I Have Always Thought That The Tone And Manner With
Which The North Bore The Defeat At Bull's Run Was Creditable To It.
It Was Never Denied, Never Explained Away, Never Set Down As
Trifling.
"We have been whipped," was what all Northerners said;
"we've got an almighty whipping, and here we are." I
Have heard
many Englishmen complain of this - saying that the matter was taken
almost as a joke, that no disgrace was felt, and that the licking
was owned by a people who ought never to have allowed that they had
been licked. To all this, however, I demur. Their only chance of
speedy success consisted in their seeing and recognizing the truth.
Had they confessed the whipping, and then sat down with their hands
in their pockets - had they done as second-rate boys at school will
do, declare that they had been licked, and then feel that all the
trouble is over - they would indeed have been open to reproach. The
old mother across the water would in such case have disowned her
son. But they did the very reverse of this. "I have been
whipped," Jonathan said, and he immediately went into training
under a new system for another fight.
And so all through September and October the great armies on the
Potomac rested comparatively in quiet - the Northern forces drawing
to themselves immense levies. The general confidence in McClellan
was then very great; and the cautious measures by which he
endeavored to bring his vast untrained body of men under discipline
were such as did at that time recommend themselves to most military
critics. Early in September the Northern party obtained a
considerable advantage by taking the fort at Cape Hatteras, in
North Carolina, situated on one of those long banks which lie along
the shores of the Southern States; but, toward the end of October,
they experienced a considerable reverse in an attack which was made
on the secessionists by General Stone, and in which Colonel Baker
was killed. Colonel Baker had been Senator for Oregon, and was
well known as an orator. Taking all things together, however,
nothing material had been done up to the end of October; and at
that time Northern men were waiting - not perhaps impatiently,
considering the great hopes and perhaps great fears which filled
their hearts, but with eager expectation - for some event of which
they might talk with pride.
The man to whom they had trusted all their hopes was young for so
great a command. I think that, at this time, (October, 1861,)
General McClellan was not yet thirty-five. He had served, early in
life, in the Mexican war, having come originally from Pennsylvania,
and having been educated at the military college at West Point.
During our war with Russia he was sent to the Crimea by his own
government, in conjunction with two other officers of the United
States army, that they might learn all that was to be learned there
as to military tactics, and report especially as to the manner in
which fortifications were made and attacked.
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