18th at Manassas as a result of playing night orderly from midnight to
morning.

Under the cloudless sky of the perfect Sunday, the twenty-first, he
watched the progress of the battle till the cheer that rang from end
to end of the Confederate line told him that the South had won. After
midnight that night he carried to the telegraph office the message in
which President Davis announced the victory and, walking back through
the clear, still night, saw the comet, forerunner of evil, hanging
over the field, as if in recognition of a fiery spirit on earth akin
to its own. At headquarters on Monday, the 22d, he looked out at the
pouring rain and raged over the inaction which kept the victorious
army idle on the field of victory instead of following up the
advantage by a march into the enemy's Capital, a movement which he
thought could have been carried through to complete success.

Having watched over his wounded friend, Lieutenant James K. Lee, until
death came with eternal peace. Dr. Bagby was sent with the dead
soldier to Richmond and soon afterward was discharged because of ill
health, "and thus ended the record of an unrenowned warrior."

He returned to his work on the _Messenger_ and the editorial sanctum
became the meeting place of the wits of Richmond. It was here that the
celebrated Confederate version of "Mother Goose" was evolved from the
conjoined wisdom of the circle and written with the stub of the
editorial pencil on the "cartridge-paper table-cloth," one stanza
dealing with a certain Northern general thus:

Little Be-Pope came on with a lope,
Jackson, the Rebel, to find him;