But most certain of all in the long run is THE CONVICTION OF THE MEN

OF THE SOUTH THEMSELVES OF THE VALUE OF THE UNION. It is said that the

Union feeling is all gone at the South. That may be, and yet the facts

on which it was based remain. Feeling is a thing which comes and goes.

The value to the South of Federal care, Federal offices, Federal mail

facilities, and the like, is not lessened. The weight of direct taxation

is a marvellous corrector of the exciting effects of rhetoric. It is

pleasanter to have Federal troops line State Street in Boston to guard

the homeward passage of Onesimus to the longing Philemon than to have

them receiving without a challenge the fugitive Contrabands. It is

pleasanter to have B.F. Butler, Esq., argue in favor of the Dred Scott

decision than to have General Butler enforcing the Fortress Monroe

doctrine. Better to look up to a whole galaxy of stars, and to live

under a baker's dozen of stripes, than to dwell in perpetual fear of

choosing between the calaboose and the drill-room of the Louisiana

Zouaves. We have noticed that the sympathizers of the North are quoting

the sentence from Mr. Lincoln's inaugural to this effect,--What is to be

gained after fighting? We have got to negotiate at last, be the war long

or short. This is a very potent argument, as Mr. Lincoln meant it. To

men who must sooner or later negotiate their way back into the Union, it

is a very important consideration how much fighting and how much money

they can afford before negotiating. To us who cannot at any cost afford

to stop until they are thus ready to negotiate, it is only comparatively

a question. He says to the South, as a lawyer sure of a judgment and

confident of execution to be thereafter satisfied might say to his

adversary's client,--"Don't litigate longer than you can help, for you

are only making costs which must come out of your own pocket." To his

own client, he says,--"They may delay, but they cannot hinder, our

judgment."

Meanwhile what shall we do with the root of bitterness, the real cause

of antagonism? That will do for itself. We probably cannot do much to

help or hinder now. The negro and the white man will remain on the old

ground, but new relations must be established between them. What those

shall be will depend on many yet undeveloped contingencies. But--when

we reconstruct, it will be with a North stronger than ever before and a

government too strong for rebellion ever to touch it again. Under a

free government of majorities, such as ours, rebellion is simply the

resistance of a minority. Secession has been acted out to the bitter

end on a small scale ere now in this country. Daniel Shays tried it in

Massachusetts; Thomas Wilson Dorr tried it in Rhode Island. When they

had tried it sufficiently, they gave in. We remember the Dorr War, and

how bitterly the "Algerines," as they were called, were reviled. We

doubt if a remnant of that hostility could be dug up anywhere between

Beavertail Light and Woonsocket Falls. We have no doubt that men who

then were on the point of fighting with each other fought side by side

under Sprague, and fought all the better for having once before faced

the possibilities of real war. When the minority are satisfied that they

must give in, they do give in.

We do not purpose to debate now the question of the mode of

reconstruction. When the seceded States return, though they come back to

the old Constitution, they will come under circumstances demanding new

conditions. The wisdom of legislation will be needed to establish as

rapidly as possible pacification. What the circumstances will be

none can now say. But we are better satisfied than ever of the

impracticability of permanent secession. The American Revolution is not

a parallel case. The only parallel in history that we can now recall is

the one we have used so freely in this article. It is one in which the

parallel fails chiefly in presenting stronger grounds for a permanent

disruption. Scotland struggled against a geographical necessity. She did

so under the influence of far more powerful motives than now exist at

the South. She had far less binding ties than now are still living

between us and our revolted States. A geographical necessity as vast and

potent now links the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The struggle is

a more gigantic one, and in its fierce convulsions men's minds may well

lose their present balance, and men's hearts their calm courage.

But everlasting laws are not to be put aside. The tornadoes which sweep

the tropic seas seem for a time to reverse the course of Nature. The

waters become turbid with the sands of the ocean's bed. The air strikes

and smites down with a solid force. The heaviest stones and beams of

massy buildings fly like feathers on the blast. Vessels are found far

up on the land, with the torn stumps of trees driven through their

planking. Life and property are buried in utter ruin. But the storm

passes, the sunshine comes back into the darkened skies, and the blue

waves sparkle within their ancient limits. The awful tempest passes away

into history,--for it is God, and not man, who measures the waters in

the hollow of His hand, and sends forth and restrains the breath of the

blasting of His displeasure.

