"Night has closed upon a hard-fought field. Our forces were victorious. The enemy was routed and fled precipitately, abandoning a large amount of arms, ammunition, knapsacks, and baggage. The ground was strewed for miles with those killed, and the farmhouses and the ground around were filled with wounded. Our force was fifteen thousand; that of the enemy estimated at thirty-five thousand."
That account is sufficiently accurate except as to figures. Jeff Davis never could be trusted in such circumstances to give figures with any approach to accuracy. Lossing estimates that the Federal forces were 13,000, and the Confederates about 27,000. This is certainly nearer the truth than the boast of Jeff Davis. But a fact not less important than the numbers was that the Confederate reinforcements were fresh, while the Federal forces were nearly exhausted from marching half the night before the fighting began.
Although the victorious forces were effectively checked at Centerville, those who fled in absolute rout and uncontrollable panic were enough to give the occasion a lasting place in history. The citizens who had gone to see the battle had not enjoyed their trip. The soldiers who had thought that this war was a sort of picnic had learned that the foe was formidable. The administration that had expected to crush the insurrection by one decisive blow became vaguely conscious of the fact that the war was here to stay months and years.
It is a curious trait of human nature that people are not willing to accept a defeat simply. The mind insists on explaining the particular causes of that specific defeat. Amusing instances of this are seen in all games: foot-ball, regattas, oratorical contests. Also in elections; the defeated have a dozen reasons to explain why the favorite candidate was not elected as he should have been. This trait came out somewhat clamorously after the battle of Bull Run. A large number of plausible explanations were urged on Mr. Lincoln, who finally brought the subject to a conclusion by the remark: "I see. We whipped the enemy and then ran away from him!"
The effect of the battle of Bull Run on the South was greatly to encourage them and add to their enthusiasm. The effect on the North was to deepen their determination to save the flag, to open their eyes to the fact that the southern power was strong, and with renewed zeal and determination they girded themselves for the conflict. But the great burden fell on Lincoln. He was disappointed that the insurrection was not and could not be crushed by one decisive blow. There was need of more time, more men, more money, more blood. These thoughts and the relative duties were to him, with his peculiar temperament, a severer trial than they could have been to perhaps any other man living. He would not shrink from doing his full duty, though it was so hard.
It made an old man of him. The night before he decided to send bread to Sumter he slept not a wink. That was one of very many nights when he did not sleep, and there were many mornings when he tasted no food. But weak, fasting, worn, aging as he was, he was always at his post of duty. The most casual observer could see the inroads which these mental cares made upon his giant body. It was about a year later than this that an old neighbor and friend, Noah Brooks of Chicago, went to Washington to live, and he has vividly described the change in the appearance of the President.
In Harper's Monthly for July, 1865, he writes: "Though the intellectual man had greatly grown meantime, few persons would recognize the hearty, blithesome, genial, and wiry Abraham Lincoln of earlier days in the sixteenth President of the United States, with his stooping figure, dull eyes, careworn face, and languid frame. The old clear laugh never came back; the even temper was sometimes disturbed; and his natural charity for all was often turned into unwonted suspicion of the motives of men, whose selfishness caused him so much wear of mind."
Again, the same writer said in Scribner's Monthly for February, 1878: "There was [in 1862] over his face an expression of sadness, and a faraway look in the eyes, which were utterly unlike the Lincoln of other days…. I confess that I was so pained that I could almost have shed tears…. By and by, when I knew him better, his face was often full of mirth and enjoyment; and even when he was pensive or gloomy, his features were lighted up very much as a clouded alabaster vase might be softly illuminated by a light within."
He still used his epigram and was still reminded of "a little story," when he wished to point a moral or adorn a tale. But they were superficial indeed who thought they saw in him only, or chiefly, the jester. Once when he was reproved for reading from a humorous book he said with passionate earnestness that the humor was his safety valve. If it were not for the relief he would die. It was true. But he lived on, not because he wanted to live, for he would rather have died. But it was God's will, and his country needed him.