Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[258] intrigues; this is a reproach which attaches not only to all political assemblies, but to every human power. By their impatience and unseasonable interference in military matters, they sometimes jeopardized success; but to make up for this they gave to the nation, at every critical period of the war, the example of perseverance, and manifested that true patriotism which is stimulated more by defeat than by victory, and which after each reverse resolutely imposes upon itself new and heavier sacrifices. If the check of Bull Run demonstrated the inexperience of the American soldiers, it also proved that the people to whom they belonged possessed that manly temperament which gathers strength from adversity, and that constancy which, after many delays and fruitless efforts, succeeded at last in rendering available resources ignored by their adversaries.

It is an error, we believe, to attribute the honor of this quality exclusively to the Anglo-Saxon race; we should rather attribute it to the working of free institutions. A people living under such institutions do not prepare for war after the manner of conspirators; hence the frequent checks that are experienced at the outset; but they profit by experience, their courage increases in proportion to the magnitude of the struggle, they persevere in it because they have voluntarily assumed its responsibilities, and every citizen, making it a personal matter, sustains the common cause with a zeal which develops the national strength at the very moment when a despotic government would already have been struck powerless before a wearied and unsympathizing public.

Hence it is that the creation of those large armies which carried the national flag during a period of four years dates from the 22d of July. The imperfect organization which united the heterogeneous elements led by McDowell to the field of Manassas had not been able to withstand the first shock, and his army had melted away like a lump of ice before the fire of the battle. On that day all America understood that an army cannot subsist and move about like an individual; that there should be, on the one hand, an active and educated staff to regulate its movements—on the other hand, an experienced administrative department to provide for its daily wants; and that without these appliances it becomes an inert and lifeless body in the hands of the ablest