No soldiers are

willing to have their fighting entirely confined to storming infernal earthworks at the point of the bayonet. Every regiment, yesterday, was at times a "forlorn hope."

A few dead and wounded began to be brought in, and the battle of Manassas had commenced. Carlisle's howitzers and the great rifled gun were opened in the direction of the battery, which answered promptly, and a brief, but terrific cannonading ensued. In less than half an hour the enemy's guns were silenced, two of

sent the second shell at a hill-top, two miles | mystery of those thickets. off, where we suspected that a battery had been planted by the rebels. The bomb burst like an echo close at the intended point, but still no answer came, and Gen. Tyler ordered Carlisle to cease firing, and bring the rest of his battery to the front of the woods and our column, ready for instant action. It was now about 7 o'clock. For half an hour but little more was done; then skirmishers were deployed into the forest on each side, in order to discover the whereabouts of our nearest foes. Before us lay a rolling and compara-Carlisle's howitzers advancing through the tively open country, but with several hills and groves cutting off any extended view. In the western distance on the left we could see the outskirts of Manassas Junction. The woods at whose edge our line of battle formed, extended half around the open fields in a kind of semicircle, and it was into the arms of this crescent that our skirmishers advanced. Soon we began to hear random shots exchanged in the thicket on the left, which proved the existence of an enemy in that direction. (What can be done against men who, to all the science and discipline of European warfare, add more than the meanness and cowardly treachery of the Indian? We had, all through the day, to hunt for the foe, though he numbered his myriads of men.) At the same time, a scout on the right captured a negro native, who was led to the general, shaking with fear, and anxious to impart such information as he had. Through him we learned that the rebels were quartered among the woods on the right and left, and in the groves in the open country; that they had erected a battery on the distant hill, and had kept him at work for three days, assisting to fell trees, so that a clear range of the road we occupied could be obtained.

By this time our scouts reported the enemy in some force on the left. Two or three Ohio skirmishers had been killed. Carlisle's battery was sent to the front of the woods on the right, where it could be brought to play where needed. A few shell were thrown into the opposite thicket, and then the Second Ohio and Second New York marched down to rout out the enemy. In ten minutes the musketry was heard, and then a heavy cannonade answer. They had, without doubt, fallen upon a battery in the bushes. For a quarter of an hour their firing continued, when they came out in good order, confirming our surmises. After advancing a furlong they saw the enemy, who exchanged their fire and retired through the forest. Suddenly from a different direction a voice was heard, exclaiming, Now, you Yankee devils, we've got you where we want you!" and several heavy guns were opened upon them with such effect that Schenck finally ordered them to retire, which they did in perfect order. The boys came out indignant at the practices of the rebels, and swearing they would rather fight three times their force in the open field than encounter the deadly

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woods to gain a closer position. But a fatal error was here made, as I thought, by General Tyler, in not ordering in a division to drive out the four rebel regiments stationed behind the battery, and to seize its eight guns. Through some inexplicable fatuity he seemed to assume that when a battery was silenced it was convinced, and there it remained, with its defenders, unheard from and unthought of until the latter portion of the day, when it formed one cause of our final defeat. It is actually a fact, that while our whole forces were pushed along the right to a co-operation with Hunter's flanking column, and a distance of miles in advance, this position on the left, close to the scene of the commencement of the fight, and just in front of all our trains and ammunition wagons -a position chosen by all spectators as the most secure was, through the day, within five minutes' reach of a concealed force of infantry, and a battery which had only been "silenced." No force was stationed to guard the rear of our left flank. It was near this very point, and with the assistance of this very infantry, that the enemy's final charge was made, which created such irretrievable confusion and dismay. And after the first few hours no officer could be found in this vicinity to pay any attention to its security. All had gone forward to follow the line of the contest.

Meantime, Richardson, on the extreme left, could not content himself with "maintaining his position," for we heard occasional discharges from two of his guns. However, he took no other part in the action than by shelling the forces of the enemy which were sent rapidly from his vicinity to the immediate point of contest. From the hill behind we could see long columns advancing, and at first thought they were Richardson's men moving on Bull Run; but soon discovered their true character. Indeed, from every southward point the enemy's reinforcements began to pour in by thousands. Great clouds of dust arose from the distant roads. A person who ascended a lofty tree could see the continual arrival of cars at the nearest point on the Manassas railroad, with hosts of soldiers, who formed in solid squares and moved swiftly forward to join in the contest. The whistle of the locomotive was plainly audible to those in our advance. It is believed that at least fifty thousand were added during the day to the thirty thousand rebels opposed

We indeed heard continuous tidings of heroThe famous Irish regiment, 1,600 strong, who ism and victory; and those in the trees above have had so much of the hard digging to per-us told us of more than we could discover with form, claimed the honor of a share in the hard fighting, and led the van of Tyler's attack, followed by the Seventy-ninth (Highlanders) and Thirteenth New York and Second Wisconsin.

