To aid in the purchase and arming of steamships and in the movement of troops and forwarding of supplies, President Lincoln, during the excitement incident to the isolation of Washington, conferred extraordinary powers upon Governor Morgan, William M. Evarts, and Moses H. Grinnell, to whom army officers were instructed to report for orders. Similar powers to act for the Treasury Department in the disbursement of public money were conferred upon John A. Dix, George Opdyke, and Richard M. Blatchford. These gentlemen gave no security and received no compensation, but "I am not aware," wrote Lincoln, at a later day, "that a dollar of the public funds, thus confided, without authority of law, to unofficial persons, was either lost or wasted."[15]
The Union Square meeting appointed a Union Defence Committee to raise money, provide supplies, and equip regiments. For the time this committee became the executive arm of the national government in New York, giving method to effort and concentrating the people's energies for the highest efficiency. John A. Dix, who had seen sixteen years of peace service in the regular army, equipped regiments and despatched them to Washington, while James S. Wadsworth, a man without military experience but of great public spirit, whose courage and energy especially fitted him for the work, loaded steamboats with provisions and accompanied them to Annapolis. Soon afterwards Dix became a major-general of volunteers, while Wadsworth, eager for active service, accepted an appointment on General McDowell's staff with the rank of major. This took him to Manassas, and within a month gave him a "baptism of fire" which distinguished him for coolness, high courage, and great capacity. On August 9 he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers, thus preceding in date of commission all other New Yorkers of similar rank not graduates of West Point.
A few weeks later Daniel E. Sickles, no less famous in the political arena, who was to win the highest renown as a fighter, received similar rank. Sickles, at the age of twenty-two, began public life as a member of the Assembly, and in the succeeding fourteen years served as corporation attorney, secretary of legation at London, State senator, and congressman. A Hunker in politics, an adept with the revolver, and fearless in defence, he had the habit of doing his own thinking. Tammany never had a stronger personality. He was not always a successful leader and he cared little for party discipline, but as an antagonist bent on having his own way his name had become a household word in the metropolis and in conventions. In the anti-slavery crusade his sympathies were Southern. He opposed Lincoln, he favoured compromise, and he encouraged the cotton States to believe in a divided North. Nevertheless, when the Union was assaulted, the soldier spirit that made him major of the Twelfth National Guards in 1852 took him to Washington at the head of the Excelsior Brigade, consisting of five regiments, fully armed and equipped, and ready to serve during the war. He reached the capital at the time when more regiments were offered than General Scott would accept, but with the energy that afterward characterised his action at Gettysburg he sought the President, who promptly gave him the order that mustered his men and put him in command.[16] Other leaders who had voiced Southern sentiments, notably John Cochrane, soon found places at the front. Indeed, those who had professed the warmest friendship for the South were among the first to speak or take up arms against it.
The Confederates, entering upon the path of revolution with the hope of a divided North, exhibited much feeling over this unanimity of sentiment. "Will the city of New York 'kiss the rod that smites her,'" asked the leading paper in Virginia, "and at the bidding of her Black Republican tyrants war upon her Southern friends and best customers? Will she sacrifice her commerce, her wealth, her population, her character, in order to strengthen the arm of her oppressors?"[17] Ten days later another influential representative of Southern sentiment, watching the proceedings of the great Union Square meeting, answered the inquiry. "The statesmen of the North," said the Richmond Enquirer, "heretofore most honoured and confided in by the South, have come out unequivocally in favor of the Lincoln policy of coercing and subjugating the South."[18] The Charleston Mercury called the roll of these statesmen in the several States. "Where," it asked, "are Fillmore, Van Buren, Cochrane, McKeon, Weed, Dix, Dickinson, and Barnard, of New York, in the bloody crusade proposed by President Lincoln against the South? Unheard of in their dignified retirement, or hounding on the fanatic warfare, or themselves joining 'the noble army of martyrs for liberty' marching on the South."[19] Other papers were no less indignant. "We are told," said the Richmond Examiner, "that the whole North is rallying as one man—Douglas, veering as ever with the popular breeze; Buchanan lifting a treacherous and time-serving voice of encouragement from the icy atmosphere of Wheatland; and well-fed and well-paid Fillmore, eating up all his past words of indignation for Southern injuries, and joining in the popular hue-and-cry against his special benefactors."[20] The Enquirer, speaking of Daniel S. Dickinson as "the former crack champion of Southern Rights," sneered at his having given his "adhesion to Lincoln and all his abolition works."[21] To the South which believed in the constitutional right of secession, the contest for the Union was a war of subjugation, and whoever took part in it was stigmatised. "The proposition to subjugate," said the Examiner, "comes from the metropolis of the North's boasted conservatism, even from the largest beneficiary of Southern wealth—New York City."[22]
In the midst of the patriotic uprising of the North, so disappointing and surprising to the South, an event occurred that cast a deep shadow over New York in common with the rest of the country. The press, presumably voicing public opinion, demanded that the army begin the work for which it was organised. Many reasons were given—some quixotic, some born of suspicion, and others wholly unworthy their source. The New York Tribune, in daily articles, became alarmingly impatient, expressing the fear that influences were keeping the armies apart until peace could be obtained on humiliating terms to the North.[23] Finally, on June 27, appeared a four-line, triple-leaded leader, printed in small capitals, entitled "The Nation's War-Cry." It was as mandatory as it was conspicuous. "Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the 20th of July! By that date the place must be held by the National Army!"[24] This war-cry appeared from day to day with editorials indicating a fear of Democratic intrigue, and hinting at General Scott's insincerity.[25]
General Scott did not approve a battle at that time. He thought the troops insufficiently drilled and disciplined. On the other hand, the President argued that a successful battle would encourage the country, maintain the unanimity of the war sentiment, and gain the respect of foreign governments. General McDowell had 30,000 men in the vicinity of Bull Run, Virginia, of whom 1,600 were regulars—the rest, for the most part, three months' volunteers whose term of enlistment soon expired. At Martinsburg, General Patterson, a veteran of two wars, commanded 20,000 Federal troops. Opposed to the Union forces, General Beauregard had an effective army of 22,000, with 9,000 in the Shenandoah Valley under command of Joseph E. Johnston. In obedience to the popular demand McDowell moved his troops slowly toward Beauregard's lines, and on Sunday, July 21, attacked with his whole force, gaining a complete victory by three o'clock in the afternoon. Meantime, however, Johnston, having eluded Patterson, brought to the field at the supreme moment two or three thousand fresh troops and turned a Confederate defeat into a Union rout and panic.[26]
After coolness and confidence had displaced the confusion of this wild stampede, it became clear that the battle of Bull Run had been well planned, and that for inexperienced and undisciplined troops McDowell's army had fought bravely. It appeared plain that had Patterson arrived with 2,300 fresh troops instead of Johnston, the Confederates must have been the routed and panic-stricken party. To the North, however, defeat was the source of much shame. It seemed a verification of the Southern boast that one Confederate could whip two Yankees, and deepened the conviction that the war was to be long and severe. Moreover, fear was expressed that it would minimise the much desired sympathy of England and other foreign governments. But it brought no abatement of energy. With one voice the press of the North demanded renewed activity, and before a week had elapsed every department of government girded itself anew for the conflict.[27] The vigour and enthusiasm of this period have been called a second uprising of the North, and the work of a few weeks exhibited the wonderful resources of a patriotic people.