But no study of the battle can be complete without the aid of General Buell's articles in the Century Magazine, and the maps of the field, which he has so carefully prepared.
What were the results of this first great battle of the war? Its influence upon the gigantic contest which was to be waged for three years longer was probably not great. It was too near a drawn battle. But if it was necessary to demonstrate to the world and to ourselves the courage of our people, that generations of peace and peaceful pursuits had not one whit lessened the force or the enthusiasm of the race that peopled this Western Continent, then here was demonstration the most positive.
The people of the South for the first time realized the nature of the conflict they had provoked. Until this campaign, the great mass of the Southerners could not be made to believe that the students and farmers and mechanics and merchants of the North loved their country and its institutions more than they loved the gains of peace; nay, more than they loved their lives. They saw here an army of young men representing their kindred of the North, fighting, not for their own homes and firesides, but for the perpetuity of the Nation, with a courage and pertinacity which showed that this generation was resolved to transmit what it had received from the fathers of the country. They saw this army attacked at every disadvantage, rally at the call of a chief worthy of it, and who was a type of its character and its lofty motives, and then bravely endure a storm unparalleled on this continent.
The thousands of youthful dead left on that bloody battlefield demonstrated that we have a country and a race worthy to take the lead in the march of human advancement.
Warren Olney.