* * * * *

PANIC TERROR.

In those long-gone days when the gods of Olympus were in all their

glory, and when those gods were in the habit of disturbing the domestic

peace of worthy men, there was born unto an Arcadian nymph a son, for

whom no proper father could be found. The father was Mercury, who was a

_Dieu à bonnes fortunes_, and he did not, like some Christian gentlemen

in similar circumstances, altogether neglect his boy; for (so goes the

story) the child was "such a fright" that his mother was shocked and his

nurse ran away (Richard III. did not make a worse first appearance);

whereupon Mercury seized him, and bore him to Olympus, where he showed

him, with paternal partiality, to all the gods, who were so pleased with

the little monster that they named him _Pan_, as evidence that they were

_All_ delighted with his charming ugliness,--they being, it should seem,

as fond of hideous pets as if they had been mere mortals, and endowed

with a liberal share of humanity's bad taste. There are other accounts

of the birth of Pan, one of which is, that he was the child of Penelope,

born while she was waiting for the return of the crafty Ulysses, and

that his fathers were _all_ the aspirants to her favor,--a piece of

scandal to be rejected, as reflecting very severely upon the reputation

of a lady who is mostly regarded as having been a very model of

chastity. It would have astonished the gods, who were so joyous over the

consequence of their associate's irregularities, had they been told that

their pet was destined to outlast them all, and to affect human affairs,

by his action, long after their sway should be over. Jupiter has been

dethroned for ages, and exists only in marble or bronze; and Apollo,

and Mercury, and Bacchus, and all the rest of the old deities, are but

names, or the shadows of names; but Pan is as active to-day as he was,

when, nearly four-and-twenty centuries ago, he asked the worship of

the Athenians, and intimated that he might be useful to them in

return,--which intimation he probably made good but a little later

on the immortal field of Marathon. For not only was Pan the god of

shepherds, and the protector of bees, and the patron of sportsmen, but

to him were attributed those terrors which have decided the event of

many battles. He is generally identified with the Faunus of the Latins,

and a new interest in the _Fauni_ has been created by the genius of

Hawthorne. If it be true that the popular idea of Satan is derived from

Pan, we have another evidence therein of the breadth as well as the

length of his dominion over human affairs; for Satan, judging from men's

conduct, was never more active, more successful, and more grimly joyous

than he is in this year of grace (and disgrace) one thousand eight

hundred and sixty-one. "The harmless Faun," says Bulwer Lytton, "has

been the figuration of the most implacable of fiends." Satan and Pan

ought to be one, if we regard the kind of work in which the latter has

lately been engaged. The former's sympathies are undoubtedly with the

Secessionists, and to his active aid we must attribute their successes,

both as thieves and as soldiers.

The number of instances of panic terror in armies is enormous. Panics

have taken place in all armies, from that brief campaign in which Abram

smote the hosts of the plundering kings, hard by Damascus, to that

briefer campaign in which General McDowell did _not_ smite the

Secessionists, hard by Washington. The Athenians religiously believed

that Pan aided them at Marathon; and it would go far to account for

the defeat of the vast Oriental host, in that action, by a handful of

Greeks, if we could believe that that host became panic-stricken. At

Plataea, the allies of the Persians fell into a panic as soon as the

Persians were beaten, and fled without striking a blow. At the Battle

of Amphipolis, in the Peloponnesian War, and which was so fatal to the

Athenians, the Athenian left wing and centre fled in a panic, without

making any resistance. The Battle of Pydna, which placed the Macedonian

monarchy in the hands of the Romans, was decided by a panic befalling

the Macedonian cavalry after the phalanx had been broken. At Leuctra and

at Mantinea, battles so fatal to the Spartan supremacy in Greece, the

defeated armies suffered from panics. The decision at Pharsalia was in

some measure owing to a panic occurring among the Pompeian cavalry; and

at Thapsus, the panic terror that came upon the Pompeians gave to Caesar

so easy a victory that it cost him only fifty men, while the other

side were not only broken, but butchered. At Munda, the last and most

desperate of Caesar's battles, and in which he came very nearly losing

all that he had previously gained, a panic occurred in his army, from

the effects of which it recovered through admiration of its leader's

splendid personal example. The defeat of the Romans at Carrhae by the

Parthians was followed by a panic, against the effects of which not even

the discipline of the legions was a preventive. At the first Battle of

Philippi, the young Octavius came near being killed or captured, in

consequence of the success of Brutus's attack, which had the effect of

throwing his men into utter confusion, so that they fled in dismay. What

a change would have taken place in the ocean-stream of history, had the

future Augustus been slain or taken by the Republicans on that field on

which the Roman Republic fell forever! But the success of Antonius over

Cassius more than compensated for the failure of Octavius, and prepared

the way for the close of "the world's debate" at Actium. Actium, by the

way, was one of the few sea-fights which have had their decision through

the occurrence of panics, water not being so favorable to flight as

land. Whether the flight of Cleopatra was the result of terror, or

followed from preconcerted action, is still a question for discussion;

