It had not been won
by the superior courage of his men in the battle which raged from
sunrise until four o'clock. The broken and disorganized lines of the
South and the panic-stricken mob he had met on the way were eloquent
witnesses of Northern valor.
His army had been saved from annihilation by the quick wit and daring
courage of a single Brigadier General who had moved his five regiments
on his own initiative in the nick of time and saved the Confederates
from utter rout.
Victory had been snatched at last from the jaws of defeat by an
accident. The misfortune of a delayed regiment of Johnston's army was
suddenly turned into an astounding piece of luck. The sudden charge of
those two thousand men on the flank of the victorious army had produced
a panic among tired raw recruits. McDowell was at this moment master of
the field. In a moment of insane madness his unseasoned men had thrown
down their guns and fled.
The little dark General in his flower-decked tent had made good his
boasts. And worse--the Northern army had proven his wildest assertions
true. They were a rabble. The star of Beauregard rose in the Southern
sky, and with its rise Disaster stalked grim and silent toward the
hilarious Confederacy.
The South had won a victory destined to prove itself the most fatal
calamity that ever befell a nation.
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