At least they had
common sense enough left to save what was left.
The fields were covered with black swarms of flying soldiers. They cut
the horses from the gun carriages, mounted them and dashed forward
trampling down the crazed mobs on foot.
As the shouting, screaming throng rushed at the Cub Run bridge, a well
directed shot from Kemper's battery smashed a team of horses that were
crossing. The wagon was upset and the bridge choked.
In mad efforts to force a passage mob piled on mob until the panic
enveloped every division of the army that thirty minutes before was
sweeping with swift, sure tread to its final victorious charge.
Across every bridge and ford of Bull Run the panic-stricken thousands
rushed pellmell, horse, foot, artillery, wagons, ambulances, excursion
carriages, red-jowled politicians mingling with screaming women whose
faces showed death white through the rouge on their lips and cheeks.
For three miles rolled the dark tide of ruin and confusion--with not one
Confederate soldier in sight.
It was three o'clock before the train bearing the anxious Confederate
President and his staff drew into Manassas Junction. He had heard no
news from the front and feared the worst. The long deep boom of the
great guns told him that the battle was raging.
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