victories may be accredited to this fact, if it is a fact? But our commanders, instead of trusting their men, either kept them in utter ignorance of movements or foolishly deceived them. How well I remember at the battle of Gaines’s Hill, where Jackson thrashed Porter so soundly, and Sykes’s regulars failed to stand their ground, that the story was industriously circulated along the thinned but unbroken ranks of Bartlett’s Brigade, “McClellan’s in Richmond, boys. One more effort and the day is ours!” And Meagher’s Irish Brigade, hastening to our relief on the run, took up the cry and put on so determined a front that Jackson’s veterans halted and reformed, giving our officers time to re-establish their broken lines and hold their ground until night came down and afforded them an opportunity to withdraw to the left bank of the Chickahominy,—not to enter Richmond, but to begin that celebrated “flank movement” which ended at Harrison’s Landing. Again, at second Bull Run, when, after dawdling along all day on the road from Alexandria to Centreville, with the sounds of conflict in our front (making a long two hours’ rest at Annandale, and then marching at full speed in a hot sun), we reached Centreville, we were told that Pope had whipped Jackson, and that Lee with his whole army was in full retreat. But when we reached Bull Run, “Linden saw another sight.” Heavens, what a stampede! McDowell’s and Sigel’s corps in disastrous retreat,—cavalry, artillery, infantry, ammunition and baggage wagons in one confused, struggling mass, intent upon reaching the heights of Centreville. Our corps (Franklin’s, 6th) had just halted to rest, as the stragglers came into view. Deploying, we stopped the rout, and ended the retreat. Seizing the infantry stragglers, we placed them in our own ranks until our brigade swelled to twice its usual size. Night closed in, and we were marched to the front across Cub Run, and ordered to hold our position at all hazards. In that march every straggler deserted! Poor fellows, who could blame them? Had they been killed then and there who could have accounted for them? Most of them returned to their own regiments and thereafter did good service no doubt. Panics are liable to seize upon the best of troops. I cite these instances as partial corroboration of my point. What wonder if our troops came to distrust all reports and to depend only upon established facts. But perhaps our commanders were right in concealing information from the army in general, and Moore may have hit the nail on the head when he wrote: “A captain has been known to think, Even colonels have been heard to reason; And reasoners whether clad in pink, Or red or blue, are on the brink, Nine cases out of ten—of treason.” At any rate they conducted the war in harmony with such a belief.