10.15 P.M.

Banks still was absent at Bristoe Station, in charge of the trains and stores which had been removed from Warrenton; but, shortly after ten o’clock, 65,000 men, with eight-and-twenty batteries, were at Pope’s disposal.  He had determined to give battle, although Franklin and Sumner, who had already reached Alexandria, had not yet joined him; and he anticipated an easy triumph.  He was labouring, however, under an extraordinary delusion.  The retreat of Hood’s brigades the preceding night, after their reconnaissance, had induced him to believe that Jackson had been defeated, and he had reported to Halleck at daybreak; “We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field, which we now occupy.  The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up.  We lost not less than 8000 men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost at least two to one.  The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating towards the mountains.”

If, in these days of long-range weapons, Napoleon’s dictum still stands good, that the general who is ignorant of his enemy’s strength and dispositions is ignorant of his trade, then of all generals Pope was surely the most incompetent.  At ten o’clock on the morning of August 30, and for many months afterwards, despite his statement that he had fought “the combined forces of the enemy” on the previous day, he was still under the impression, so skilfully were the Confederate troops concealed, that Longstreet had not yet joined Jackson, and that the latter was gradually falling back on Thoroughfare Gap.  His patrols had reported that the enemy’s cavalry had been withdrawn from the left bank of Bull Run.  A small reconnaissance in force, sent to test Jackson’s strength, had ascertained that the extreme left was not so far forward as it had been yesterday; while two of the Federal generals, reconnoitring beyond the turnpike, observed only a few skirmishers.  On these negative reports Pope based his decision to seize the ridge which was held by Jackson.  Yet the woods along the unfinished railroad had not been examined, and the information from other sources was of a different colour and more positive.  Buford’s cavalry had reported on the evening of the 29th that a large force had passed through Thoroughfare Gap.  Porter declared that the enemy was in great strength on the Manassas road.  Reynolds, who had been in close contact with Longstreet since the previous afternoon, reported that Stuart’s Hill was strongly occupied.  Ricketts, moreover, who had fought Longstreet for many hours at Thoroughfare Gap, was actually present on the field.  But Pope, who had made up his mind that the enemy ought to retreat, and that therefore he must retreat, refused credence to any report whatever which ran counter to these preconceived ideas.