surprised by the attack,
contemplating movements by his own centre and right. His exposed and
weak left stubbornly resisted the shock of attacking masses, while he,
with coolness and personal daring most inspiriting to his men, brought
up assistance from centre and right; and the ground was held until
Johnston, who had skillfully eluded Patterson, arrived and began feeding
our line, when the affair was soon decided.

There can be little question that with a strong brigade of soldiers
Johnston could have gone to Washington and Baltimore. Whether, with his
means, he should have advanced, has been too much and angrily discussed
already. Napoleon held that, no matter how great the confusion and
exhaustion of a victorious army might be, a defeated one must be a
hundred-fold worse, and action should be based on this. Assuredly, if
there be justification in disregarding an axiom of Napoleon, the wild
confusion of the Confederates after Manassas afforded it.

The first skirmishes and actions of the war proved that the Southron,
untrained, was a better fighter than the Northerner--not because of more
courage, but of the social and economic conditions by which he was
surrounded. Devoted to agriculture in a sparsely populated country, the
Southron was self-reliant, a practiced horseman, and skilled in the use
of arms. The dense population of the North, the habit of association for
commercial and manufacturing purposes, weakened individuality of
character, and horsemanship and the use of arms were exceptional
accomplishments. The rapid development of railways and manufactures in
the West had assimilated the people of that region to their eastern
neighbors, and the old race of frontier riflemen had wandered to the far
interior of the continent. Instruction and discipline soon equalized
differences, and battles were decided by generalship and numbers; and
this was the experience of our kinsmen in their great civil war. The
country squires who followed the banners of Newcastle and Rupert at
first swept the eastern-counties yeomanry and the London train-bands
from the field; but fiery and impetuous valor was at last overmatched by
the disciplined purpose and stubborn constancy of Cromwell's Ironsides.

The value of the "initiative" in war cannot be overstated. It surpasses
in power mere accession of numbers, as it requires neither transport nor
commissariat. Holding it, a commander lays his plans deliberately, and
executes them at hi