ralship of his commanding
officers. They had been outwitted at every turn and overwhelmed by the
plan of battle their wily foe had forced upon them. It had not been won
by the superior courage of his men in the battle which raged from
sunrise until four o'clock. The broken and disorganized lines of the
South and the panic-stricken mob he had met on the way were eloquent
witnesses of Northern valor.

His army had been saved from annihilation by the quick wit and daring
courage of a single Brigadier General who had moved his five regiments
on his own initiative in the nick of time and saved the Confederates
from utter rout.

Victory had been snatched at last from the jaws of defeat by an
accident. The misfortune of a delayed regiment of Johnston's army was
suddenly turned into an astounding piece of luck. The sudden charge of
those two thousand men on the flank of the victorious army had produced
a panic among tired raw recruits. McDowell was at this moment master of
the field. In a moment of insane madness his unseasoned men had thrown
down their guns and fled.

The little dark General in his flower-decked tent had made good his
boasts. And worse--the Northern army had proven his wildest assertions
true. They were a rabble. The star of Beauregard rose in the Southern
sky, and with its rise Disaster stalked grim and silent toward the
hilarious Confederacy.

The South had won a victory destined to prove itself the most fatal
calamity that ever befell a nation.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE AFTERMATH

Socola dismissed his hope of a speedy end of the war and devoted himself
with new enthusiasm to his work. His eyes were sleepless--his ear to the
ground. The information on conditions and public sentiment in Richmond
and the South which he had dispatched to Washington were of incalculable
service to his government. One of the immediate effects of the battle
was the return of Jennie Barton to the Capital. Her mother was improving
and Jimmie had been wounded. Her coming was most fortunate. It was of
the utmost importance that he secure a position in the Civil Service of
the Confederacy. It could be done through her father's influence.

Socola watched the first division of Northern prisoners march through
the streets amid the shouts and laughter of a crowd of urchins black and
white. A feeling of blind rage surged within him. That the tables would
be shortly turned, he was sure. He would play his part now without a
scrup