But there were others, and they numbered thousands upon both sides, who fought bravely to the very last, realizing that the eyes of the whole world were upon them in this initial conflict. They were fighting to uphold a principle, not fighting against a Northern or a Southern brother. To these the horrors of carnage were as appalling as they could well be, but they had steeled their hearts for the inevitable, and they went on, to live or die in the defense of what they thought right. These, and these only, are the true heroes of the great war, and there is no dividing line, and there never could be, to separate them. The booming of cannons and the shrieking of shells still went on as the Goreville Volunteers gathered together in a little clump of trees and snatched a hasty biscuit and a drink of water. Each man and boy was begrimed with sweat, dirt, and powder, and each was more than half-exhausted from his exertions. “Oh, but ain’t this simply dreadful!” moaned Jerry Rowe, for at least the fiftieth time. “Captain Paulding never told me of it when he got me to enlist.” “The captain wanted to make a man of you, Jerry,” replied Nathan Hornsby. “What are you kicking about? See, I’m clipped with a bullet wound in my left fore-arm, but I’m not complaining.” “The cap’n will make a man of Jerry if his knees hold out,” put in another of the men. “But, Jerry, don’t shake so bad or your knees will cut through your trousers,” and a short laugh went up, even in that perilous position--a laugh which was cut short by the passage of a cannon ball through the trees. Everybody ducked, and Jerry fell flat, although the ball was ten feet up in the air. General McDowell, now seeing the tide of battle turning against his troops, sought by every means in his power to recuperate his forces. But when several attacks had been led forward without avail, it was determined to fall back, in the hope of taking a fresh stand in the vicinity of Centerville. In the meantime, however, the troops of General Johnson, which had escaped from the Union General Patterson at Charlestown, in West Virginia, miles away, had come in on railroad trains to Manassas Junction, and these fresh Confederate soldiers, appearing suddenly on the field, started a panic among the Northern companies, a panic which it was impossible, in the mixed-up condition of affairs, to stay. “General Johnson has come on with twenty thousand fresh troops! We must fly for it!” was the cry which was taken up from company to company. Johnson had come up with no such magnificent number of men, but he had come up with enough to make a good showing, and, utterly worn out from marching and fighting in the hot sun, the Union troops commenced the retreat in the direction of Washington.