THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

2 18

Holmes, they would have been so strongly outflanked that many who escapedwould have been destroyed or captured.

Though my adversary’s plan of battle was a good one as against a passivedefensive opponent, such as he may have deemed I must be from the respec-tive numbers and positions of our forces, it would, in my judgment, havebeen much better if, with more dash, the flank attack had been made by theStone Bridge itself and the ford immedi-ately above it. The plan adopted, how-ever, favored above all things the easyexecution of the offensive operations Ihad designed and ordered against his leftflank and rear at Centreville. His turningcolumn —18,000 strong, and presumablyhis best troops—was thrown off by a longellipse through a narrow forest road toSudley Ford, from which it moved downupon my left flank, and was thus dislo-cated from his main body. This severedmovement of his forces not oidy left hisexposed left and rear at Centreville weakagainst the simultaneous offensive of myheaviest forces upon it, which I had or-

A 7 COLONEL F. S. BARTOW. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.

dered, but the movement of his returning

column would have been disconcerted and paralyzed by the early soundof this heavy conflict in its rear, and it could not even have made its wayback so as to be available for manoeuvre before the Centreville fraction hadbeen thrown back upon it in disorder. A new army is very liable to panic,and, in view of the actual result of the battle, the conclusion can hardly beresisted that the panic which fell on the Federal army would thus haveseized it early in the day, and with my forces in such a position as wholly tocut off its retreat upon Washington. But the commander of the front line onmy right, who had been ordered to hold himself in readiness to initiate theoffensive at a moment’s notice, did not make the move expected of himbecause through accident he failed to receive his own immediate order toadvance. j The Federal commander’s flanking movement, being thus uninter-rupted by such a counter-movement as I had projected, was further assistedthrough the rawness and inadequacy of our staff organization through whichI was left unacquainted with the actual state of affairs on my left. TheFederal attack, already thus greatly favored, and encouraged, moreover, bythe rout of General Bee’s advanced line, failed for two reasons : their forceswere not handled with concert of masses (a fault often made later on bothsides), and the individual action of the Confederate troops was superior, andfor a very palpable reason. That one army was fighting for union and theother for disunion is a political expression; the actual fact on the battle-field, inthe face of cannon and musket, was that the Federal troops came as invaders,

| General R. S. Ewell. See statement of Major Campbell Brown, page 259.— Editors.