and one would not readily believe that the most gallant and manly of all

the Roman leaders--one of the very few of his race who were capable of

generous actions--was also capable of plotting deliberately to abandon

his followers, when the chances of battle had not been tried. Whether

that memorable flight was planned or not, the imitation of it by

Antonius created a panic in at least a portion of his fleet; and the

victory of the hard-minded Octavius over the "soft triumvir"--he was

"soft" in every sense on that day--was the speedy consequence of the

strangest exhibition of cowardice ever made by a brave man.

In modern wars, panics have been as common as ever they were in the

contests of antiquity. No people has been exempt from them. It has

pleased the English critics on our defeat at Bull Run to speak with much

bitterness of the panic that occurred to the Union army on that field,

and in some instances to employ language that would leave the impression

that never before did it happen to an army to suffer from panic terror.

No reflecting American ought to object to severe foreign criticism on

our recent military history; for through such criticism, perhaps, our

faults may be amended, and so our cause finally be vindicated. The

spectacle of soldiers running from a field of battle is a tempting one

to the enemies of the country to whom such soldiers may belong, and few

critics are able to speak of it in any other than a contemptuous tone.

Would Americans have spoken with more justice of Englishmen than

Englishmen have spoken of Americans, had the English army failed at the

Alma through a panic, as our army failed at Bull Run? Not they! The

bitter comments of our countrymen on the inefficiency of the British

forces in the Crimea, and the general American tendency to attribute

the successes of the Allies in the Russian War to the French, to the

Sardinians, or to the Turks,--to anybody and everybody but to the

English, who really were the principal actors in it,--are in evidence

that we are drinking from a bitter cup the contents of which were brewed

by ourselves. It is wicked and it is foolish to accuse our armies of

cowardice and inefficiency because they have met with some painful

reverses; but the sin and the folly of foreigners in this respect are no

greater than the sin and the folly that have characterized most American

criticism on the recent military history of England.

The most important fruitful battle mentioned in British history, next

to that of Hastings, is the Battle of Bannockburn, the event of which

secured the independence and nationality of Scotland, with all the

consequences thereof; and that event was the effect of a panic. The day

was with Bruce and his brave army; but it was by no means certain that

their success would be of that decisive character which endures forever,

until the English host became panic-stricken. Brilliant deeds had been

done by the Scotch, who had been successful in all their undertakings,

when Bruce brought up his reserve, which forced even the bravest of his

opponents either to retreat or to think of it; but their retreat might

have been conducted with order, and the English army have been saved

from utter destruction and for future work, had it not been for the

occurrence of one of those events, in which the elements of tragedy

and of farce are combined, by which the destinies of nations are often

decided, in spite of "the wisdom of the wise and the valor of the

brave." The followers of the Scottish camp, anxious to see how the

day went, or to obtain a share of the expected spoil, at that moment

appeared upon the ridge of an eminence, known as the Gillies' Hill,

behind their countrymen's line of battle, displaying horse-cloths and

similar articles for ensigns of war. The struggling English, believing

that they saw a new Scottish army rising as it were from the earth, were

struck with panic, and broke and fled; and all that followed was mere

butchery, though perfectly in accordance with the stern laws of the

field. The English army was routed even more completely than was the

French army, five centuries later, at Waterloo. Scott, with his usual

skill, has made use of this incident in "The Lord of the Isles," but he

ascribes to patriotic feeling what had a less lofty origin, which was an

exercise of his license as a poet.[A]

[Footnote A: An incident closely resembling that which created the

English panic at Bannockburn happened, with the same results, in one of

the battles won by the Swiss over their invaders; but we cannot call to

mind the name of the action in which it occurred.]

