three months volunteers' time was
about up, and they were threatening to leave him--would be "most
hazardous" and then he asks: "Shall I attack?"

Scott answers the same day: "I have certainly been expecting you to beat
the Enemy. If not, to hear that you had felt him strongly, or, at
least, had occupied him by threats and demonstrations. You have been at
least his equal, and, I suppose, superior in numbers. Has he not stolen
a march and sent re-enforcements toward Manassas Junction? A week is
enough to win victories," etc.

Patterson retorts, on the same day: "The Enemy has stolen no march upon
me. I have kept him actively employed, and by threats, and
reconnaissances in force, caused him to be re-enforced. I have
accomplished in this respect more than the General-in-Chief asked, or
could well be expected, in face of an Enemy far superior in numbers,
with no line of communication to protect."

In another dispatch, to Assistant Adjutant-General Townsend (with
General Scott), he says, that same afternoon of Thursday, the 18th: "I
have succeeded, in accordance with the wishes of the General-in-Chief,
in keeping General Johnston's Force at Winchester. A reconnaissance in
force, on Tuesday, caused him to be largely re-enforced from Strasburg."

Again, on Friday, the 19th, he informs Colonel Townsend that: "The
Enemy, from last information, are still at Winchester, and being
re-enforced every night."

It is not until Saturday, the 20th of July, that he telegraphs to
Townsend: "With a portion of his force, Johnston left Winchester, by the
road to Millwood, on the afternoon of the 18th." And he adds the
ridiculous statement: "His whole force was about 35,200."

Thus, despite all the anxious care of General Scott, to have Johnston's
Army detained in the Shenandoah Valley, it has escaped Patterson so
successfully, and entirely, that the latter does not even suspect its
disappearance until the day before the pitched Battle of Bull Run is
fought! Its main body has actually reached Manassas twenty-four hours
before Patterson is aware that it has left Winchester!

And how is it, that Johnston gets away from Patterson so neatly? And
when does he do it?

[The extraordinary conduct of General Patterson at this critical
period, when everything seemed to depend upon his exertions, was
afterward the subject of inquiry by the Joint-Committee on the
Conduct of the War. The testimony taken by that Com