in, O. B. Wilcox, and O. O. Howard, respectively; and the Fifth
Division, commanded by Colonel Dixon S. Miles, comprising two brigades,
under Colonels Lewis Blenker, and Thomas A. Davies, respectively.

Tyler's Division leads the advance, moving along the Leesburg road to
Vienna, on our right, with orders to cross sharply to its left, upon
Fairfax Court House, the following (Wednesday) morning. Miles's
Division follows the turnpike road to Annandale, and then moves, by the
Braddock road,--along which Braddock, a century before, had marched his
doomed army to disaster,--upon Fairfax Court House, then known to be
held by Bonham's Rebel Brigade of South Carolinians. Hunter follows
Miles, to Annandale, and thence advances direct upon Fairfax, by the
turnpike road--McDowell's idea being to bag Bonham's Brigade, if
possible, by a simultaneous attack on the front and both flanks. But
the advance is too slow, and the Enemy's outposts, both there and
elsewhere, have ample opportunity of falling safely back upon their main
position, behind the stream of Bull Run.

[McDowell in his testimony before the "Committee on the Conduct of
the War," said: "At Fairfax Court House was the South Carolina
Brigade. And I do not suppose anything would have had a greater
cheering effect upon the troops, and perhaps upon the Country, than
the capture of that brigade. And if General Tyler could have got
down there any time in the forenoon instead of in the afternoon,
the capture of that brigade was beyond question. It was about
5,000 or 6,000 men, and Tyler had 12,000, at the same time that we
were pressing on in front. He did not get down there until in the
afternoon; none of us got forward in time."]

This slowness is due to various causes. There is a pretty general
dread, for example, among our troops, of threatened ambuscades, and
hence the advance is more cautious than it otherwise would be. It is
thought the part of wisdom, as it were, to "feel the way." The
marching, moreover, is new to our troops. General Scott had checked
McDowell when the latter undertook to handle eight regiments together,
near Washington, by intimating that he was "trying to make a show."
Thus the very essential knowledge of how to manoeuvre troops in large
bodies, has been withheld from our Union generals, while the volunteer
regiments have either rusted in camp from inaction, or have been denied
the oppor