beyond its demands, and the people, encouraged by Mr. Seward's opinion that the war would last only sixty days, were as impatient now to end the rebellion by force as they had been previously to smother it by concessions. There were few who predicted as Charles A. Dana did to the writer, on the day that war was declared-that it would last "not less than three, nor more than six or seven years." On the 16th July, the Federal army, commanded by General M'Dowell, marched forth, and the attack, which was at first successful, was made on the 21st. But the reinforcements which Johnston received saved him, and a sudden panic sprung up among the Federal troops, which resulted in a headlong retreat, with 480 killed and 1000 wounded. The army was utterly beaten, and it was only the Confederates' ignorance of the extent of their own success which saved Washington. It was the darkest day ever witnessed in the North, when the telegraph announced the shameful defeat of the great army of the Union. Everyone had anticipated a brilliant victory; but yet the news discouraged no one. The writer that day observed closely the behaviour of hundreds of men as they came up to the bulletin-board of the New York Times, and can testify that, after a blank look of grief and amazement, they invariably spoke to this effect, "It's bad luck, but we must try it again." The effect, in the words of Raymond, was to rouse

War begins in Earnest.

115

still higher the courage and determination of the people. In twenty-four hours, the whole country was again fierce and fresh for war. Volunteers streamed by thousands into the army, and efforts were promptly made to establish Union forces at different places around the rebel coast. This was the beginning of the famous Anaconda, whose folds never relaxed until they strangled the rebellion. Between the 28th August and the 3rd of December, Fort Hatteras, Port Royal in South Carolina, and Ship Island, near New Orleans, were occupied. Preparations were made to seize on New Orleans; and, by a series of masterly movements, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, which had been in a painful state of conflict, were secured to the Union. Virginia proper had seceded with a flourish of States Rights. Her Western portion recognised the doctrine so far as to claim its right to leave the mother-state and return' to the Union. This was not done without vigorous fighting by Generals Rosencranz and Morris, to whom the credit of both organising and acting is principally due, although General M'Clellan, by a clever and Napoleonic despatch, announcing victory, attracted to himself the chief glory. General M'Clellan had previously, in Kentucky, favoured the recognition of that state as neutral territory, as the rebels wished him to do-an attempt which Lincoln declared "would be disunion completed, if once entertained." On the

Ist Nov., 1861, General Scott, who had hitherto commanded the armies of the Union, asked for and obtained his discharge, and was succeeded by General M'Clellan. "If," as Holland remarks," he had done but little before to merit this confidence, if he did but little afterwards to justify it, he at least served at that time to give faith to the people." For three months he organised and supervised his troops with the talent which was peculiar to him-that of preparing great work for greater minds to finish. His photograph was in every album, and on every side were heard predictions that he would be the Napoleon, the Cæsar, the Autocrat of all the Americas. The Western Continent would be, after all, the greatest country in the world, and the greatest man in it was to be "Little Mac." He was not as yet known by his great botanical nom de guerre of the Virginian Creeper.

CHAPTER VIII.

Relations with Europe-Foreign Views of the War-The Slaves-Proclamation of Emancipation-Arrest of Rebel Commissioners-Black Troops.

WITH

Cabinet.

ITH so much to call for his care in the field, President Lincoln was not less busy in the The relations of the Federal Government with Europe were of great importance. "The rebels," says Arnold, with truth, "had a positive, vigorous organisation, with agents all over Europe, many of them in the diplomatic service of the United States." They were well selected, and they were successful in creating the impression that the Confederacy was eminently "a gentleman's government"—that the Federal represented an agrarian mob led by demagogues that Mr. Lincoln was a vulgar, ignorant boor-and that the war itself was simply an unconstitutional attempt to force certain states to remain under a tyrannical and repulsive rule. The great fact that the South had, in the most public manner, proclaimed that it seceded because the North would not permit the further extension of slavery, was utterly ignored; and the active interference of the North

with slavery was ostentatiously urged as a grievance, though, by a strange inconsistency, it was deemed expedient by many foreign anti-slavery men to withdraw all sympathy for the Federal cause, on the ground that its leaders manifested no eagerness to set the slaves free until it became a matter of military expediency. Thus the humane wisdom and moderation, which inspired Lincoln and the true men of the Union to overcome the dreadful obstacles which existed in the opposition of the Northern democrats to Emancipation, was most sophistically and cruelly turned against them. To a more cynical class, the war was but the cleaning by fire of a filthy chimney which should have been burnt out long before, and its Iliad in a nutshell amounted to a squabble which concerned nobody save as a matter for amusement. And there were, finally, not a few-to judge from the frank avowal of a journal of the highest class-who looked forward with joy to the breaking up of the American Union, because "their sympathies were with men, not with monsters, and Russia and the United States are simply giants among nations." All this bore, in due time, its natural fruit. Whether people were to blame for this want of sympathy, considering the ingenuity with which Southern agents fulfilled their missions, is another matter. Time, which is, happily, every day modifying old feelings, cannot change truths.