"Didn't we
give 'em a great fight?"
"Splendid, Mr. Mason, I don't believe that troops ever fought better than
ours did. But we're not many here. Where's all the rest of our army?
Scattered, while I'm certain that Jackson with twenty-five or thirty
thousand men is in front of us, with more coming. We'll fall back.
We'll have to do it before morning."
The sergeant on this occasion had the power of divination. An hour
after midnight the whole force which had fought with so much heroism
was withdrawn. It was a strange night to the whole Union army, full of
sinister omens.
Pope, in his quest for Jackson, had heard about sunset the booming of
guns in the west, but he could not believe that the Southern general
was there. Many of his dispatches had been captured by the hard-riding
cavalry of Stuart. His own division commanders had lost touch with him.
It was not possible for him to know what to do until morning, and no
one could tell him. Meanwhile Longstreet was advancing in the darkness
through the Gap to reinforce Jackson.
Dick had found another horse belonging to a slain owner, and, in the
darkness, his heart full of bitterness, he rode back beside Colonel
Winchester toward Manassas.
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