When the news flashed over the country, on Monday, the 22d of July, that
our army, whose advance into Virginia had been so long expected, and had
been watched with such intense interest and satisfaction,--that our army
had been defeated, and was flying back in disorder to the intrenchments
around Washington, it was but natural that the strong revulsion of
feeling and the bitter disappointment should have been accompanied by a
sense of dismay, and by alarm as to what was to follow. The panic which
had disgraced some of our troops at the close of the fight found its
parallel in the panic in our own hearts. But as the smoke of the battle
and the dust of the retreat, which overshadowed the land in a cloud of
lies and exaggerations, by degrees cleared away, men regained the even
balance of their minds, and felt a not unworthy shame at their transient
fears.
It is now plain that our defeat at Bull Run was in no true sense a
disaster; that we not only deserved it, but needed it; that its ultimate
consequences are better than those of a victory would have been. Far
from being disheartened by it, it should give us new confidence in our
cause, in our strength, in our final success. There are lessons which
every great nation must learn which are cheap at any cost, and for some
of those lessons the defeat of the 21st of July was a very small price
to pay. The essential question now is, Whether this schooling has been
sufficient and effectual, or whether we require still further hard
discipline to enforce its instructions upon us.
In this moment of pause and compelled reflection, it is for us to
examine closely the spirit and motives with which we have engaged in
war, and to determine the true end for which the war must be carried on.
It is no time for indulging in fallacies of the fancy or in feebleness
of counsel. The temper of the Northern people, since the war was forced
upon them, has been in large measure noble and magnanimous. The sudden
interruption of peace, the prospect of a decline of long continued
prosperity, were at once and manfully faced. An eager and emulous zeal
in the defence of the imperilled liberties and institutions of the
nation showed itself all over the land, and in every condition of life.
None who lived through the months of April and May can ever forget the
heroic and ideal sublimity of the time. But as the weeks went on, as
the immediate alarm that had roused the invincible might of the people
passed away, something of the spirit of over-confidence, of excited
hope, of satisfied vanity mingled with and corrupted the earlier and
purer emotion. The war was to be a short one. Our enemies would speedily
yield before the overwhelming force arrayed against them; they would run
from Northern troops; we were sure of easy victory. There was little
sober foreboding, as our army set out from Washington on its great
advance. The troops moved forward with exultation, as if going on a
holiday and festive campaign; and the nation that watched them shared
in their careless confidence, and prophesied a speedy triumph. But the
event showed how far such a spirit was from that befitting a civil
war like this. Never were men engaged in a cause which demanded more
seriousness of purpose, more modesty and humility of pretension.
The duty before us is honorable in proportion to its difficulty. God has
given us work to do not only for ourselves, but for coming generations
of men. He has imposed on us a task which, if well performed, will
require our most strenuous endeavors and our most patient and
unremitting exertions. We are fairly engaged in a war which cannot be
a short one, even though our enemies should before long lay down their
arms; for it is a war not merely to support and defend the Constitution
and to retake the property of the United States, not merely to settle
the question of the right of a majority to control an insolent and
rebellious minority in the republic, nor to establish the fact of the
national existence and historic unity of the United States; but it is
also and more essentially a war for the establishment of civilization in
that immense portion of our country in which for many years barbarism
has been gaining power. It is for the establishment of liberty and
justice, of freedom of conscience and liberty of thought, of equal law
and of personal rights, throughout the South. If these are not to be
secured without the abolition of slavery, it is a war for the abolition
of slavery. We are not making war to reëstablish an old order of things,
but to set up a new one. We are not giving ourselves and our fortunes
for the purpose of fighting a few battles, and then making peace,
restoring the Southern States to their old place in the Union,--but for
the sake of destroying the root from which this war has sprung, and of
making another such war impossible. It is not worth while to do only
half or a quarter of our work. But if we do it thoroughly, as we ought,
the war must be a long one, and will require from us long sacrifices. It
is well to face up to the fact at once, that this generation is to be
compelled to frugality, and that luxurious expenses upon trifles and
superfluities must be changed for the large and liberal costliness of a
noble cause. We are not to expect or hope for a speedy return of what is
called prosperity; but we are greatly and abundantly prosperous, if we
succeed in extending and establishing the principles which alone can
give dignity and value to national or individual life, and without
which, material abundance, success in trade, and increase of wealth are
evidences rather of the decline than of the progress of a state. We, who
have so long been eager in the pursuit and accumulation of riches, are
now to show more generous energies in the free spending of our means
to gain the invaluable objects for which we have gone to war. There is
nothing disheartening in this prospect. Our people, accustomed as they
have been during late years to the most lavish use of money, and to
general extravagance in expense, have not yet lost the tradition of the
economies and thrift of earlier times, and will not find it difficult
to put them once more into practice. The burden will not fall upon any
class; and when each man, whatever be his station in life, is called
upon to lower his scale of living, no one person will find it too hard
to do what all others are doing.
