With voice and example he cheered on his men to hold their ground, and the officers closed up their ranks as they were thinned by the enemy's fire, and for an hour the struggle continued without marked advantage on either side.
Jackson's calmness was unshaken even in the excitement of the fight.

At one time an officer rode up to him from another portion of the field and exclaimed, "General, I think the day is going against us!" To which Jackson replied in his usual curt manner, "If you think so, sir, you had better not say anything about it." The resolute stand of the Confederates enabled General Beauregard to bring up fresh troops, and he at last gave the word to advance.
Jackson's brigade rushed forward on receiving the order, burst through the Federals with whom they were engaged, and, supported by the reserves, drove the enemy from the plateau.

Then the Federals, though vastly superior in force, brought up the reserves, and prepared to renew the attack; but 1700 fresh men of the Army of the Shenandoah came upon the field of battle, Smith and Early brought up their divisions from the river, and the whole Southern line advanced at the charge, and drove the enemy down the slopes and on toward the ford.
A panic seized them, and their regiments broke up and took to headlong flight, which soon became an utter rout.

Many of them continued their flight for hours, and for a time the Federal army ceased to exist; and had the Confederates advanced, as Jackson desired that they should do, Washington would have fallen into their hands without a blow being struck in its defense.
This, the first great battle of the war, is sometimes known as the battle of Manassas, but more generally as Bull Run.
With the exception of one or two charges, the little body of Confederate horse did not take any part in the battle of Bull Run.

Had they been aware of the utter stampede of the Northern troops, they could safely have pressed forward in hot pursuit as far as Washington, but being numerically so inferior to the Federal cavalry, and in ignorance that the Northern infantry had become a mere panic-stricken mob, it would have been imprudent in the extreme for such a handful of cavalry to undertake the pursuit of an army.
Many of the Confederates were of opinion that this decisive victory would be the end of the war, and that the North, seeing that the South was able as well as willing to defend the position it had taken up, would abandon the idea of coercing it into submission.