3. The failure of General Scott to send forward with General McDowell a force adequate to provide against all contingencies. The fact that twenty thousand volunteers remained idle and useless, throughout that eventful Sunday, in and immediately around Washington - Scott having obstinately resisted entreaties that they should be despatched to the front; insisting that McDowell had "men enough"; that he needed no cavalry, etc. - of itself attests strongly the imbecility and lack of purpose that then presided over our military councils.
4. The Confederates were kept thoroughly acquainted by their friends, left in the Union service, with all that took place or was meditated on that side, and so were able to anticipate and baffle every movement of those armies. Thus, a military map or plan of the region directly west of Washington had been completed for the War Department barely two days before the Union advance reached Centerville; but, the movement being rapid, the Confederates left here many articles in their hasty flight, and, among them, a copy of this map, which was supposed to be unknown to all but a few of our highest officers.
5. The fall, very early in the action, of General David Hunter commanding the Second or leading division, was most untimely and unfortunate. He was so seriously wounded that he was necessarily borne from the field. General Heintzelman, commanding the Third division, was also wounded, not as severely, but so as to disable him. General McDowell either had control of Runyon's division, guarding his line of communication, or he had not. If he had, he should have ordered the bulk of it to advance that morning on Centerville, so as to have it well in hand to precipitate on the foe at the decisive moment; or, if he was so hampered by Scott that he was not at liberty to do this, he should have refused to attack, and resigned the command of the army, rather than fight a battle so fettered.
6. The original call of President Lincoln on the States, for seventy-five thousand militia to serve three months, was a deplorable error. It resulted naturally from that obstinate infatuation which would believe, in defiance of all history and probability, that a revolt of nearly ten millions of people was to be put down in sixty or ninety days by some process equivalent to reading the Riot Act to an excited mob and sending a squad of police to disperse it. Hence, the many prisoners of war taken with arms in their hands, in West Virginia and Missouri, had up to this time been quite commonly permitted to go at large on taking an oath of fidelity to the Constitution - a process which, in their view, was about as significant and imposing as taking a glass of cider. The Government had only to call for any number of men it required, to serve during the pleasure of Congress, or till the overthrow of the rebellion, and they could have been had at once. Regiments were pressed upon it from all sides; and the hotels of Washington were crowded by keen competitors for the coveted privilege of raising more batteries and fresh battalions.
7. It is impossible not to see that the Confederate troops were better handled during the conflict than the Union men. General McDowell, who had not participated in any former battle but that of Buena Vista, where he served as aid to General Wool, appears to have had very little control over the movements of his forces after the beginning of the conflict.
8. Although the Federal army, before that disastrous fight, was largely composed of the bravest and truest patriots in the Union, it contained also much indifferent material. Many, in the general stagnation and dearth of employment, had volunteered under a firm conviction that there would be no serious fighting; that the Confederates were not in earnest; that there would be a promenade, a frolic, and ultimately a compromise, which would send everyone home, unharmed and exultant, to receive from admiring, cheering thousands the guerdon of his valor. Hence some regiments were very badly officered, and others gave way and scattered or fled just when they were most needed.
“It is good to know our sins, that we may not flatter ourselves.”
–Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial