but fearful stay:
But when they marked the seeming show
Of fresh and fierce and marshalled foe,
The boldest broke array."

The last three lines describe almost exactly what, we are told, took
place at Bull Run, where our soldiers were beaten, it is asserted, in
consequence of the coming up of fresh men to the assistance of the
enemy, but who were not camp-followers, but the flower of that enemy's
force. The reinforcements, contrary to what was supposed, were not
numerous; but a fatigued, worn-out, ill-handled army cannot be expected
to be very clever at its arithmetic. Our men greatly overrated the
strength of the new column that presented itself,--at least, so we
judge from some powerful narratives of the crisis at Manassas that have
appeared. The eye of the mind did the counting, not the more trustworthy
bodily organ. They "looked, and saw what numbers numberless" "the sacred
soil of Virginia" appeared to be sending up to aid in its defence
against "the advance," and it cannot be surprising that their hearts
failed them at the moment, as has happened to veterans who had grown
gray since they had received the baptism of fire. Had there been a
couple of trained regiments at the command of General McDowell, at that
time, with which to have met the regiments that were restoring the
enemy's battle, the day would, perhaps, have remained with the Union
army; but, as there was no reserve force, trained or untrained, a
retreat became inevitable; and a retreat, in the case of a new army that
had become exhausted and alarmed, meant a rout, and could have meant
nothing else. We shall never hear the last of it, particularly from our
English friends, who are yet jeered and joked about the business at
Gladsmuir, in 1745, where and when their army was beaten in five minutes
and some odd seconds by Prince Charles Edward's Highlanders, their
cavalry running off in a panic, and their General never stopping
until he had put twenty miles between himself and the nearest of the
plaid-men. Indeed, he did not consider himself safe until he had left
even all Scotland behind him, and had got within his Britannic Majesty's
town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, as it was well fortified, promised
him protection for the time. Four months later, at Falkirk, a portion of
another English army was thrown into a panic by the sight of "the wild
petticoat-men," and made capital time in getting out of their way. Two
regiments of cavalry rushed right o