But if such be the objects and the prospects of the war, it is plain
that they require more sober thought and more careful forecasting and
more thorough preparation than have thus far been given to them. If we
be the generation chosen to accomplish the work that lies ready to
our hands, if we be commissioned to so glorious and so weighty an
enterprise, there is but one spirit befitting our task. The war, if it
is to be successful, must be a religious war: not in the old sense of
that phrase, not a war of violent excitement and passionate enthusiasm,
not a war in which the crimes of cruel bigots are laid to the charge of
divine impulse, bur a war by itself, waged with dignified and solemn
strength, with clean hands and pure hearts,--a war calm and inevitable
in its processes as the judgments of God. When Cromwell's men went out
to win the victory at Winceby Fight, their watchword was "_Religion_."
Can we in our great struggle for liberty and right adopt any other
watchword than this? Do we require another defeat and more suffering to
bring us to a sense of our responsibility to God for the conduct and the
issue of this war?
It is only by taking the highest ground, by raising ourselves to the
full conception of what is involved in this contest, that we shall
secure success, and prevent ourselves from sinking to the level of those
who are fighting against us. The demoralization necessarily attendant
upon all wars is to be met and overcome only by simple and manly
religious conviction and effort. It will be one of the advantages
of defeat to have made it evident that a regiment of bullies and
prize-fighters is not the best stuff to compose an army. "Your men are
not vindictive enough," Mr. Russell is reported to have said, as he
watched the battle. It was the saying of a shrewd observer, but it
expresses only an imperfect apprehension of the truth. Vindictiveness is
not the spirit our men should have, but a resoluteness of determination,
as much more to be relied upon than a vindictive passion as it is
founded upon more stable and more enduring qualities of character.
The worst characters of our great cities may be the fit equals of
Mississippi or Arkansas ruffians, but the mass of our army is not to be
brought down to the standard of rowdies or the level of barbarians. The
men of New England and of the West do not march under banners with
the device of "Booty and Beauty," though General Beauregard has the
effrontery to declare it, and Bishop, now General, Polk the ignorance
to utter similar slanders. The atrocities committed on our wounded and
prisoners by the "chivalry" of the South may excite not only horror, but
a wild fury of revenge. But our cause should not be stained with cruelty
and crime, even in the name of vengeance. If the war is simply one in
which brute force is to prevail, if we are fighting only for lust and
pride and domination, then let us have our "Ellsworth Avengers," and
let us slay the wounded of our enemy without mercy; let us burn their
hospitals, let us justify their, as yet, false charges against us; let
us admit the truth of the words of the Bishop of Louisiana, that the
North is prosecuting this war "with circumstances of barbarity which it
was fondly believed would never more disgrace the annals of a civilized
people." But if we, if our brothers in the army, are to lose the proud
distinctions of the North, and to be brought down to the level of
the tender mercies and the humane counsels of slaveholders and
slave-drivers, there would be little use in fighting. If our
institutions at the North do not produce better, more humane, and more
courageous men than those of the South, when taken in the mass, there is
no reason for the sacrifice of blood and treasure in their support. War
must be always cruel; it is not to be waged on principles of tenderness;
but a just, a religious war can be waged only mercifully, with no
excess, with no circumstance of avoidable suffering. Our enemies are our
outward consciences, and their reproaches may warn us of our dangers.
The soldiers of the Northern army generally are men capable of
understanding the force of moral considerations. They are intelligent,
independent, vigorous,--as good material as an army ever was formed
from. A large proportion of them have gone to the war from the best
motives, and with clear appreciation of the nature and grounds of the
contest. But they require to be confirmed in their principles, and to
be strengthened against the temptations of life in the camp and in the
field, by the voice and support of the communities from which they
have come. If the country is careless or indifferent as to their moral
standard, they will inevitably become so themselves, and lose the
perception of the objects for which they are fighting, forgetting their
responsibilities, not only as soldiers, but as good men. It is one of
the advantages of defeat to force the thoughts which camp-life may have
rendered unfamiliar back into the soldier's mind. The boastfulness of
the advance is gone,--and there is chance for sober reflection.
