" Manassas was turned
into a fortified camp, but the rebel leaders felt themselves unable to
make an aggressive movement during the whole of the following autumn and
winter.
The shock of the defeat was deep and painful to the administration and
the people of the North. Up to late Sunday afternoon favorable reports
had come to Washington from the battle-field, and every one believed in
an assured victory. When a telegram came about five o'clock in the
afternoon, that the day was lost, and McDowell's army in full retreat
through Centreville, General Scott refused to credit the news, so
contradictory of everything which had been heard up to that hour. But
the intelligence was quickly confirmed. The impulse of retreat once
started, McDowell's effort to arrest it at Centreville proved useless.
The regiments and brigades not completely disorganized made an
unmolested and comparatively orderly march back to the fortifications of
Washington, while on the following day a horde of stragglers found their
way across the bridges of the Potomac into the city.
President Lincoln received the news quietly and without any visible sign
of perturbation or excitement; but he remained awake and in the
executive office all of Sunday night, listening to the personal
narratives of a number of congressmen and senators who had, with undue
curiosity, followed the army and witnessed some of the sounds and sights
of the battle.
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