Dick Mason, caught in the press of a beaten army, fell back slowly with his comrades toward a ford of Bull Run.  The first great battle of the Civil War had been fought and lost.  Lost, after it had been won!  Young as he was Dick knew that fortune had been with the North until the very closing hour.  He did not yet know how it had been done.  He did not know how the Northern charges had broken in vain on the ranks of Stonewall Jackson's men.  He did not know how the fresh Southern troops from the Valley of Virginia had hurled themselves so fiercely on the Union flank.  But he did know that his army had been defeated and was retreating on the capital.

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