August 2nd.—Mr. Olmsted visited me, in company with a young gentleman named Ritchie, son-in-law of James Wadsworth, who has been serving as honorary aide-de-camp on M’Dowell’s staff, but is now called to higher functions. They dined at my lodgings, and we talked over Bull Bun again. Mr. Ritchie did not leave Centreville till late in the evening, and slept at Fairfax Court House, where he remained till 8.30 a.m. on the morning of July 22nd, Wadsworth not stirring for two hours later. He said the panic was “horrible, disgusting, sickening,” and spoke in the harshest terms of the officers, to whom he applied a variety of epithets. Prince Napoleon has arrived.
