The attack upon Sumter and Lincoln’s call to arms roused the North from its apathy. Excitement grew when the 7th Massachusetts regiment, passing through Baltimore on its way to headquarters, was violently attacked by the mob: when the Southern army, already in the field, captured Harper’s Ferry and seized the Union arsenal at Gosport.
CHAPTER VII
THE WAR
War began in Virginia. West Virginia was free, East Virginia slave-holding; the State was the natural meeting-place for the two armies. On the 21st July they met at Bull Run: the engagement could hardly be called a battle—on neither side was there any order or discipline. More than once during the day the Southern army seemed to be beaten, but it rallied, and the Federalists, as the Union soldiers were called, broke into a disgraceful retreat, which became an awful panic. The fugitives poured into Washington, haggard and dust-stained: everything seemed lost. Lincoln did not go to bed all night; he paced up and down in his room, expecting that the victorious Confederate army would march upon Washington, and the war be at an end. It did not come. The opportunity was lost. A battle had been gained; that was all.
The moral effect of the battle of Bull Run was very great indeed. The South thought the war was over, the North saw that it had only begun.
At first, the Confederates seemed to have great advantages. The army was the one profession for a Southern gentleman; nearly all their young men were trained at the military academy at West Point, and a great many of the officers of the United States army had been Southerners. These men now left the Union army and gave their services to the Confederates; among them was General Robert Lee, who became General-in-Chief of the Confederate army. Lincoln’s difficulties were greatly increased by the fact that so many officers and men went over to the Confederates. At the beginning, the South had a larger and better-trained army in the field; and at first there were plenty of volunteers. But after Bull Run, she thought the war was finished; and events proved that, in a long war, the North must win by reason of her greater staying power.
The South was as enthusiastic as the North, and at the beginning better prepared, but not equal in resources of any sort. The South was entirely dependent on agriculture; all the necessaries of life came from the North and from Europe. Whereas the South had to import all her ammunition, the North had powder-magazines of her own, and a people of mechanics. And the Confederacy was soon to find that men are useless without arms. Great sufferings were endured, wonderful invention and patience was shown, on both sides there was great heroism; but in the end the resources of the North decided the day.
Lincoln threw all his energy into the task of getting ready an army, and in a short time the Northern soldier was as well trained and equipped as the Southern.
The battle of Bull Run roused the North: quickened by shame, the people were ready to fight to the bitter end. For the next two years, however, they were disheartened by continual disaster: army after army was destroyed, position after position lost: gloom descended on the nation. In the dark times of defeat men turned upon Lincoln and blamed him for everything.
His position was difficult indeed. As head of the State, he was also commander of the army; but he had to entrust the actual management of the campaigns to others. He followed and understood their tactics, but was too wise to try to direct their movements. Only occasionally did he offer advice—wise advice, which his generals were not always wise enough to accept. At first the generals were not men of great ability. M’Clellan, the commander, drilled his army in a wonderful way, but never used it to any effect. In the Virginian campaign of 1861 and 1862 he threw away numberless opportunities. His place was taken by Burnside at the end of 1862; but not until the rise of Ulysses S. Grant did Lincoln discover a really great commander. The generals quarrelled with one another, and all were ready to complain of the President. Lincoln’s difficulties were increased by the fact that many people, when they found that the North was not going to conquer immediately, said that the war was a mistake: the South ought to be allowed to go if it wanted to. Lincoln did not think it right to let the South go: and because to keep it was proving difficult, was never to him a reason for ceasing to do what he saw to be right.
The newspapers abused Lincoln because the war, instead of being finished in three months, seemed likely to last for years. For long his own Cabinet was hardly loyal to him: each member thought he could manage affairs better himself. Seward, who was Chief Secretary, thought Lincoln stupid, and was anxious to arrange everything; but as experience of his chief taught him he became Lincoln’s devoted admirer. Chase the Treasurer plotted against him: Stanton the War Secretary openly declared that “things would go all right but for the imbecile at the head.” Stanton had no sense of humour, and an ungovernable temper. He did not understand Lincoln at all for a long time: his jokes puzzled and annoyed him, and he used to jump up and down with rage. He did not see that to a man of a deeply melancholy nature like Lincoln, a dreamer and something of a poet, some outlet, some way of escaping from himself, was necessary. Lincoln was marvellously patient with Stanton, and won his deep affection. The Cabinet might criticise; but Lincoln’s firm will dominated them all. The policy of the Government was the President’s policy.