Sunday, July 21, 1861.
President Lincoln returns to White House about 7 P.M. and learns from Sec. Seward that battle has been lost. Remains awake all night, listening to stories of senators and congressmen returning from battlefield. The editor of the National Intelligencer, who went out on Sunday as one of the volunteer nurses says the battle, it is said, was planned and commanded on our part, for the greater portion of the time by General Siegel, who gave orders to our forces to hold their position and await attack by the enemy, supposed to be Jackson. Instead of this McDowell, who holds the extreme left, advanced in attacked Longstreet’s division on the enemies right. He was met by a terrible thro from the rebels, during which General Slocum’s brigade was terribly cut up and McDowell was forced to give way. He was reinforced by a portion of Fitz John Porter’s division, and any attack was made on the assailants, when they were in turn driven back to their original positions.
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