Arkansas true Democrat., 1861-08-15
The Route at Manassas.

The following account of the terrible rout at the battle of Manassas was given to northern paper by a northerner who was upon the battle field and witnessed it.
 By the time I reached the top of the hill, the retreat, the panic, the hideous, head long confusion were now beyond hope. I was near the rear of the movement, with the brave Captain Alexander, who endeav- ored by the most gallant but unavailable exertions, to check the onward tumult. It was difficult to believe in the reality of our sudden reverse "What does it all mean?" I asked Alexander. 1t means defeat" was the 1sply. We are beat en-"
 Meantime saw officers with leaves and eagles on their shoulder straps, Majors and Colonels, who had deserted their com mands. pass me, galloping as if for dear life. Only one field officer, so far as my observation extended, seemed to have remembered his duty. Lieut.. Col. Speidel, a foreigner attached to 8 Connecticut regi- ment, stove against the current for league.
 But what scene and how terrible the on- set of that tumultuous retreat! For three miles, hosts of federal troops-all detached from their regiments, all mingled in one disorderly rout-were fleeing along the road but mostly through the lots on either side. Army wagons. suffers teams, and private carriages choked the passage, tumbling against each other, amid clouds of dust and sickening sights and sounds. Hacks, containing unlucky spectators of the late affray, were smashed like glass, and the occupants lost sight of the debris. Horses flying wildly from the battle field, may of them in death agony, galloped at random forward, joining in the stampede. Those on foot who could catch them rode them bare back, as much to save themselves from being over, as to make quicker time.
 Wounded men, lying along the banks the few either left on the field or taken to the captured hospitals, appealed with rais- ed hands to those who rode horses, begging to be lifted behind; but few regarded such petitions. Then the artillery, such as was saved, came laundering along, smashing and overpowering everything. The reg ular cavalry, record it to their shame, joined in the melee, adding to it's terrors, for they rode down footmen without mercy. One of the great guns was overturned and lay amid the ruins of a caisson as passed it. l saw an artileryman running between the ponderous fore and after wheels of his gun carriage hanging on with both hands, and vainly striving to jump upon the or dnance. The drivers were spurrlng the horses; he could not cling much longer, and more agonized expression never fix ed to the featues of drowning man. The carriage bounded from the roughness of steep hill leading to a creek, he lost his hold, fell, and in an instant the great wheels had crushed the life out ofhim. Who ev- CT saw such flight? Could the retreart of Borodino hava exceeded it in confusion and tumult?
 I think not. It did not slack .n the least until Centerville was reached. There the sight of the reserve-Miles' Brigade formed in order on the hill, seemed some what to reassure the van. But still the teams and foot soldiers pushed on, pass ing their own camps, and heading for the distant Potomac, until for ten miles the road over which the grand army had so recently passed southward, gay with un- stained banners, and flushed with surety of strength, was covered with the fragments of its retreating forces, shattered and pam ic-stricken in single day. From the branch rout, the trains attached to Hun ter's Division had caught the contagion of the flight, and poured into its already swollen current another turbid freshet of confusion and dismay. Who ever saw more shameful abandonment of munitions gathered at such vast expense? The team sters, many of them, cut the traces of their horses, and galloped from their wagons. Others threw out their loads to acceler- ate their fight, and grain picks, and show els, and provisions of every kind, lay tram pied in the dust for leagues. Thousands of muskets stewed the rout. When some of us succeeded in rallying body of fugi- ives, and formed them into line across the road, hardly one but had thrown away his arms. The rout of the federal army seemed complere.
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