[Illustration: “THE ARMY OF THE NORTH BROKE AND FLED PANIC-STRICKEN.”] When the sum of battle came to be reckoned, it was found that the North had 481 men killed, 1,011 men wounded, and 1,461 taken prisoners; while the Southern loss was 387 killed and 1,582 wounded. Public opinion held General McDowell responsible for the crushing defeat, and as a consequence he was superseded in his command by General McClellan; and although a capable and honourable officer, he played no great part in the subsequent events of the war. The first battle of Bull Run brought the seriousness of the situation vividly to the minds of the people of the North, and showed how fatally the position had been underestimated by everyone from President to peasant. [Illustration: THE JULY BATTLES BEFORE PLEVNA BY ARCHIBALD FORBES] In the early days of July, 1877, the soldiers of the Tzar were jubilant. So early as April Russian army-corps after army-corps had come tramping across the Pruth into Roumania, and in May the Danubian Principalities swarmed with sturdy Russian soldiers along the left bank of the great river, from Galatz on the east to Kalafat on the west. They gazed eagerly across the brown water of the Danube to the precipitous Bulgarian bank on the further side, but had to wait impatiently until the falling of the river gave them the opportunity for which they craved so ardently. At length, however, they had effected the crossing of the Danube from Simnitza to Sistova and from Braila to Matchin, and the whole Russian army was now on Turkish soil. By the middle of the month Gourko was beyond the Balkans on that adventurous raid of his which spread panic from Hankioj to Constantinople. “Hey for Adrianople!” was the hilarious and confident shout, as army-corps after army-corps started on the enterprise which seemed so ridiculously easy. Princes and staff-officers betted with each other in hundreds of dingy paper-roubles as to the day on which they would dine in Stamboul.