On the morning of Sunday, July 21, McDowell’s troops splashed across Bull Run and so successfully drove the Confederate left that victory seemed imminent. At noon, John G. Nicolay reported from the White House that “everybody is in great suspense. General Scott talked confidently this morning of success, and very calmly and quietly went to church.” Every fifteen minutes or so, Lincoln received dispatches from a telegrapher near the battlefield—young Andrew Carnegie—describing what he was able to hear. Uneasy because those bulletins implied that Union forces were retreating, the president shortly after lunch called on Scott, who was napping. (The 300-pound veteran suffered from gout and dropsy, among other ailments, and would doze off at inopportune times.) Lincoln wakened him and offered a pessimistic interpretation of the dispatches, which Scott insisted were poor indicators of the battle’s progress, for shifting winds, echoes, and the like so affected sounds that no conclusion could be drawn from them. The general-in-chief assured Lincoln that McDowell would prevail. Back at the War Department, the president joined Seward, who puffed confidently on a cigar, and Cameron, who forcefully expressed optimism. Lincoln, according to a telegraph operator, was “deeply impressed with the responsibilities of the occasion” and, exuding “quiet dignity,” made only a few measured observations. He grew more hopeful when midafternoon dispatches suggested that the Confederates were falling back. Scott believed this report and predicted that Union forces would soon take Manassas. Somewhat reassured, the president left for his customary afternoon ride, visiting the navy yard, where he told its commander, John A. Dahlgren, that “that the armies were hotly engaged and the other side [was] getting the worst of it.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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