formed invaluable uses. Those whose solemn shallowness enables them to disregard the structure of the human mind and brain, or to confound the one with the other, will probably continue to wonder at the trustworthy anecdotes of the President's unaccountable frivolity in those days of overstrain.

The beetle sees a giant laugh while he is lifting a rock, and indignantly remarks to the glow-worm at his side: “The fellow is indecent. You or I would have done it with due solemnity."

CHAPTER XXXII.

BULL RUN.

Checker-board Campaign Plans-On to Richmond-The Two ArmiesDissolved Militia-Congressional Legislation Under Sudden Pressure -The President's Message-Five Hundred Thousand Men.

THE growth and development of the people of the United States up to the outbreak of the Rebellion had been attained through processes peculiarly peaceful. On the first day of June, 1861, it could have been said of them all, both North and South of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, that no one of their characteristics was more distinctly marked than their ig norance of war. The living generation had no memory or knowledge of its effects, and the idea that it might be or that it involved a distinct science had dawned upon but few minds among them.

The next most important fact, politically, was the stoneblindness of the masses to the fact of their own ignorance.

The South believed itself essentially martial, and a great deal had latterly been done to make it so. It was in vastly better condition for warlike purposes than was the North, and the people of the latter section were ignorant of this fact also.

All over the free States the newspaper editors and local orators, great and small, dabbled fiercely in patriotic statesmanship. They united in assuring the President that they had supplied him with "an army," and that he was in duty bound to crush the Rebellion with it. The prevalent idea of armymovements appears to have been borrowed from the black and white squares of a checker-board and their easily transferable "buttons." Substitute the seceded territory for the checker

board, and the President's obvious business was to win the game at once, while so many eager people were looking on and were waiting impatiently to see him do it.

The cry of "On to Richmond!" now began to rise, with a full-throated volume which threatened to drown the explanatory reply that there were many brave men, with rifles in their hands, standing right in the way.

A badly managed skirmish at Big Bethel, Virginia, on the 10th of June, costing several valuable lives, did but whet the popular appetite for military activity. Little affairs of even less bloodshed, but with more important results, took place in West Virginia. The "battle of Boonville," Missouri, was faintly fought and fled from by the Rebel militia on the 17th of June, and it was urged that the Confederate forces between Washington and Richmond would scatter as promptly as their Western brethren, if advanced upon in a similar manner.

Mr. Lincoln did not share in this delusion, but both he and his military counselors were aware that there were positions of great strategic importance which might well be seized and occupied, with a view to further operations. The most important of these, as was afterwards proved, was the one upon which the first movement was planned by the generals on both sides.

Manassas Junction was the point where the railroad from Alexandria, on the Potomac, met the railway connecting the rest of Virginia with the Shenandoah Valley. It had been feebly occupied by the State militia of Virginia, even before the secession of that commonwealth, and it was made a rallyingpoint for subsequent levies. About the first of June, 1861, General Beauregard, of the Confederate army, was sent to take command of the forces assembled for the protection of the Manassas lines. These were, therefore, the first obstruction in the way of any direct movement "on to Richmond."

The Union troops were mainly composed of State militia, and these were all "three-months men." They included all the

well-drilled and disciplined regiments, for the "regulars” were few indeed, and the volunteers were yet hardly fit for use as soldiers. The State-militia term of service was a most important factor in Mr. Lincoln's military calculations. It was so much so, that their melting away by reason of its expiration began before a blow could be struck. On the very eve of the battle of Bull Run, the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment and Varian's Battery of (New York) Light Artillery were dismissed and marched away from the field of battle because their time had run out. Others, similarly circumstanced, remained, and took their share of the work in hand.

The forward movement called for by the country, and perhaps by military as well as political necessity, was ordered, and was made under General McDowell. With a dissolving army of less than twenty-eight thousand men and forty-nine guns, he fought an army of the best soldiers in the Confederacy, thirty-two thousand strong, with fifty-seven guns. Actual fighting began on the 18th of July, and it continued, with varied fluctuations, but with general good conduct of both officers and men on both sides, until the so-called "panic" of the Union troops. This took place on the afternoon of the 21st. By that time a large part of the Rebel forces had been so severely handled that they were under a strong impression that they had been defeated. They were only a little less disorganized for military purposes than were their tired-out and routed antagonists. It afterwards required some investigation to assure the Confederate commanders of their victory. Even when satisfied of the fact, they were in no condition to follow it up. The losses on both sides, officially reported, were: United States-25 guns, 481 men killed, 1011 wounded, 1460 prisoners sent to Richmond, including many wounded; Confederates-387 men killed, 1582 wounded, and a few pri

soners.

It was a hard-fought action, and the "panic" was simply the disintegration of a number of regiments of raw troops, worn

out with fatigue from marching, fighting, hunger, thirst, extremely hot weather, and intense excitement. There was quite enough of the Union army left in good form, when all was over, to have checked any forward movement on the part of what was also left in good order of the forces it had been fighting with. The Confederate commanders were men of sense and were contented with reaping the harvest left in their possession in such a manner.

They did well; but the entire South went crazy with exultation, after a fashion which, as its rulers afterwards openly stated, sadly interfered with all current plans and operations.

Southern contempt for all men and things north of "Mason and Dixon's line" received a sudden and enormous inflation, and the impression went abroad that "the Yankees" would never presume to face "the Chivalry" again.

Washington city, for a number of days, was thronged with a mob of fugitive members of the shattered regiments. Every man of them had, a fearful tale to tell and was anxious to get something to eat. To all appearance the cause of the Union had received a severe blow. There had been an undeniable defeat and what to some critics looked like a throwing away of men and guns and military prestige. The disaster was in appearance mainly, however, and Mr. Lincoln so understood it.

The army beaten at Bull Run was, for its greater part, an improvised force, on the eve of disbandment. If it had there won never so complete a victory, it could hardly have been held together long enough to reap any other fruit thereof than the occupation of important positions. The majority of its personal membership, stung by the memory of their disaster and as brave as ever, were only the more eager to rush into the permanent organizations of "three-years men." No victory could have done half so much towards suddenly converting them into steady and trusty veterans. The gain right here all but counterbalanced the seeming loss. At the North, through every State, county, town, village, homestead, the effect was