“It 'll be over in a month,” said one, “and we 'll all be back here at home before our enlistment time's up.”
“Yes; the South'll be cleaned out in no time,” said another. “Those fellows are good on the brag, but when they look into the muzzles of Northern muskets they 'll turn tail and run.”
“Don't be so sure of that,” said a third. “The South may be wrong in all this business, but they 'll give us all the fighting we want.”
“You'd better go and fight for Jeff Davis,” was the retort which followed. “We don't want any fellows like you around us.”
“That we don't, you bet,” said another, and the sentiment was echoed by fully half the listeners.
“You 're all wrong,” persisted the man who had just spoken. “Don't misunderstand me; I'm just as good a Union man as anybody, and I'm going to fight for the Union, but I don't want anybody to go off half-cocked, and think we're going to lick the South out of its boots in no time; because we can't do it. We 're going to win in this fight; we 're twenty millions and they 're eight, and we've got most of the manufacturing and the men who know how to work with their hands. But the Southerners are Americans like ourselves, and can fight just as well as we can. They think they 're right, and thinking so makes a heap of difference when you go in for war. They 'll do their level best, just as we shall.”
“Perhaps they will,” was the reply, “but we 'll make short work of 'em.”
“All right,” responded the other, “we won't lose our tempers over it; but anybody who thinks the war will be over in three months doesn't appreciate American fighting ability, no matter on which side of the line it is found.”
This mode of putting the argument silenced some of his opponents, particularly when he followed it up by showing how the Southern regiments in the Mexican war covered themselves with glory side by side with the Northern ones. But the loudest of the talkers refused to be silenced, and continued to taunt him with being a sympathizer with the rebellion.
At the outbreak of the war a great deal of this kind of talk was to be heard on both sides; men in the North declaring that the South would be conquered and the war ended in three months, while people at the South boasted of the ability of one Southern man to whip three Northerners. When the armies fairly met in the field and steel clashed against steel all this boasting on both sides was silenced, and North and South learned to respect each other for their soldierly qualities. One of the greatest of military mistakes is to hold your enemy in contempt, and to this mistake is due some of the disasters of the early days of the war.