Early in the day I saw what thrilled me no little. It was the first blood I had ever seen shed on a battlefield. I saw coming across the field, moving quite slowly, a man leading a horse. As they approached I saw that the horse was limping, and the man was a soldier. The horse was badly wounded and bleeding, and seemed to be in great pain. Whenever the man would stop the horse would attempt to lie down. I wanted to go to him and put my arms around his neck and tell him he was a hero. The man and the horse passed by, for there was too much going on to allow a single wounded horse to absorb all of one's attention.
Toward the afternoon news came in from the front that our army was beaten and was in full retreat.
Every available man was called from the camp, and a second line of defense was formed, behind which the retreating army could rally and make another stand. It was then that I began to realize what war was.
About five o'clock a soldier came across the field from the front with a gun on his shoulder. As he came up to our line someone asked him how the battle was going. He replied, "We've got them on the trot." Then there was wild cheering; the soldier was right. McDowell's army was beaten and in full retreat toward Washington. It proved to be the worst rout that any army suffered during the Civil War.
At one stage of the battle it looked very doubtful for our side. Beauregard believed that he was beaten, and had ordered his forces to fall back, calling on Johnston to cover his retreat. But the arrival of Elzey's brigade of Johnston's army upon the field just at this psychological moment turned the battle in our favor. A member of the First Maryland Regiment, forming a part of this brigade, has given me a graphic description of how the brigade was hurried from the railroad station at Manassas, across the fields for five miles under the hot July sun, the men almost famished for water and covered with dust, most of the distance at double-quick, toward the firing line, from which the panic-stricken Confederates were fleeing in great disorder. But I shall only narrate what I saw myself, and will not quote farther, however interesting it may be. A train came down from Richmond about three o'clock, bringing the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson C. Davis, and fresh troops, but they arrived too late to be of any special service. I saw the President as he mounted a gray horse, with a number of other prominent Confederates from Richmond, and move off toward the battlefield.
A short time after this they began to bring in the wounded from the front. I stood by and saw the pale face and glassy eyes of Gen. Bee as they took him dying from the ambulance and carried him into a house near the Junction. It was he who an hour or so before had said to his retreating troops, "Look at Jackson; he stands like a stone wall." That night Gen. Bee died, and Jackson was ever known afterward as "Stonewall Jackson."
Yes, the Union army was beaten, and their retreat developed into a disastrous rout, although they were not pursued by the Confederates.
"While there was great rejoicing all over the South on account of this splendid victory gained by our raw recruits, there was no noisy demonstrations. Crowds thronged the streets, but no bonfires lit up the darkness of the night. No cannon thundered out salutes. The church steeples were silent, except when in solemn tone they called the people to prayer."
The next day the Confederate Congress met and passed the following resolutions:
"We recognize the hand of the most high God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in the glorious victory with which he has crowned our armies at Manassas, and that the people of these Confederate States are invited by appropriate services on the ensuing Sabbath to offer up their united thanksgiving and prayers for this mighty deliverance."