Connecticut western news., 1890-05-28


 have run away but for his pride and the consciousness that if he should begin running there would be no place to stop. Every time bullet whistled near him he thought he must be struck; again and again death seemed to be in- evitable. After fifteen or twenty minutes he perceived the danger to be much more apparent than real, and he gradually began to grow calm. Frightened, as he confessed himself to have been, he declared that he was cool ness itself compared with hundreds that he saw about him. This encouraged and emboldened him. When he learned, an hour after, that not more than one hun dred and twenty men had been lost on both sides during the skirmish he was amazed He would have sworn at the time that the casualties must have reached three thousand at least.
 He was afterward in the advance movement on the Confederate center. The Unionists were confident of victory, and he was in high spirits, when suddenly the whole right wing of the Federal army gave way before an unexpected assault from the enemy, and fled in the widest confusion. He and all the officers who retained any reason tried in vain to rally their men. It was perfect panic, and the flying multitude, incapable of con trol, carried everybody and everything along with it. He ikened it to an ava lanche or a tidal wave. The only way to avoid being crushed to death was to yield to the mighty pressure. He, with thousands of others, was borne along several miles, and ultimately found him. self at Centerville.
 The scene at the narrow wooden bridge over brook on the Centerville turnpike was extraordinary and bewildering. A | throng of civilians had come from Wash ! ington on horseback and in carriages to witness what they had been told was glorious victory. Bitter was their disap- pointment and great their alarm when they saw, at that point, hurrying, fright ened masses of soldiers, army wagons, artillery inextricably involved and hope lessly confused. The heat was excessive the dust choking, tile panic complete Men were shouting, swearing, struggling like mad, horses plunging, whinneying, evidently scared as much as their mas ters. A cannon shot struck caisson on the bridge, shattered it and obstructed the way. Then the dismay, disorder and uproar increased to a terrific point. Men surged over the broken caisson; others leaped from the bridge; many rushed through the stream; artillery horses were cut from the traces and ridden by their frantic drivers through the trembling. screaming crowd. The wonder was that hundreds were not killed in the chaotic jam. The fugitives scrambled through and over every obstacle, and pushed their tumultuous course toward some imagined place of safety as the shadows of even- 1 ing fell
 The defeat was evidently irreparable. It was also evident that the enemy was in no condition to pursue his enormous advantage, which was a great consola- tion. DarrelPs idea of war was rudely changed. It seemed to him that many of the Union troops were consummate towards, and he. did not spare his bitter denunciations. He learned in subsequent battles that what we call courage is largely dependent on accustomedness. Men who had run like sheep from indef mite peril on that memorable July day afterward proved themselves valiant and earned the name of heroes. Bull Run was a great and impressive lesson to Darrell as well as to the whole north. The mortifying repulse and disgraceful panic was of immeasurable benefit to the federals in the end. Darrell was deeply chagrined that he had not been wounded, but he was without a scratch, beyond the bruises inflicted by the fugitive masses in their mad race for Washington. He soon reflected that there was still time for wounds; but he had no idea of the slaughter of the next four years, which turned the nation into common house of mourning.
 Bull Run had made soldier of him; had increased his horror of aught ap- preaching cowardice; had taught him the priceless lesson of the need of cool ness under any and all circumstances. Bull Run was to him, as indeed it was to every free state, a kind of military edu- cation, and was duly profted by.
 As may be supposed, Helen and Dar- rell corresponded, and their letters were very much, no doubt, like those the ma- jority of young men and women write who are in love with one another. The correspondence may have been more TO- mantle, for their environment was more romantic and their emotion quickened with uncertainty and peril. She was, for the first few months, in constant fear that every newspaper she took up would inform her of his death. But, as the time heightened, and as he passed through battle after battle unharmed, | her terrOrs diminished thO1ph her anxi- cities continued.
 She became, as men become who are habitually exposed to danger, kind of fatalist, without any process of reason