! rain and cold; stragglers and
disbanded soldiers in every direction, and no order, nobody to gather
the soldiers, or to take care of them.

As if there existed not any military or administrative authority in
Washington! Under the eyes of the two commanders-in-chief! Oh,
senility, imbecility, ignominy! In Europe, a commander of a city, or
any other military authority whatever, who should behave in such a
way, would be dismissed, nay, expelled, from military service. What I
can gather is, that the enemy was in full retreat in the centre and on
one flank, when he was reinforced by fresh troops, who outflanked and
turned ours. If so, the panic can be explained. Even old veteran
troops generally run when they are outflanked.

Johnston, whom Patterson permitted to slip, came to the rescue of
Beauregard. So they say. It is _en petit_ Waterloo, with
Blucher-Johnston, and Grouchy-Patterson. But had Napoleon's power
survived after Waterloo, Grouchy, his chief of the staff, and even
Ney,[1] for the fault at Quatre-bras, would have been court-martialed
and shot. Here these blind Americans will thank Scott and Patterson.

[Footnote 1: That such would have been the presumed fate of Ney at
the hands of Napoleon, I was afterwards assured by the old Duke of
Bassano, and by the Duchess Abrantes.]

Others say that a bold charge of cavalry arrived on our rear, and
threw in disorder the wagons and the baggage gang. That is nothing
new; at the battle of Borodino some Cossacks, pouncing upon the French
baggage, created a panic, which for a moment staggered Napoleon, and
prevented him in time from reinforcing Ney and Davoust. But McDowell
committed a fault in putting his baggage train, the ambulances
excepted, on a road between the army and its reserves, which, in such
a manner, came not in action. By and by I shall learn more about it.

The Congress has made a worse Bull Run than the soldiers. Not a single
manly, heroic word to the nation and the army. As if unsuccess always
was dishonor. This body groped its way, and was morally stunned by the
blow; the would-be leaders more than the mass.

Suggested to Sumner to make, as the Romans did, a few stirring words
on account of the defeat.

Some mean fellows in Congress, who never smelt powder, abused the
soldiers. Those fellows would have been the first to run. Others,
still worse, to show their abject flunkeyism to Scott, and to humbug
the public at large about their intima