Alexandria Gazette

Bull Run,
By this time day began to break and a large number of fugitives came driving along. They appeared so utterly demoralized that I brought down four companies from the fort, and placed two companies across the road with a view to check the rout, and two companies amid a field to guard the men and animals I intended to corral. Ambulances came up containing the dead bodies of officers with frightened soldiers sitting upon or lying beside them, and every horse that day, whether to a loaded down vehicle or not, carried two or three men, some times four, while the retreating artillerymen, with only the caissons of their guns brought from the field, had them literally covered with men. In this throng were the carriages of members of Congress, distinguished gentlemen, newspaper correspondents and others, many of them bareheaded, and all anxious to diminish the distance from Washington. Wagons of provisions, quartermasters and commissary stores, I ordered into the fort, as we had but three days' rations. So frightened were the teamsters that in one instance they cut the traces of their teams, in order to get out of the fort as quickly as possible. With this supply of pork, beans and flour thus obtained, the men of the Seventeenth put on duty were set to work to construct bomb-proofs for wounded men in case of action,-
The guard on the road had stopped the retreating rabble, and I had collected in the field near the fort between two and three hundred officers' horses and about four thousand men, of all regiments, coatless, hatless and shoeless, with not twenty muskets among them all. I then sent Col. Morris back through the fields to examine the road and report its condition.
It was raining heavily; the roads were broken and muddy and the fugitives in a sorry plight.
While out upon the road the adjutant of the Seventeenth came to me with the report that the fort was filled with men of the United States army who had come in from the rear over the drawbridge. On entering the fort I saw coming toward me Col. J. H. McCunn, of the Thirty-seventh New York Volunteers; Col. John McCloud Murphy, of the Fiftieth New York Volunteers (afterward the Fifteenth Engineers) Col. James Kerrigan, of the Twenty-fifth New York Volunteers, and Colonel W. H. Christian, of the Twenty-sixth New York volunteers. The conversation between these gentlemen was neither soldierly nor polite. Col. Kerrigan was telling Col. McCunn very coolly that he was a very poor police justice, and a worse soldier, and he would see him in a hot place before he would obey an order he gave. Colonel Murphy said he thought Kerrigan was about right. Col. Christian, being a mild mannered man, said nothing; but Col. McCunn, taking me one side, said: "Col., here are my orders from General Scott" He was ordered by General Scott to take command of these four regiments, go to Fort Ellsworth with this force, and prevent the inroad of the victorious Confederates. "But' said the Col. "although I have those orders I will waive them for rank, and as you rank me I will report to you for orders."
On going back and informing the other gentlemen of Colonel McCunn's decision they expressed themselves perfectly satisfied, and said they would obey any order I gave them. Colonel McCunn having been a police justice, and somewhat familiar with police duty in New York, I considered him the proper man to send to Alexandria to patrol the city and prevent outrage and robbery by the fugitives who were pouring in. He was therefore ordered to Alexandria to perform that duty, and open Warehouses and other large buildings in which to house the worn out men.
Gen. H. S. Lansing in the Philadelphia Weekly Times