CONSEQUENCES OF THE BATTLE. quiries by Mr. Elliott and the Secretary, it can be stated with confidence that indications of terror or great fear were seen in but a comparatively very small part of the retreating force. Most trudged along, blindly following (as men do in any mob) those before them, but with reluctance, and earnest and constant expressions of dissatisfaction and indignation, while no inconsiderable number retained, through all the length of the privation and discomfort of their dreary return to Washington, astonishing cheerfulness and good humor, and were often heard joking at their own misfortunes, and ridiculing the inefficiency of their officers. The Germans of the reserve were frequently singing. None of the reserves were in the slightest degree affected by the panic, and their general expression with reference to the retreat was one of wonder and curiosity. The reserve, nevertheless, suffered much from fatigue, and subsequently exhibited most decided demoralization. 431 marched in good order, until the road was obstructed by overturned wagons. Here they were badly broken up by a cannonade, scattered and disorganized, but afterwards, having mainly collected at Centreville, reformed and marched the same night, under such of their officers as remained alive, to and through Washington to a position several miles to the northward-a post of danger where they at once resumed regular camp duties. When visited by the inspector, a few days afterwards, he was told and was led to believe that, the men had only wanted a day's rest to be ready and willing to advance again upon the enemy. He reported the regiment not demoralized." The nature of the ground and the peculiar character of the conflict were calculated to dismay the inexperienced recruits. "Much excuse," says one who witnessed the most of their shortcomings, Colonel Heintzelman, "can be made for those who fled, as few of the enemy The history of the 2d Rhode Island could at any time be seen. Raw troops Volunteers may be cited as an example cannot be expected to stand long against of those to whom Bull Run was no dis- an unseen enemy." As a military affair grace. They were near the extreme there was nothing, after all, extraordinright in the engagement. Their previous ary in the defeat. The struggle was march had been as fatiguing as that of fierce, and protracted with severe losses others; they were as badly off for food on both sides; in such a contest the as others, having nothing but a few honor is not all with the successful party ; crackers to eat for more than thirty-six while the ugly accident of the day, the hours. They were the first to engage; panic, was confined to a few of the regiwere severely engaged, and as long as, ments, and discreditable as it was, was or longer than, any others; they were by no means unprecedented in regular badly cut up, losing their colonel and armies on battle-fields of historic fame. other officers, and sixteen per cent of the The truth is, that the battle of Bull Run ranks in killed. They stood firm under has been judged not by itself, but has fire while the panic-stricken crowd swept been greatly magnified by its relations by and through them, and until they re- and consequences. It has suffered by ceived the order to retreat. They then being held accountable for events which wheeled steadily into column, and might equally have occurred had the for| tune of the day been altogether different. It by no means follows that if the North had gained that battle it would have been spared the cost of fighting others, or that it would have secured, at once, the confidence of Europe and the reconstruction of the Union. A defeat at that time might have earlier roused the South with yet unwasted strength to still greater demonstrations of ability than were afterwards made. The short struggle, so eagerly desired at home and abroad by the mercantile classes, would probably have been not a whit the less prolonged; for in such unhappy contests of civil war it is not one battle, but the slow and entire exhaustion of spirits and resources which renders a people averse from and incapable of further great efforts, which renders them submissive to sound reason and judgment. It may have been that just such a defeat as that of Bull Run was required to tame the false confidence of the North, and exhibit the necessity of building its work on surer foundations. It probably saved some heavier disasters. However this may have been, its first and continued effect was to secure greater efficiency, and infuse a true military spirit into the details of the army. The negligence and license of the military camps around Washington was immediately restrained; the men were kept to their quarters and to drill; the Provost Marshal cleared the streets and taverns of the Capital of vagrants of all ranks; the volunteer officers, compelled to submit to a Board of Examination, were driven to resign or acquaint themselves speedily with their duties; new sanitary regulations improved the physical condition and invigorated the entire discipline of the troops. An effective military organization and control kept pace with the rapid and hitherto unprecedented concentration of a