It is especially necessary for our men, unaccustomed to the profession
of arms, and entering at once untried upon this great war, to take a
just and high view of their new calling: to look at it with the eyes,
not of mercenaries, but of men called into their country's service; to
regard it as a life which is not less, but more difficult than any other
to be discharged with honor. "Our profession," said Washington, "is the
chastest of all; even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the lustre of our
finest achievements." Our soldiers in Virginia, and in the other Slave
States, have not only their own reputation to support, but also that
of the communities from which they come. There must be a rivalry in
generous efforts among the troops of different States. Shall we not now
have our regiments which by their brave and honorable conduct shall win
appellations not less noble than that of the _Auvergne sans tache_,
"Auvergne without a stain"? If the praise that Mr. Lincoln bestowed upon
our men in his late Message to Congress be not undeserved, they are
bound to show qualities such as no other common soldiers have ever
been called to exhibit. There are among them more men of character,
intelligence, and principle than were ever seen before in the ranks.
There should be a higher tone in our service than in that of any other
people; and it would be a reproach to our institutions, if our soldiers
did not show themselves not only steady and brave in action,
undaunted in spirit, unwearied in energy, but patient of discipline,
self-controlled, and forbearing. The disgrace to our arms of the defeat
at Bull Run was not so great as that of the riotous drunkenness and
disorderly conduct of our men during the two or three days that
succeeded at Washington. If our men are to be the worthy soldiers of so
magnificent a cause as that in which they are engaged, they must raise
themselves to its height. Battles may be won by mere human machines, by
men serving for eleven dollars a month; but a victory such as we have to
gain can be won only by men who know for what and why they are
fighting, and who are conscious of the dignity given to them and the
responsibility imposed upon them by the sacredness of their cause. The
old flag, the stars and stripes, must not only be the symbol in their
eyes of past glories and of the country's honor, but its stars must
shine before them with the light of liberty, and its stripes must be the
emblem of the even and enduring lines of equal justice.
The retreat from Bull Run and the panic that accompanied it were not
due to cowardice among our men. During long hours our troops had fought
well, and showed their gallantry under the most trying circumstances.
They were not afraid to die. It was not strange that raw volunteers, as
many of them were, inefficiently supported, and poorly led, should at
length give way before superior force, and yield to the weakness induced
by exhaustion and hunger. But the lesson of defeat would be imperfectly
learned, did not the army and the nation alike gain from it a juster
sense than they before possessed of the value of individual life.
Never has life been so much prized and so precious as it has become in
America. Never before has each individual been of so much worth. It
costs more to bring up a man here, and he is worth more when brought up,
than elsewhere. The long peace and the extraordinary amount of comfort
which the nation has enjoyed have made us (speaking broadly) fond of
life and tender of it. We of the North have looked with astonishment at
the recklessness of the South concerning it. We have thought it braver
to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly
led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of
its value. We have been in danger of thinking too much of it, and of
being mean-spirited in its use. But the first sacrifice for which war
calls is life; and we must revise our estimates of its value, if we
would conduct our war to a happy end. To gain that end, no sacrifice can
be too precious or too costly. The shudder with which we heard the first
report that three thousand of our men were slain was but the sign of the
blow that our hearts received. But there must be no shrinking from the
prospect of the death of our soldiers. Better than that we should fail
that a million men should die on the battle-field. It is not often that
men can have the privilege to offer their lives for a principle; and
when the opportunity comes, it is only the coward that does not welcome
it with gladness. Life is of no value in comparison with the spiritual
principles from which it gains its worth. No matter how many lives it
costs to defend or secure truth or justice or liberty, truth and justice
and liberty must be defended and secured. Self-preservation must yield
to Truth's preservation. The little human life is for to-day,--the
principle is eternal. To die for truth, to die open-eyed and resolutely
for the "good old cause," is not only honor, but reward. "Suffering is
a gift not given to every one," said one of the Scotch martyrs in 1684,
"and I desire to bless the Lord with my whole heart and soul that He has
counted such a poor thing as I am worthy of the gift of suffering."