"To arms they flew,--axe, club, or spear,--

And mimic ensigns high they rear,

And, like a bannered host afar,

Bear down on England's wearied war.

"Already scattered o'er the plain,

Reproof, command, and counsel vain,

The rearward squadrons fled amain,

Or made but fearful stay:

But when they marked the seeming show

Of fresh and fierce and marshalled foe,

The boldest broke array."

The last three lines describe almost exactly what, we are told, took

place at Bull Run, where our soldiers were beaten, it is asserted, in

consequence of the coming up of fresh men to the assistance of the

enemy, but who were not camp-followers, but the flower of that enemy's

force. The reinforcements, contrary to what was supposed, were not

numerous; but a fatigued, worn-out, ill-handled army cannot be expected

to be very clever at its arithmetic. Our men greatly overrated the

strength of the new column that presented itself,--at least, so we

judge from some powerful narratives of the crisis at Manassas that have

appeared. The eye of the mind did the counting, not the more trustworthy

bodily organ. They "looked, and saw what numbers numberless" "the sacred

soil of Virginia" appeared to be sending up to aid in its defence

against "the advance," and it cannot be surprising that their hearts

failed them at the moment, as has happened to veterans who had grown

gray since they had received the baptism of fire. Had there been a

couple of trained regiments at the command of General McDowell, at that

time, with which to have met the regiments that were restoring the

enemy's battle, the day would, perhaps, have remained with the Union

army; but, as there was no reserve force, trained or untrained, a

retreat became inevitable; and a retreat, in the case of a new army that

had become exhausted and alarmed, meant a rout, and could have meant

nothing else. We shall never hear the last of it, particularly from our

English friends, who are yet jeered and joked about the business at

Gladsmuir, in 1745, where and when their army was beaten in five minutes

and some odd seconds by Prince Charles Edward's Highlanders, their

cavalry running off in a panic, and their General never stopping

until he had put twenty miles between himself and the nearest of the

plaid-men. Indeed, he did not consider himself safe until he had left

even all Scotland behind him, and had got within his Britannic Majesty's

town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, as it was well fortified, promised

him protection for the time. Four months later, at Falkirk, a portion of

another English army was thrown into a panic by the sight of "the wild

petticoat-men," and made capital time in getting out of their way. Two

regiments of cavalry rushed right over a body of infantry lying on the

ground, bellowing, as they galloped, "Dear brethren, we shall all be

massacred this day!" They did their best to make their prediction true.

A third regiment, and that composed of veterans, were so frightened,

that, though they ran away with the utmost celerity, they did not have

sense enough to run out of danger, but galloped along the Highland line,

and received its entire fire. Some of the infantry were literally

so swift to follow the example of the cavalry, that the Highlanders

believed they were shamming, and so did not follow up their success with

sufficient promptitude to reap its proper fruits. One of the regiments

that ran was the Scots Royals, seeing which, Lord John Drummond

exclaimed, "These men behaved admirably at Fontenoy: surely this is a

feint." This suspicion of the enemy's purpose to entrap them actually

paralyzed the Highland army for so long a time that the panic-stricken

English were enabled for the most part to escape; so that to the

completeness of their fright the English owed their power to rally their

army, which did not stop in its retreat until it reached Edinburgh, the

next day. In the same war, half a dozen MacIntosh Highlanders, commanded

by a blacksmith, so acted as to throw fifteen hundred men, under Lord

Loudoun, into a panic, which caused them all to fly; and though but

one of their number was hurt by the enemy, they did much mischief to

themselves. This incident is known as "The Rout of Moy," as Loudoun's

force was marching upon Moy Castle, the principal seat of the

MacIntoshes, for the purpose of capturing Prince Charles Edward, who was

the guest of Lady MacIntosh, whose husband was with Lord Loudoun. To

render the mortification of the flying party complete, the affair was

suggested by a woman, Lady MacIntosh herself.

