Each side
supposed it had won, till the last moment. One had, in point of fact,
just the same right to be routed as the other. By a fiction, or series
of fictions, the national forces at the last moment exploded in a
panic and fled from the field.) The defeated troops commenced pouring
into Washington over the Long Bridge at daylight on Monday, 22d--day
drizzling all through with rain. The Saturday and Sunday of the battle
(20th, 21st,) had been parch'd and hot to an extreme--the dust, the
grime and smoke, in layers, sweated in, follow'd by other layers
again sweated in, absorb'd by those excited souls--their clothes all
saturated with the clay-powder filling the air--stirr'd up everywhere
on the dry roads and trodden fields by the regiments, swarming wagons,
artillery, &c.--all the men with this coating of murk and sweat and
rain, now recoiling back, pouring over the Long Bridge--a horrible
march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffed, humiliated,
panic-struck. Where are the vaunts, and the proud boasts with which
you went forth? Where are your banners, and your bands of music, and
your ropes to bring back your prisoners? Well, there isn't a band
playing--and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to its
staff.
The sun rises, but shines not. The men appear, at first sparsely
and shame-faced enough, then thicker, in the streets of Washington
--appear in Pennsylvania avenue, and on the steps and basement
entrances. They come along in disorderly mobs, some in squads,
stragglers, companies.
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