vast national army. Months after, when the consequences of this battle were not matters of speculation but verified by experience, General Buckner is reported to have said, after his capture at Fort Donelson, to a gentleman of Albany, when he was passing through that city, on his way to Fort Warren, "the battle of Bull Run was a most unfortunate thing for the South, and a most fortunate thing for the North. Nothing has more vexed me than the apathy of the Southern people. The effect of the battle was to inspire the Southerners with a blind confidence and lull them into a false security. The effect upon the Northerners, on the other hand, was to arouse, madden and exasperate.” ONE of the first and most important | interests of the nation and of the princiduties of President Lincoln on his accession to his high office was to provide, by a judicious appointment of foreign ministers, for a proper representation of the ples of the new administration on which he was entering, at the different courts of Europe. There it was felt that the contest of the Government with the re FOREIGN DIPLOMACY. bellion was to be fought out hardly less than on American soil. The weapons were different; the tongue and the pen were in place of sword and cannon; the force of right and truth, the adroitness of diplomacy, and the arts of persuasion and reason were the substitutes of the strategic movements in the field; the contest was to be bloodless--but it might prove not the less decisive in shaping the destinies of the struggle. The South early sent its wily and well-informed agents abroad-Yancey, Rost, Mann and Butler King, and indeed already possessed a great advantage in the tone of opinion, which had been generated in advance by the persistent efforts of her wealthy and influential citizens abroad, who enjoyed the favor, under the late administration, of the American legations. The notion that a rupture of the American Union was at hand, and that, if attempted by the South, nothing could withstand the sovereign will and pleasure of that portion of the country in effecting the separation, was a doctrine which had been assiduously disseminated in European circles. A great number of important people of the Old World, accustomed always to speak of the American Government as a political experiment, were therefore but little surprised when the shock came; they had generally regarded the permanence of the Union as an unsettled problem; nor were they disposed to entertain any more hopeful view of its continued existence when the Message of President Buchanan informed them of the Constitutional difficulties in the way of its preservation, should the necessity, as it was evident it would, demand the interposition of active warfare. The sovereign authority of the United States, in fact, dwindled in the 433 public estimation as the nullifying powers of the States were asserted, and they began to embody their doctrines in armed rebellion. An undefined jealousy of the growing strength of the rapidly rising American nation had unquestionably, with certain suggestions of self-interest, and various prejudices, predisposed the public opinion of Europe in favor of the theory, and, at the very first moment of revolt, of the recognition of what was considered the fact of the disintegration, or falling to pieces, of the Union. To counteract this unfriendly feeling and hostile judgment of affairs, if it should exhibit itself in diplomacy, and prevent, if possible, its adoption and incorporation in the public policy of leading European nations, was the arduous work before the new Secretary of State at Washington. How Mr. Seward devoted himself to the task; with what indefatigable zeal and pertinacity of argument; with what laborious industry he at one time anticipated, at another combated, the suggestions and declarations of foreign ministers; with what art he unraveled the tangled web of affairs; how he tempered the claims of self-respect with courtesy, and, appealing to generous sympathy, never forgot what was due to the honor and the rights of the nation for which he spoke,-the published volume of his diplomatic correspondence during those early anxious months of the rise and progress of the Rebellion, has abundantly exhibited to the world. Among the new ministers sent to represent the United States in Europe were several gentlemen of distinguished political reputation. Foremost in importance of these appointments, in consequence of the peculiar relations between the two countries bearing upon In the Rebellion, and the natural influence political revolution of the last year of the foreign government in guiding the marks a great era in American history, policy of Europe in any questions which second only to that of our independence. might arise as to American affairs, was It saved us from the impending dominathe mission to England. This delicate tion of slaveholding absolutism. I did and highly responsible situation was as- hope that it might have been effected signed to an eminent member of the Re- without a convulsion. I did believe that publican party, who, beside his devo- it might have been followed by a policy tion to the cause, had many claims to which, while it wronged