"The Races of Castlebar" are very renowned in the military history of

Britain. In 1798 _after_ the Irish Rebellion had been suppressed, a

small French force was landed at Killala, under command of General

Humbert, and soon established itself in that town. A British army, full

four thousand strong, was assembled to act against the invader, at the

head of which was General Lake, afterward Lord Lake,--elevated to the

peerage in reward of services performed in India, and one of the most

ruthless of those harsh and brutal proconsuls employed by England to

destroy the spirit of the people of Ireland. The two armies met at

Castlebar, the French numbering only eight hundred men, with whom were

about a thousand raw Irish peasants, most of whom had never had a

musket in their hands until within the few days that preceded the

battle,--races, we mean. A panic seized the British army, and it fled

from the field with the swiftness of the wind, but not with the wind's

power of destruction. The French had one small gun,--the British,

fourteen guns. Humbert afterward kept the whole British force at bay for

more than a fortnight, and did not surrender until his little army

had been surrounded by thirty thousand men. It is calculated that the

British made the best time from Castlebar that ever was made by a flying

army. It was no exaggeration to say that "the speed of thought was in

_their_ limbs" for a short time. Bull Run was a slow piece of business

compared to Castlebar; and our countrymen did not run from a foe that

was not half so strong as themselves, and who had neither position nor

artillery. The English have accused the Irish of not always standing

well to their work on the battle-field; but it would have required two

Irishmen to run half the distance in an hour that was made at Castlebar

by one Englishman. The most flagrant cases of panic that happened in the

'Forty-Five affair befell Englishmen, and rarely occurred to Irishmen or

to Scotchmen. The conduct of the Scots Royals at Falkirk was the only

striking exception to what closely approached to the nature of a general

rule.

The civil war which ours most resembles is that which was waged in

England a little more than two centuries ago, and which is known in

English history as "The Great Civil War," though in fact it was but a

small affair, if we compare it with that which took place nearly two

centuries earlier than Cromwell's time,--the so-called Wars of the

Roses. The resemblance between our contest and that in which the English

rose against, fought with, defeated, dethroned, tried, and beheaded

their king, is not very strong, we must confess; but the main thing is,

that both contests belong to that class of wars in which, to borrow

Shakspeare's words, "Civil blood makes civil hands unclean." Were there

no exhibitions of fear in that war, no flights, no panics on the _grand

scale_? Unless history is as great a liar as Talleyrand said it was,

when he declared that it was founded on a general conspiracy against

truth,--and who could suppose an English historian capable of

lying?--shameful exhibitions of fear, flights of whole bodies of troops,

and displays of panic terror were very common things with our English

ancestors who fought and flourished _tempore Caroli Primi_. The first

battle between the forces of the King and those of the Parliament was

that of Edgehill, which was fought on _Sunday_, October 23d, 1642.

Prince Rupert led his Cavaliers to the charge, ordering them, like a

true soldier, to use only the sword, which is the weapon that horsemen

always should employ. "The Roundheads," says Mr. Warburton, "seemed

swept away by the very wind of that wild charge. No sword was crossed,

no saddle emptied, no trooper waited to abide the shock; they fled with

_frantic fear_, but fell fast under the sabres of their pursuers. The

cavalry galloped furiously until they reached such shelter as the town

could give them; nor did their infantry fare better. No sooner were

the Royal horse upon them than they broke and fled; Mandeville and

Cholmondely vainly strove to rally their _terror-stricken_ followers;

they were swept away by the fiery Cavaliers." If this was not exactly

the effect of a panic, then it was something worse: it followed from

abject, craven fear. The bravest and best of armies have been known to

suffer from panic terror, but none but cowards run away at the first

charge that is made upon them. It is said, by way of excuse for the men

who thus fled, in spite of the gallant efforts of their officers to

rally them, that they were new troops. So were our men at Bull Run

new troops; and this much can be said of them, that, if they became

panic-stricken, it was not until after they had fought for several

hours on a hot day, and that they were not well commanded, the officers

setting the example of abandoning the field, and not seeking to

encourage the soldiers, as was done by the English Parliamentary

commanders at Edgehill. Therefore the English Bull Run was a far more

disgraceful affair than was that of America.

