The History of the Civil War (Complete Edition). James Ford Rhodes
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hard-fighting soldiers-no more hurrahing, no more humbug." The Commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States took the advice of his Colonel in good part and, on reaching the first camp, stood up in his carriage and made, as Sherman characterized it, "one of the neatest, best and most feeling addresses I ever listened to, referring to our late disaster at Bull Run, the high duties that still devolved on us and the brighter days yet to come. At one or two points the soldiers began to cheer, but he checked them with: 'Don't cheer, boys. I confess I rather like it myself but Colonel Sherman here says it is not military; and I guess we had better defer to his opinion.'"100 As he went the rounds, he made the same speech to other soldiers. The effect of his visit was good and proved an earnest of the hold he was soon to acquire on the army.
Sherman thought Bull Run a well-planned battle but badly fought, and Johnston agreed with him. "If the tactics of the Federals had been equal to their strategy," wrote Johnston, "we should have been beaten." Ropes, on the other hand, believed McDowell's tactics better than his strategy. The difference of opinion does not concern the layman, to whom the battle of Bull Run appears as the encounter of two armed mobs in an open field, fighting with the utmost courage to solve a question that had baffled the wisdom of their statesmen.
A spectator, watching Henry House hill, would have seen many of the Union companies and regiments clad in the brilliant militia uniforms which they were accustomed to wear in Fourth-of-July processions. The showy Zouave dress with fez or turban and red or yellow baggy trousers was affected by many. These uniforms as contrasted with the sober United States blue of after battles are strikingly emblematic of the difference between a holiday parade responding to the call "On to Richmond" and the stern purpose of subduing a united South.
At Bull Run the rank and file of both armies heard for the first time in their lives the sound of cannon and muskets in hostile combat, saw cannon balls crashing through trees and saplings above and around them striking down their friends and brothers, saw a blood-stained field strewed with dead men and horses. And fighting blood was there even though fighting craft were yet to be acquired. The numbers of the dead and wounded "show hard fighting."101
Apart from the newspapers there seems to have been little boasting in the South. The men in authority did not for a moment believe that the North would give up the contest. On the contrary they felt that a long and hard struggle was before them.
For a while bitter discouragement prevailed at the North; and the blow was the harder to bear, inasmuch as England, from whom sympathy was ardently desired, now regarded the dissolution of the Union as an accomplished fact. Friends of the South saw in this victory a promise of her eventual triumph and to help forward her cause, endeavored to cloud the issue. "It is surprising," wrote Charles Francis Adams, our minister to Great Britain, in a private letter from London, "to see the efforts made here to create the belief that our struggle has nothing to do with slavery, but that it is all about a tariff.… I cannot conceal from myself the fact that as a whole the English are pleased with our misfortunes."102
Fifty-two years after the struggle, this feeling may be accounted for by the remark of Rochefoucauld, "The misfortunes of our best friends are not entirely displeasing to us"; but such an attitude during the war on the part of the kin across the sea was felt bitterly by men who were risking life and fortune in what they deemed a sacred cause.103
1 Nov. 6. For a characterization of Lincoln, see II, 308; Lect., 46.
2 See map.
3 I, II.
4 On the Amer. Civil War, 1913.
5 III, 115.
6 Jowett, III, 82.
7 Dec. 20, 1860.
8 III, 114-125, 192-206; Lect., 65 et seq.
9 I, 39 et ante.
10 I, Chap. II.
11 I class as cotton States, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas.
12 See I and II.
13 A real slave State was impossible. Twenty-two slaves in the territory was the result of seven years'work. III, 176, 268 n., 313. In New Mexico there was a belt 30 miles wide with additional width at the eastern end which was north of 36° 30'.
14 III, 150-179, 253-265; Lect., 68 et seq. For a Senate vote Jan. 16, 1861, III, 266. For vote of the House Feb. 27, 1861, and of the Senate March 2 on the Crittenden Compromise, III, 313.
15 Texas was not at first represented. III, 291, n. 4.
16 I, 389.
17 III, 291-296, 320-325; Lect., 77 et seq. The first session of this Provisional Congress ended March 16.
18 Lincoln, C. W. I., 660.
19 III, 318.
20 III, 280, 285 n., 321.
21 II, 450.
22 III, 216.
23 Bancroft, II, 134, 136, 157.
24 It was not disclosed until Nicolay and Hay printed it in their History in the Century Magazine, February, 1888.
25 III, 326, 327.
26 The full strength of the regular army was 17,000 men, N. & H., IV, 65.
27 III, 341.
28 I bid.