f the fighting in Sunday's
conflict.

The sudden cessation of the battle left the Confederates in doubt
whether their victory was final, or only a prelude to a fresh Union
attack. But as the Union forces not only retreated from the field, but
also from Centreville, it took on, in their eyes, the proportions of a
great triumph; confirming their expectation of achieving ultimate
independence, and, in fact, giving them a standing in the eyes of
foreign nations which they had hardly dared hope for so soon. In numbers
of killed and wounded, the two armies suffered about equally; and
General Johnston writes: "The Confederate army was more disorganized by
victory than that of the United States by defeat." Manassas was turned
into a fortified camp, but the rebel leaders felt themselves unable to
make an aggressive movement during the whole of the following autumn and
winter.

The shock of the defeat was deep and painful to the administration and
the people of the North. Up to late Sunday afternoon favorable reports
had come to Washington from the battle-field, and every one believed in
an assured victory. When a telegram came about five o'clock in the
afternoon, that the day was lost, and McDowell's army in full retreat
through Centreville, General Scott refused to credit the news, so
contradictory of everything which had been heard up to that hour. But
the intelligence was quickly confirmed. The impulse of retreat once
started, McDowell's effort to arrest it at Centreville proved useless.
The regiments and brigades not completely disorganized made an
unmolested and comparatively orderly march back to the fortifications of
Washington, while on the following day a horde of stragglers found their
way across the bridges of the Potomac into the city.

President Lincoln received the news quietly and without any visible sign
of perturbation or excitement; but he remained awake and in the
executive office all of Sunday night, listening to the personal
narratives of a number of congressmen and senators who had, with undue
curiosity, followed the army and witnessed some of the sounds and sights
of the battle. By the dawn of Monday morning the President had
substantially made up his judgment of the battle and its probable
results, and the action dictated by the untoward event. This was, in
brief, that the militia regiments enlisted under the three months' call
should be mustered out as soon as practicable; the organization of the
new