James dutifully smiled, though in truth he found the ways of these newspapermen shockingly dishonest. Many of these journalists had already written their accounts of this day’s battle, using their imaginations to describe how the cowardly troops of the slave masters had fled at the first sight of the Stars and Stripes, and how other rebel soldiers had fallen penitent to their knees rather than open fire on the glorious old flag. Northern cavalry had trampled their hooves red in the slavocracy’s gore and northern bayonets had become sticky with southern blood. James might be shocked by the dishonesty, but as the stories merely reported an outcome for which he most earnestly prayed, he did not feel comfortable in expressing reproof lest he should be considered defeatist. Defeat, after all, was unthinkable, for this was the day when the rebellion must be broken and the race to Richmond could begin.

There was a sudden flurry at the foot of the hill as the artillery horses were freed from their gun and limber traces. The guns had been placed behind a snake-rail fence and were aimed toward a handsome stone bridge that carried the turnpike over the stream. The bridge was the key to Brigadier General McDowell’s hopes for, by persuading the rebels that his main attack would be an assault straight down the turnpike, he hoped to draw their forces forward in the bridge’s defense while his secret flanking column curled about their rear. Other northern troops would demonstrate against the enemy’s right wing, but the vital achievement was to hold the rebel left wing hard up against the stone bridge so that the northern flank attack would sweep unopposed and undetected into the Confederate rear. The rebels had thus to be deceived into believing that the feigned attack on the bridge was the main attack of the day, and to add verisimilitude to that deception a massive piece of artillery had been brought forward to open the fake assault.