We shall not dwell upon the multitudinous panics and flights that

happened on both sides in the Great Civil War, but come at once to what

took place on the grand field-days of that contest,--Long-Marston Moor

and Naseby. At Long-Marston Moor, fought July 2, 1644, English, Irish,

and Scotch soldiers were present, so that all the island races were

on the field in the persons of some of the best of their number. The

Royalists charged the Scotch centre, and were twice repulsed; but their

third charge was more successful, and then most of the gallant Scotch

force broke in every direction, only some fragments of three regiments

standing their ground. "The Earl of Leven in vain hastened from one part

of the line to the other," says Mr. Langton Sanford, "endeavoring by

words and blows to keep the soldiers in the field, exclaiming, 'Though

you run from your enemies, yet leave not your general; though you fly

from them, yet forsake not me!' The Earl of Manchester, with great

exertions, rallied five hundred of the fugitives, and brought them back

to the battle. But these efforts to turn the fate of the day in this

quarter were fruitless, and at length the three generals of the

Parliament were compelled to seek safety in flight. Leven himself,

conceiving the battle utterly lost, in which he was confirmed by the

opinion of others then on the place near him, seeing they were fleeing

upon all hands toward Tadcaster and Cawood, was persuaded by his

attendants to retire and wait his better fortune. He did so, and never

drew bridle till he came to Leeds, nearly forty miles distant, having

ridden all that night with a cloak of _drap-de-berrie_ about him

belonging to the gentleman from whom we derive the information, then in

his retinue, with many other officers of good quality. Manchester and

Fairfax, carried away in the flight, soon returned to the field, but the

centre and right wing of their army were utterly broken. 'It was a sad

sight,' exclaims Mr. Ash, [an eye-witness of the affair,] 'to behold

many thousands posting away, amazed with _panic fears_!' Many fled

without striking a blow; _and multitudes of people that were spectators

ran away in such fear as daunted the soldiers still more_, some of the

horse never looking back till they got as far as Lincoln, some others

toward Hull, and others to Halifax and Wakefield, pursued by the enemy's

horse for nearly two miles from the field. Wherever they came, the

fugitives carried the news of the utter rout of the Parliament's

army."[B] This strong picture of the panic that prevailed in the very

army that won the Battle of Long-Marston Moor is confirmed by Sir Walter

Scott, who says that the Earl of Leven was driven from the field, and

was thirty miles distant, in full flight toward Scotland, when he was

overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory. Yet

Leven was an experienced soldier, having served in the army of Gustavus

Adolphus, in which he rose to very high rank; and the Scottish forces

had many soldiers who had been trained in the same admirable school.

That there were many spectators of the battle, whose fright "daunted

the soldiers still more," shows that people were as fond of witnessing

battles in 1644 as they are in 1861, and that their presence on the Moor

was productive of almost as much evil to the Roundheads as the presence

of Congressmen and other civilians at Manassas was to the Federal troops

on the 21st of July. There would seem to be indeed nothing new under

the sun, and folly is eternally reproducing itself. One of the names

connected with our defeat is that of one of the most gallant of the

Parliament's commanders at Long-Marston: Fairfax being named after the

sixth Lord Fairfax, whose singular history furnished to Mr. Thackeray

the plan for his "Virginians."

[Footnote B: Mr. Sanford quotes from a letter written by a spectator

of the panic at Long-Marston Moor, which is so descriptive of what we

should expect such a scene to be, that we copy it. "I could not," says

the writer, "meet the Prince [Rupert] until after the battle was joined;

and in fire, smoke, and confusion of the day I knew not for my soul

whither to incline. The runaways on both sides were so many, so

breathless, so speechless, so full of fears, that I should not have

taken them for men but by their motion, which still served them very

well, not a man of them being able to give me the least hope where the

Prince was to be found, both armies being mingled, both horse and foot,

no side keeping their own posts. In this terrible distraction did I

scour the country; here meeting with a shoal of Scots crying out, 'Wae's

me! We're a' undone!' and so full of lamentations and mourning, as if

their day of doom had overtaken them, and from which they knew not

whither to fly. And anon I met with a ragged troop, reduced to four and

a cornet; by-and-by, a little foot-officer, without a hat, band, or

indeed anything but feet, and so much tongue as would serve to inquire

the way to the next garrisons, which, to say truth, were well filled

with stragglers on both sides within a few hours, though they lay

distant from the place of fight twenty or thirty miles."--See _Studies

and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion_, (p. 606,) the best work ever

written on the grand constitutional struggle made by the English against

the usurpations of the Stuarts. The letter here quoted was written by an

English gentleman, Mr. Trevor, to the best of the Royalist leaders, the

Marquis (afterward first Duke) of Ormond.]