They came from the woods on the left, and infantry poured out behind them. Tyler and his staff, with the reserve, were apparently cut off by the quick manoeuvre. I succeeded in gaining the position I had just left, there witnessed the capture of Carlisle's battery in the plain, and saw another force of cavalry and infantry pouring into the road at the very spot where the battle commenced, and near which the South Carolinians, who manned the battery silenced in the morning, had doubtless all day been lying | concealed. The ambulances and wagons had gradually advanced to this spot, and of course an instantaneous confusion and dismay resulted. Our own infantry broke ranks in the field, plunged into the woods to avoid the road, got up the hill as best they could, without leaders, every man saving himself in his own way.

The Flight from the Field.

| was Washburne, and I learned he was the member by that name from Illinois. The Hon. Mr. Kellogg made a similar effort. Both these Congressmen bravely stood their ground till the last moment, and were serviceable at Centreville in assisting the halt there ultimately made. And other civilians did what they could.

But what a scene! and how terrific the onset of that tumultous retreat. For three miles, hosts of Federal troops-all detached from their regiments, all mingled in one disorderly routwere fleeing along the road, but mostly through the lots on either side. Army wagons, sutlers' teams, and private carriages, choked the passage, tumbling against each other, amid clouds of dust, and sickening sights and sounds. Hacks, containing unlucky spectators of the late affray, were smashed like glass, and the occupants were lost sight of in the debris. Horses, flying wildly from the battle-field, many of them in death agony, galloped at random forward, join

catch them rodo them bareback, as much to save themselves from being run over, as to make quicker time. Wounded men, lying along the banks-the few neither left on the field nor taken to the captured hospitals-appealed with raised hands to those who rode horses, begging to be lifted behind, but few regarded such petitions. Then the artillery, such as was saved, came thundering along, smashing and overpowering every thing. The regular cavalry, I record it to their shame, joined in the mêlée, adding to its terrors, for they rode down foot. men without mercy. One of the great guns was overturned and lay amid the ruins of a caisson, as I passed it. I saw an artilleryman running between the ponderous fore and after

By the time I reached the top of the hill, the retreat, the panic, the hideous headlong confu-ing in the stampede. Those on foot who could sion, were now beyond a hope. I was near the rear of the movement, with the brave Capt. Alexander, who endeavored by the most gallant but unavailable exertions to check the Onward tumult. It was difficult to believe in the reality of our sudden reverse. "What does it all mean?" I asked Alexander. "It means defeat," was his reply. "We are beaten; it is a shameful, a cowardly retreat! Hold up men!" he shouted, "don't be such infernal cowards!" and he rode backwards and forwards, placing his horse across the road and | vainly trying to rally the running troops. The teams and wagons confused and dismembered every corps. We were now cut off from the advance body by the enemy's infantry, who had rushed on the slope just left by us, sur-wheels of his gun-carriage, hanging on with rounded the guns and sutlers' wagons, and both hands, and vainly striving to jump upon were apparently pressing up against us. "It's the ordnance. The drivers were spurring the no use, Alexander," I said, "you must leave horses; he could not cling much longer, and a with the rest." "I'll be d d if I will," was more agonized expression never fixed the featthe sullen reply, and the splendid fellow rode ures of a drowning man. The carriage boundback to make his way as best he could. Meaned from the roughness of a steep hill leading to time I saw officers with leaves and eagles on a creek, he lost his hold, fell, and in an instant their shoulder-straps, majors and colonels, who the great wheels had crushed the life out of had deserted their commands, pass me gallop- him. Who ever saw such a flight? Could the ing as if for dear life. No enemy pursued just retreat at Borodino have exceeded it in confuthen; but I suppose all were afraid that his sion and tumult? I think not. It did not slack guns would be trained down the long, narrow in the least until Centreville was reached. avenue, and mow the retreating thousands, and There the sight of the reserve-Miles's brigade batter to pieces army wagons and every thing-formed in order on the hill, seemed someelse which crowded it. Only one field-officer, what to reassure the van. But still the teams so far as my observation extended, seemed to and foot-soldiers pushed on, passing their own have remembered his duty. Lieut.-Col. Spei- camps and heading swiftly for the distant del, a foreigner attached to a Connecticut regi- Potomac, until for ten miles the road over ment, strove against the current for a league. which the grand army had so lately passed I positively declare that, with the two excep- southward, gay with unstained banners, and tions mentioned, all efforts made to check the flushed with surety of strength, was covered panic before Centreville was reached, were with the fragments of its retreating forces, confined to civilians. I saw a man in citizen's shattered and panic-stricken in a single day. dress, who had thrown off his coat, seized a From the branch route the trains attached to musket, and was trying to rally the soldiers Hunter's division had caught the contagion of who came by at the point of the bayonet. In the flight, and poured into its already swollen a reply to a request for his name, he said it current another turbid freshet of confusion and

