Alas for America's glory!This relative condition of the parties was temporary. The loyal people instantly recovered from the stunning blow,2 and in that recovery awakened from the delusive dream that their armies were invincible, that the Confederates were only passionate and not strong, and that the rebellion could be crushed in ninety days, as the hopeful Secretary of State had predicted, and continued to predict. It was evident that the battle just fought was only the beginning of a desperate struggle with the enemies of the Republic, who had made thorough preparation for the conflict, and had resolved to win the prize at all hazards. With this conviction of danger added to the sting of mortified national pride, the patriotism of the Loyalists was intensely exercised. The Government, which had been lulled into feelings of security by the song of its own egotism, and had hesitated when urged to engage more troops, “for three years or the war,” was now also aroused to a painful sense of danger and the penalties of misjudgment; and the Secretary of War, who had refused to sanction a call for a larger body of Pennsylvania volunteers
Ichabod-vanished outright;
And all the magnificent story
Told as a dream of the night!
Alas for the Heroes and Sages,
Saddened, in Hades, to know
That what they had built for all ages,
Melts like a palace of snow!
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their eager flight from the suspected dangers of an imaginary pursuit of Confederate cavalry.
His was, in a great degree, a tale of the imagination, “founded on fact,” and well served the conspirators for a brief season.1 It excited among the ruling classes in Europe a derision of the loyal people and the Government of the United States, and the desires of the enemies of republicanism and the sovereignty of the people were gratified.
The ruin of the Great Republic of the West seemed to them almost as certain as a fact accomplished.
English statesmen and journalists dogmatically asserted it, and deplored the folly and wickedness of the President and Congress, in “waging war upon Sovereign States,” in vindication of an idea and a principle, and attempting to hold in union, by force, a people who had the right and the desire to withdraw from a hated fellowship.
It was declared that “the bubble of Democracy had burst.”
There was joyful wailing over “the late United States;” and one of England's poets was constrained to write--
1 Although nearly disabled by weariness of mind and body, Dr. Russell wrote his famous dispatch to the Times during the night succeeding his flight from Centreville, that it might go to England by the next Boston steamer. “The pen went flying about the paper,” he says, “as if the spirits were playing tricks with it. When I screwed up my utmost resolution, the ‘y's’ would still run into long streaks, and the letters combine most curiously, and my eyes closed, and my pen slipped.” After a brief nap, he was aroused by a messenger from Lord Lyons, to inquire after him, and invite him to supper. “I resumed my seat,” he says, “haunted by the memory of the Boston mail, which would be closed in a few hours, and I had much to tell, although I had not seen the battle.” On the testimony thus given, the Times said (August 10, 1861): “It is evident that the whole volunteer army of the Northern States is worthless as a military organization . . . . a screaming crowd ;” and spoke of it as a collection of “New York rowdies and Boston abolitionists, desolating the villages of Virginia.”
2 Five days after the Battle of Bull's Run, the Secretary of State wrote to Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, saying: “Our Army of the Potomac, on Sunday last, met a reverse equally severe and unexpected. For a day or two the panic which had produced the result was followed by a panic that seemed to threaten to demoralize the country. But that evil has ceased already. The result is already seen in vigorous reconstruction upon a scale of greater magnitude and increased enthusiasm.”
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