They charged the Northern lines and then pandemonium—blind, unreasoning wolf-panic seized the army that had marched with songs and shouts to kill. They broke and fled. They cut the traces of their horses, left the guns, mounted and rode for life.
The mob engulfed the buggies and carriages of Congressmen and picnickers who had come out from Washington to see the fun. A rebellion crushed at a blow!
Stuart at the head of his Black Horse Cavalry, his saber flashing, cut his way through this mob again and again.
When the smoke of battle lifted, the dazed, ill-organized ambulance corps searched the field for the first toll of the Blood Feud. They found only nine hundred boys slain and two thousand six hundred wounded. They lay weltering in their blood in the smothering heat and dust and dirt.
The details of men were busy burying the dead, some of their bodies yet warm.
The morning after dawned black and lowering and the rain began to pour in torrents. Through the streets of Washington the stragglers streamed. The plumes which waved as they sang were soaked and drooping. Their gorgeous, new uniforms were wrinkled and mud-smeared.
The President called for five hundred thousand men this time. The joy and glory of war had gone.
But war remained.
War grim, gaunt, stark, hideous—as remorseless as death.