dismay. Who ever saw a more shameful aban- | wide-spread action will not be found propordonment of munitions gathered at such vast tionate to the numbers engaged on either side, expense? The teamsters, many of them, cut and to the duration of the conflict. The nature the traces of their horses, and galloped from of the ground, and the fact that the struggle the wagons. Others threw out their loads to was confined to attacks upon batteries and amaccelerate their flight, and grain, picks, and buscades, made the whole affair a series of fiery shovels, and provisions of every kind lay tram- skirmishes, rather than a grand field encounter. pled in the dust for leagues. Thousands of Men fought with a kind of American individmuskets strewed the route, and when some of uality—each for himself-and the musketry us succeeded in rallying a body of fugitives, firing was of the mest irregular character. and forming them in a line across the road, There were few such heavy volleys as those hardly one but had thrown away his arms. which made the hills echo last Thursday. If the enemy had brought up his artillery and served it upon the retreating train, or had intercepted our progress with five hundred of his cavalry, he might have captured enough supplies for a week's feast of thanksgiving. As it was, enough was left behind to tell the story of the panic. The rout of the Federal army seemed complete.

A Check to the Retreat.

The sight of Miles's reserve drawn up on the hills at Centreville, supporting a full battery of field-pieces, and the efforts of the few officers still faithful to their trust, encouraged many of the fugitive infantry to seek their old camps and go no farther. But the majority pushed on to a point near the late site of Germantown, where Lieut. Brisbane had formed a line of Hunt's artillerists across the road and repulsed all who attempted to break through. I particularly request attention to the service thus rendered by this loyal young officer.

It would not be surprising if our entire loss in killed and wounded should prove to have been not over a thousand men. The rebels must have suffered twice as much from the terrific cannonading of our artillery in the forenoon, and from the desperate charges of the Zouaves, the Sixty-ninth, and the other corps which were especially distinguished in the engagement. The Zouaves captured two batteries, fought hand to hand with the Carolinians in a furious bowie-knife conflict, routed the famous Black Horse Cavalry, and only broke ranks when victory became hopeless.

Nine-tenths of our killed and wounded were perforce left on the field, and in the hospitals at either end; and as the enemy retains possession of the ground, we can get no accurate details of our losses. From prisoners taken by us we learned that the rebel leaders, determined to have no incumbrances on their hands, issued orders to give no quarter. It is positively known that many of our comrades were bayoneted where they fell. All the wounded Zouaves suffered this inhuman fate.

While he was thus engaged, a courier arrived with the news that Col. Montgomery was advancing with a New Jersey brigade from Falls Rickett's, Carlisle's, and the West Point batChurch, and that the retreat must be stopped, teries remain in the enemy's possession. Twenonly the wagons being allowed to pass through. ty-three of our guns, including the thirty-twoSome thousands of the soldiery had already pound siege pieces, were taken.* But Shergot far on their way to Washington. Poor man, who went into action with six cannon, fellows! who could blame them? Their own came out with eight-two of them dragged colonels had deserted them, only leaving orders from the rebel embrasures. Large numbers of for them to reach Arlington Heights as soon as sutlers' and train wagons are probably cut off, they could. A few miles further I met Mont- and abandoned arms and munitions have fallen gomery swiftly pressing to the rescue, and re-into the enemy's hands. At the date of this ported the success of Lieut. Brisbane's efforts. And so I rode along, as well as my weary horse could carry me, past groups of straggling fugitives, to Fairfax, where Col. Woodbury was expecting, and guarding against, a flank movement of the enemy, and on again to Long Bridge and the Potomac. But the van of the runaway soldiers had made such time that I found a host of them at the Jersey intrenchments begging the sentinels to allow them to cross the bridge. To-day we learn of the safe retreat of the main body of the army; that they were feebly followed by the rebels as far as Fairfax, but are now within the Arlington lines, and that McDowell, a stunned and vanquished general, is overlooking the wreck of his columns from his old quarters at the Custis

mansion.

Our Losses.

letter, it is uncertain whether any of our regiments which were intercepted at the time of the panic have surrendered themselves to the rebels; but this must be the case with many of the infantry, who, ignorant of the country, starving and exhausted, dashed into the forests in their retreat. Every hour, however, is reducing our list of missing, as the stragglers reach their old camps along the Potomac.

Theory of the Defeat.

The disastrous result of the action was perhaps inevitable-even though no panic had occurred at the close-from the three causes against which the noblest soldiery can never successfully oppose their daring. First, the enemy's forces had been largely underrated,

Six of the twenty-three cannon were recovered the next day by Col. Einstein, the enemy having delayed re

The list of the killed and wounded in this moving them from the field.