no one, would in consideration peculiarly fitting him for a the end save even the slaveholding States residence near the Court of St. James. from the perils of their situation. Possessed of wealth, of reputation as an these expectations it would seem, from author, identified with the political his- present appearances, that I was much tory of the country, the representative, too sanguine. The desperate agitators in the third generation, of a race of have precipitated the more moderate statesmen who had enjoyed its highest and patriotic classes of their fellow-citihonors, the son and grandson of Presi- zens into a revolution. They have dents of the United States, Charles staked their all upon the maintenance of Francis Adams was admirably qualified to impress the imagination and command the respect of Englishmen, when he left the Congress of the United States to present himself before that throne to which his grandfather had been the first ambassador on the recognition of the independence of his nation. The Farewell Address to the People of the Third Congressional District of Massachusetts, in which he announced his resignation of his seat in the House of Representatives, is one of the most manly and dignified state papers of the times, calmly reviewing the grounds upon which the Government had taken its stand, and supporting its action by the loftiest appeals to duty and self-sacrifice in the cause of national honor and existence. "If I am right," "If I am right," he said, after contrasting the assumptions and pretensions of the rebel government at Montgomery-its declarations of force and tyranny-with the beneficent principles of self-government of the Union, "if I am right, then, in my views, the conclusion inevitably must be that the their political supremacy as a slavehold- THE NEW AMBASSADORS. I must repeat that it is with great regret I leave you in this emergency for another field of duty. I do so only under the belief that I may be of more service there than here. Whether that be so or not, however, will after all depend much more upon the people of the United States than upon their agents abroad. Foreign nations will very naturally look with more attention to the action of the principals than to that of their representatives. If they see union in council and energy in action; if they find wisdom in deliberation and heroism in the field above all, if they discover a calm determination to carry the Government firmly through all its trials, in steady consistency with the purposes and policy of its founders, then will follow, as the day follows the night, their brightening sympathy, their admiration, their confidence, and, perhaps, even their coöperation. So it was in 1778. So it will be ever when honest men courageously uphold the right." William Lewis Dayton, who was appointed to succeed Mr. Faulkner of Virginia at Paris, a native of New Jersey, born in the year 1807, was a lawyer by profession, early created a Judge of the Supreme Court in his State, and on the death of Mr. Southard, in 1842, appointed to fill the vacant seat in the United States Senate. Mr. Dayton held this position through the succeeding term till 1851. To the principles of the old Whig party he united a support of the freesoil doctrines which were prominent in the settlement of the territorial questions arising out of the conquests from Mexico. He voted for the various limitations of slavery brought forward at the time, and his services to the cause were remembered in his nomination as Vice-Presi 435 dent on the Fremont Presidential ticket in the election of 1856. He subsequently held the position of Attorney-General of New Jersey. He Cassius M. Clay, the Minister to Russia, a native of Kentucky and a relative of the eminent Henry Clay, brought to the service of the new Republican administration. a reputation acquired in the advocacy of its principles when their maintenance required courage and self-sacrifice. had advocated the claims of liberty, and successfully asserted the rights of freedom of the press in the face of a vindictive mob which had destroyed his property and threatened his life in his native State; and had acquired a claim to notice in military affairs by his service ast captain of a company of mounted men in the Mexican war. Pushed forward in advance of the column of General Taylor, he had been taken prisoner and carried to Mexico. On the way thither, a part of the captives escaped, when the rest, it is said, would have been massacred but for the influence he brought to bear in his gallant bearing and presence of mind for their safety. He was afterward anti-slavery candidate for Governor in Kentucky. Mr. George P. Marsh, the Minister to Sardinia, carried to the new kingdom of Italy the prestige of an eminent career in literature and diplomacy. A native of Vermont, born at the beginning of the century, he had devoted his youth and manhood to law, politics, and thorough and varied scholarship. As a member of his State Legislature, of the national Congress, as resident minister to Turkey under the appointment of President Taylor, and in other capacities at home, he had filled a round of public duties, and by his recent critical works on the Eng |