead of this day's havoc, no loss was more keenly felt than that of Major-General George Dashiel Bayard. He was standing among a group of officers around the trunk of an old tree, near the headquarters of Generals Franklin and Smith, when the enemy suddenly began to shell a battery near by, and one of the deadly missiles struck this gallant leader. He was carried to the field-hospital, mortally wounded.