y, have all been pressed into service as excuses.
"Give me 10,000 fresh troops," said Jackson, as the surgeon dressed
his wound, "and I would be in Washington to-morrow." Before
twenty-four hours had passed reinforcements had increased the
strength of Johnston's army to 40,000. Want of organisation had
undoubtedly prevented McDowell from winning a victory on the 19th or
20th, but pursuit is a far less difficult business than attack. There
was nothing to interfere with a forward movement. There were supplies
along the railway, and if the mechanism for their distribution and
the means for their carriage were wanting, the counties adjoining the
Potomac were rich and fertile. Herds of bullocks were grazing in the
pastures, and the barns of the farmers were loaded with grain. It was
not a long supply train that was lacking, nor an experienced staff,
nor even well-disciplined battalions; but a general who grasped the
full meaning of victory, who understood how a defeated army, more
especially of new troops, yields at a touch, and who, above all, saw
the necessity of giving the North no leisure to develop her immense
resources. For three days Jackson impatiently awaited the order to
advance, and his men were held ready with three days' cooked rations
in their haversacks. But his superiors gave no sign, and he was
reluctantly compelled to abandon all hope of reaping the fruits of
victory.

It is true that the Confederates were no more fit for offensive
operations than McDowell's troops. "Our army," says General Johnston,
"was more disorganised by victory than that of the United States by
defeat." But it is to be remembered that if the Southerners had moved
into Maryland, crossing the Potomac by some of the numerous fords
near Harper's Ferry, they would have found no organised opposition,
save the debris of McDowell's army, between them and the Northern
capital. On July 26, five days after the battle, the general who was
to succeed McDowell arrived in Washington and rode round the city. "I
found," he wrote, "no preparations whatever for defence, not even to
the extent of putting the troops in military position. Not a regiment
was properly encamped, not a single avenue of approach guarded. All
was chaos, and the streets, hotels, and bar-rooms were filled with
drunken officers and men, absent from their regiments without leave,
a perfect pandemonium. Many had even gone to their homes, their
flight from Bull Run terminating in New