Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [241]
Even as the crowds celebrated in the streets, the fiercest stage of the fighting was just beginning. The Confederates refused to give up, rallied by the steadfast General Thomas Jackson. “There is Jackson with his Virginians, standing like a stone wall,” General Barnard Bee reportedly shouted to inspire his troops, and both Confederate and Union soldiers thereafter referred to Jackson as “Stonewall” Jackson. The two sides fought valiantly in the blazing sun as the line of battle shifted back and forth. At 3 p.m., Lincoln was in the telegraph office studying the maps on the wall and waiting anxiously for the updated bulletins, which arrived in fifteen-minute intervals. The telegraph line stretched only as far as the Fairfax Court House. News from the battlefront farther south was relayed to Fairfax by a troupe of mounted couriers established by the young Andrew Carnegie, who then worked with the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps. Noting some confusion in the battlefield reports, Lincoln crossed over to General Scott’s headquarters, “a small three-storied brick house” jammed with officers and clerks. Waking Scott from a nap, Lincoln expressed his concern. Scott, Nicolay reported, simply confirmed “his confidence in a successful result, and composed himself for another nap when the President left.”
Succeeding dispatches became uniformly positive, conveying assurances that the Confederate lines had broken. At about 4:30, the telegraph operator proclaimed that “the Union Army had achieved a glorious victory.” Lincoln decided to take his usual carriage ride, accompanied by Tad, Willie, and Secretary Bates. As they rode together to the Navy Yard to talk with John A. Dahlgren, one of Lincoln’s favorite naval officers, Bates confided his anxiety for his son, Coalter, who was soon to be sent into battle. When young Coalter departed to join his regiment, Bates wrote, it was “the first time he ever left home.” The carriage ride came to a close with Bates feeling a new intimacy with his president.
As Lincoln relaxed with Bates in his carriage, the tide of battle turned against the Union. Confederate general Johnston’s forces had escaped General Patterson’s grasp, and by midafternoon, nine thousand fresh Confederate troops arrived to reinforce Beauregard. McDowell had no reserve troops left. “A sudden swoop, and a body of [Confederate] cavalry rushed down upon our columns,” Edmund Stedman reported from the battlefield. “They came from the woods…and infantry poured out behind them.”
Exhausted Union infantrymen, including Sprague’s First Rhode Island Regiment, broke ranks. An uncontrolled retreat toward Washington began, further confused by the panicked flight of horrified spectators. Indeed, an acquaintance of Chase’s who had witnessed the battle “never stopped until he reached New-York.” Young Stedman was appalled by the raging scene: “Army wagons, sutlers’ teams, and private carriages, choked the passage, tumbling against each other, amid clouds of dust, and sickening sights and sounds.” Muskets and small arms were discarded along the way. Wounded soldiers pled for help. Horses, running free, exacerbated the human stampede.
The shocking news reached Washington in Lincoln’s absence. “General McDowell’s army in full retreat through Centerville,” the dispatch read; “the day is lost. Save Washington and the remnants of the Army.” Seward grabbed the telegram and ran to the White House. With “a terribly frightened and excited look” on his face, he asked Nicolay for the latest news. Lincoln’s secretary read him an earlier exultant dispatch. “Tell no one. That is not so. The battle is lost,” Seward revealed. “Find the President and tell him to come immediately