A blow so strong and from such an unexpected quarter had a serious effect on the troops that received it. But not as yet was the conviction of defeat general in the Union army. The contest had been waged with such varying results in different parts of the field, one side successful here, another there, and again and again the local advantage turning the other way under some bold movement of an individual command, that neither army realized the full significance of what had happened. The Unionists had begun the afternoon's work {60} under the impression that the victory was already theirs and that they had only to push on and secure the fruits of it. In some parts of the field their successes were such that it seemed as though the Confederate line was breaking. Many of the Confederates had the same idea of it, and Jefferson Davis, coming up from Manassas on his way from Richmond, full of anxiety for the result, found the roads almost impassable by reason of crowds of Confederates escaping to the rear. His heart sank within him. "Battles are not won," he remarked, "where two or three unhurt men are seen leading away one that is wounded." But he continued on, only to find that the field from which his men were retreating had been already won, and that McDowell's army were in full retreat. [Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY, C. S. A.] [Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL BARNARD E. BEE, C. S. A.] [Illustration: RUINS OF THE HENRY HOUSE.] McDowell himself did not know how the retreat had begun. He had not ordered it, for he inferred from the lull in the fighting that his enemy was giving way. But it had dawned on the men, first that their victory was in doubt, then that the Confederates had a fighting chance, and finally that the battle was lost; and by a sort of common consent they began to make their way to the rear in retreat. A curious thing happened which dashed McDowell's hope of making a stand at Stone Bridge. Although the Warrenton Turnpike was open, and Stone Bridge had been freed from the obstructing abattis of trees, offering a straight road from the battlefield to the rendezvous at Centreville, the troops all withdrew from the field by the same directions from which they had approached it in the morning. And so, while the brigades near the Stone Bridge and the ford above it crossed directly over Bull Run, the commands which had made the long detour in the morning made the same detour in retreat, adding many miles to the route they had to travel to reach Centreville.