The little value of the individual in comparison with the principles
upon which the progress and happiness of the race depend is a lesson
enforced by the analogies of Nature, as well as by the evidence of
history and the assurance of faith. Nature is careless of the single
life. Her processes seem wasteful, but out of seeming waste she produces
her great and durable results. Everywhere in her works are the signs of
life cut short for the sake of some effect more permanent than itself.
And for the establishing of those immortal foundations upon which the
human race is to stand firm in virtue and in hope, for the building of
the walls of truth, there will be no scanty expenditure of individual
life. Men are nothing in the count,--man is everything.
The spirit of the nation will be shown in its readiness to meet without
shrinking such sacrifice of life as may be demanded in gaining our end.
We must all suffer and rejoice together,--but let there be no unmanly or
unwomanly fear of bloodshed. The deaths of our men from sickness, from
camp epidemics, are what we should fear and prevent; death on the
battle-field we have no right to dread. The men who die in this cause
die well; they could wish for no more honorable end of life.
The honor lost in our recent defeat cannot be regained,--but it is
indeed one of the advantages of defeat to teach men the preciousness of
honor, the necessity of winning and keeping it at any cost. Honor and
duty are but two names for the same thing in war. But the novelty of war
is so great to us, we are so unpractised in it, and we have thought so
little of it heretofore as concerning ourselves, that there is danger
lest we fail at first to appreciate its finer elements, and neglect the
opportunities it affords for the practice of virtues rarely called out
in civil life. The common boast of the South, that there alone was to be
found the chivalry of America, and that among the Southern people was
a higher strain of courage and a keener sense of honor than among the
people of the North, is now to be brought to the test. There is not
need to repeat the commonplaces about bravery and honor. But we and our
soldiers should remember that it is not the mere performance of set work
that is required of them, but the valiant and generous alacrity of noble
minds in deeds of daring and of courtesy. Though the science of war
has in modern times changed the relations and the duties of men on the
battle-field from what they were in the old days of knighthood, yet
there is still room for the display of stainless valor and of manful
virtue. Honor and courage are part of our religion; and the coward or
the man careless of honor in our army of liberty should fall under
heavier shame than ever rested on the disgraced soldier in former times.
The sense of honor is finer than the common sense of the world. It
counts no cost and reckons no sacrifice great. "Then the king wept, and
dried his eyes, and said, 'Your courage had neere hand destroyed you,
for I call it folly knights to abide when they be overmatched.'
'Nay,' said Sir Lancelot and the other, 'for once shamed may never be
recovered.'" The examples of Bayard,--_sans peur et sans reproche_,--of
Sidney, of the heroes of old or recent days, are for our imitation. We
are bound to be no less worthy of praise and remembrance than they. They
did nothing too high for us to imitate. And in their glorious company
we may hope that some of our names may yet be enrolled, to stand as
the inspiring exemplars and the models for coming times. If defeat has
brought us shame, it has brought us also firmer resolve. No man can be
said to know himself, or to have assurance of his force of principle and
character, till he has been tested by the fires of trial in the crucible
of defeat. The same is true of a nation. The test of defeat is the test
of its national worth. Defeat shows whether it deserves success. We may
well be grateful and glad for our defeat of the 21st of July, if we
wrest from it the secrets of our weakness, and are thrown back by it to
the true sources of strength. If it has done its work thoroughly, if we
profit sufficiently by the advantages it has afforded us, we may be well
content that so slight a harm has brought us so great a good. But if
not, then let us be ready for another and another defeat, till our souls
shall be tempered and our forces disciplined for the worthy attainment
of victory. For victory we shall in good time have. There is no need to
fear or be doubtful of the issue. As soon as we deserve it, victory will
be ours; and were we to win it before, it would be but an empty
and barren triumph. All history is but the prophecy of our final
success,--and Milton has put the prophecy into words: "Go on, O Nation,
never to be disunited! Be the praise and the heroic song of all
posterity! Merit this, but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits,
(for what needs to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of
wretched men?) but to settle the pure worship of God in his church, and
justice in the state. Then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out
themselves before thee; envy shall sink to hell, craft and malice be
confounded, whether it be home-bred mischief or outlandish cunning; yea,
other nations will then covet to serve thee, for lordship and victory
are but the pages of justice and virtue. Use thine invincible might to
do worthy and godlike deeds, and then he that seeks to break your union
a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations!"
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