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 wired on July 22d, "be prepared for action by to-morrow morning even were they willing. The larger part of the men are a confused mob, entirely demoralized." They were actually running away in such a state of panic that they could not get away, for commissary and ammunition wagons, congressmen's and other spectators' horses and carriages, artillery and sutlers' wagons were blocking the road, and panicstricken soldiers were falling over one another. When General McClellan came to take command after McDowell had been superseded, he reported this state of affairs: "I found no army to command—a mere collection of regiments cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others dispirited by defeat."

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