Why did they not cross that river? Why did they not take
Washington? History depones that it was a terror-stricken city and that
it might have been stormed, and so, perhaps, the great war ended ere it
had well begun. Why did you not pursue from Manassas to Washington?

The tongue of the case answers thus: "We were a victorious army, but we
had fought long and hard. We had not many fresh troops. Even those which
were not engaged had been marching and countermarching. The enemy had
many more than we--heavy reserves to whom panic might or might not have
been communicated. These were between us and Centreville, and the night
had fallen. Our cavalry was the best in the land, but cruelly small in
force, and very weary by that midnight. We were scant of provisions,
scant of transportation, scant of ammunition. What if the Federal
reserves had not stood, but had fled with the rest, and we had in some
fashion achieved the Potomac? There were strong works at Arlington and
Alexandria, lined with troops, and in easy distance were Patterson and
his unused men. There was a river a mile wide, patrolled by gunboats,
and beyond it a city with how many troops we knew not, certainly with
strong earthworks and mounted guns. Being only men and not clairvoyants
we did not know that the city was so crazed with fear that perhaps,
after all, had we ever gotten there we might have stormed it with a few
weary regiments. We never saw the like in our own capital at any after
date, and we did not know. We were under arms from dawn until the stars
came out, we had fought through the heat of a July day in Virginia, we
were hungry, we were thirsty, we were drunk with need of rest. Most of
us were under twenty-four. We had met and vanquished heavy odds, but we
ourselves, like those who fled, were soldiers all untried. Victory
disorganized us, as defeat disorganized them. Not in the same measure,
but to the extent that all commands were much broken, men astray in the
darkness, seeking their companies, companies calling out the number of
their regiments. Most of us went hungry that night. And all around were
the dead and wounded, and above us, like a pall, the strangeness of this
war at last. The July night passed like a fevered dream; men sleeping on
the earth, men seeking their commands, men riding to and fro, men
wandering with lanterns over the battlefield. At three came down the
rain. It was as though the heavens were opened. No one had ever seen
suc