To reach the spot where the beaten raw recruits were thus cowering, General Johnston and General Beauregard had to advance only twenty miles, over a road every foot of which was well known to them. That the Federal army was in ignominious flight they were well aware, for they reported it joyfully to the government at Richmond. Why did they settle down into utter inaction and allow McClellan to fortify the capital and organize, drill and inspire with hope and confidence a great army? There are a good many "ifs" in connection with the actual fighting of the battle of Bull Run, but this "if" that comes after it--if the elated and triumphant Confederate army had immediately advanced to the Potomac, invested the intrenchments at Arlington Heights and, very likely, effected a crossing above or near the Great Falls of the river, and flanked the capital of the Union--is the greatest and most interesting of them all. General Beauregard actually commanded at the battle on the 21st, because General Johnston, who ranked him, had but just arrived on the scene and was unfamiliar with the ground and the disposition of the troops. But he, Johnston, became responsible for the further prosecution of the campaign, once the battle was won. It was in large measure his fault that the fruits of victory were not reaped. The commonly accepted explanation of the matter is that the Confederates were "almost as much disorganized by victory as the Federals were by defeat;" that they had no fresh troops and no cavalry with which to pursue, and that Arlington Heights were too well fortified to be attacked. But General Beauregard, sore at the attempt to rob him of the laurels of victory, has been able to show that all of the Confederate brigades of Ewell, Holmes, D. R. Jones and Longstreet, and two regiments of Bonham's brigade, were perfectly fresh and unharmed after the fight; that Early's brigade had hardly been under fire; that new regiments had come up during the day; that the fresh troops in all numbered at least fifteen thousand; that more than half the Confederate army, in fact, had not been engaged--a very unusual proportion after an important battle. "The remaining forces, after a night's rest," says Beauregard himself, "would have been instantly reorganized and found thoroughly safe to join the advance." Apparently nothing but shame on the Northern side, and an unwillingness on the Southern side to discredit their great generals, has prevented a full acknowledgment of the fatal tactics which prevented an advance on the Potomac after Bull Run.