lmnira. — The great battle so long expected came off on the
21st ult., and ended in the total defeat of the North. According to a statement, obviously authentic, published in the New rork Times, General Scott had from the first opposed the march into Virginia. His plan, as described by himself, was this : He would have com- menced by a perfect blockade of every Southern port on the Atlantic and on the Gulf. Then he would have collected a large force at the capital for defensive purposes, and another large one on the Mis- sissippi for offensive operations. The summer months, during which it is madness to take troops south of St. Louis, should have been devoted to tactical instruction—and with the first frosts of autumn be would have taken a column of eighty thousand well-disciplined troops down the Mississippi—and taken every important point on that river, New-Orleans included. It could have been done, he said, with greater ease, with less loss of life, and with far more important results than would attend the marching of an army to Richmond. At eight points the river would probably have been defended, and eight battles would have* been necessary ; but in every one of them success could have been made certain for us. The Mississippi and the Atlantic once ours, the Southern States would have been compelled, by the natural and inevitable pressure of events, to seek, by a return to the Union, escape from the ruin that would speedily overwhelm them out of it. He felt it, however, his duty to obey orders, and on receiving positive orders from the President to advance on Richmond, he did his best to ensure success. General M`Clellan, as reported last week, cleared Western Virginia, and on the 16th of July General M`Dowell received orders to advance on the direct 'route leading through Fairfax, Alexaqdria, and Centreville to the cleft between the Potomac and the spur of the Blue Ridge which divides the country round Washington from Central Virginia. General M‘Dowell had under his command about thirty thousand men, with sixty guns, and a few squadrons of cavalry. The army in passing Fairfax com- mitted excesses which called out an order from the general, threatening them with the gaol at Alexandria, and on the 19th suffered a slight repulse at Bull's Run. This place is a creek in front of Manassas Junction, but the topography of the scene of action is still somewhat obscure. The best description re- ceived is undoubtedly the following, written by a Southerner before the battle : "About half way between the eastern spur of the Blue Ridge and the Potomac, below Alexandria, it commands the whole country between so perfectly that there is scarcely a possi- bility of its being turned. The right wing stretches off towards the head-waters of the Occoquan, through a wooded country, which is easily made impassable by the felling of trees. The left is a rolling table-land, easily commanded from the successive elevations, till you. reach a country so rough and so rugged that it. is a defence to itself. The key to the whole position, in fact, is precisely that point which General Beauregard chose for his centre, and which he has fortified so strongly that., in the opinion of military men, five thousand men could there hold twenty thousand at bay. The position, in fact, is fortified in part by Nature herself. It is a succession of hills, nearly equidistant from each other, in front of which is a ravine so deep and so thickly wooded that it is passable only at two points, and those through gorges which fifty men can defend against a whole army. Of the fortifications superadded here by General Beauregard to those of Nature, it is, of course, not proper to speak. The general reader, in fact, will have a sufficiently precise idea of them by conceiving a line of forts, some two miles in extent, zigzag in form, with angles, salients, bastions, casemates, and everything that properly belongs to works of this kind." On the 21st, General M`Dowell moved upon this -position, attacking it apparently right in front. The advance guard captured two or three works of a slight character, intended, apparently, to lure them on, and were proceeding towards the main position, when a sudden panic occurred. Whether the fire from the guns on the ledges proved too severe, or General Johnston brought up new troops, or a movement of the artillery waggons to obtain ammuni- tion raised the idea of defeat, will never be accurately known. At all events the soldiers began to fly, the drivers of the baggage waggons grew mad with fear, and the whole army poured along the road which led back to Washington. The flight speedily became a disgraceful rout, the artillerymen unharnessed the horses and mounted them to escape quicker, the very waggoners emptied their carts, and the general body actually quivered with fright. The following paragraph from Mr. Russell's letter gives a fair picture of the utter demorali- zation of the men : "The stampede then became general. What oc- curred at the bill I cannot say, but all the road from Centre- ville for miles presented such a sight as can only be witnessed in the track of the runaways of an utterly demoralized army. Drivers flogged, lashed, spurred, and beat their horses, or leaped down and abandoned their teams, and ran down by the side of the road; mounted men, servants, and men in uniform, vehicles of all sorts, commissariat waggons, thronged the narrow ways. At every shot a convulsion as it were seized upon the morbid mass of bones, sinew, wood and iron, and thrilled through it, giving new energy and action to its desperate efforts to get free from itself. Again the cry of 'Cavalry!' arose. 'What are you afraid of ?' said I to a man who was running beside me. 'I am not afraid of you,' replied the ruffian, levelling his piece at me and pulling the trigger. It was not loaded or the cap was not on, for the gun did not go off. I was unarmed, and I did go off as fast as I could, resolved- to keep my own counsel for the second time that day. And so the flight went on. At one time a whole mass of infantry, with fixed bayonets, rail down the bank of the road, and some falling as they ran must have killed and wounded those among whom they fell. As I knew the road would soon become impassable or blocked up, I put my horse to a gallop and passed on to the front, But mounted men still rode faster, shouting out, Cavalry are coming !'" Even this account is not so bad as those of the American journals, which represent that the drivers fired on their comrades to prevent them loading the waggons. At Centreville General McDowell made an effort to rally the men; but subordination was gone, and most of them poured into Wash- ington at night to bivouac in the rain. It is said that the officers were just as bad as the men, reporting everywhere that the army was thrashed. President Lincoln immediately ordered all the regiments which bad offered themselves for service to repair to Washington, and by the latest accounts, 15,000 new troops had arrived. The feeling in the country was one of determination to support the Government, and the New York journals which so strongly urged the advance have acknowledged their error, and pro- mised to abstain from military criticism. Congress, immediately on receipt of the disastrous intelligence, passed a resolution affirming the supremacy and integrity of the Union—a resolution very like the French order of the day, "to sit in permanence." They also passed the delayed bill, raising the regular force to 40,000 men. On the Southern side General Beauregard has moved towards Harper's Ferry, with the obvious intention of rousing Maryland. Mr. Davis's despatch on the victory at Manassas runs as follows :—"Manassas Junction, Sunday night.—Night has closed upon a hard-fought field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed, and fled precipi- tately, abandoning a large amount of arms, ammunitions, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewed for miles with those killed, and the farm-houses and the ground around were filled with wounded. Pursuit was continued along several routes, towards Leesburg and Centreville, until darkness covered the fugitives. We have captured several field-batteries, stands of arms, and Union and State many prisoners have been taken. Too high praise cannot bebe- stowed, whether for the skill of the principal officers or for the gal- lantry of all our troops. The battle was mainly fought on our left. Our force was 15,000, that of the enemy estimated at 35,000.—JEF- PERSON Devis."—Mr. Russell's estimate of numbers was 60,000 men on the Southern side. According to Southern accounts, the Confederates captured 63 cannons, 25,000 stand of arms, 1200 horses, and all the stores and provisions of the Federal army, which seems, from other accounts, tolerably accurate. The New York papers confirm the statement that the troops en- listed for three months are all returning to their homes, and a cor- respondent of the Times asserts that it has been necessary to charge the drunken soldiery in the streets of Washington with cavalry.
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