The panic at Naseby (June 14, 1645) was not of so pronounced a character

as that at Long-Marston; but it helps to prove the Englishman's aptitude

for running, and shows, that, if we have skill in the use of heels, we

have inherited it: it is, in a double sense, matter of race. In spite of

the exertions of Ireton, the cavalry of the left wing of the Roundheads

was swept out of the field by Prince Rupert's dashing charge; while the

foot were as deaf to the entreaties of old Skippon that they would keep

their ranks. Later in the day the Cavaliers took their turn at the panic

business, their horse flying over the hills, and leaving the infantry

and the artillery, the women and the baggage, to the mercy of the

Puritans,--and everybody knows what that was. The Cavaliers were even

more subject to panics than the Puritans, as was but natural, seeing

that they could not or would not be disciplined; and there were many of

the leaders of the deboshed, godless crew of whom it could have been

sung, as it was of Peveril of the Peak,--

"There was bluff old Sir Geoffrey loved brandy and mum well,

And to see a beer-glass turned over the thumb well;

But he fled like the wind, before Fairfax and Cromwell,

Which nobody can deny!"

Cromwell's last victory but one, that of Dunbar, (September 3, 1650,)

was due to the impertinent interference of "outsiders" with the business

of the Scotch general, and to the occurrence of a panic in the Scotch

army. The priests did for Leslie's army what the politicians are charged

with having done for that of General McDowell. The Scotch were mostly

raw troops, and soon fell into confusion; and then came one of those

scenes of slaughter which were so common after the Cromwellian

victories, and which, in spite of Mr. Carlyle's crazy admiration of

them, must ever be regarded by sane and humane people as the work of the

Devil. It is in dispute whether Cromwell's last great victory, that of

Worcester, (September 3, 1651,) was a panic affair or not; for while

Cromwell himself wrote that "indeed it was a stiff business," and that

the dimensions of the mercy were above his thoughts, he complacently

says, "Yet I do not think we have lost above two hundred men." Now, as

the English critics on the Battle of Bull Run will have it that it was

but a cowardly affair on our side, because but few men were at one

time reported to have fallen in it, it follows that Cromwell's army at

Worcester must have been an army of cowards, as it lost less than two

hundred men, though it had to fight hard for several hours for victory.

"As stiff a contest, for four or five hours," said the Lord-General,

"as ever I have seen." And what shall we think of the Scotch, who lost

fourteen thousand men? Mr. Lodge, whose sympathies are all with the

Cavaliers, says that the action is undeservedly called the Battle of

Worcester, "for it was in fact the mere rout of a _panic-stricken_

army." Certainly all the circumstances of the day tend to confirm this

view of what occurred on it: the heavy loss of the Scotch, the small

loss of the English, and the all but total destruction of the Royal

army. That Cromwell should make the most of his victory, of the

"crowning mercy," as he hoped it might prove, was natural enough.

Nothing is more common than for the victor to sound the praises of the

vanquished, that being a delicate form of self-praise. If they were so

clever and so brave, how much greater must have been the cleverness and

bravery of the man who conquered them? The difficulty is in inducing

the vanquished to praise the victor. We have no doubt that General

Beauregard speaks very handsomely of General McDowell; but how speaks

General McDowell of General Beauregard? Wellington often spoke well of

Napoleon's conduct in the campaign of 1815; but among the bitterest

things ever said by one great man of another great man are Napoleon's

criticisms on the conduct of Wellington in that campaign. We are not to

suppose that Wellington was a more magnanimous person than Napoleon,

which he assuredly was not; but he was praising himself, after an

allowable fashion, when he praised Napoleon. There would have been a

complete change of words in the mouths of the two men, had the result of

Waterloo been, as it should have been, favorable to the French. Napoleon

said that he never saw the Prussians behave well but at Jena, where he

broke the army of the Great Frederick to pieces. He had not a word to

say in praise of the Prussians who fought at the Katzbach, at Dennewitz,

and at Waterloo. Human nature is a very small thing even in very great

men.

As we see that the Roundheads triumphed in England, notwithstanding the

panics from which their armies suffered, subduing the descendants of

the conquering chivalry of Normandy, "to whom victory and triumph were

traditional, habitual, hereditary things," may we not hope that the

American descendants and successors of the Roundheads will be able

to subdue the descendants of the conquered chivalry of the South, a

chivalry that has as many parents as had the Romans who proceeded from

the loins of the "robbers and reivers" who had been assembled, as per

proclamation, at the Rogues' Asylum on the Palatine Hill? The bravery

of the Southern troops is not to be questioned, and it never has been

questioned by sensible men; but their pretensions to Cavalier descent

are at the head of the long list of historical false pretences, and tend

to destroy all confidence in their words. They may be aristocrats, but

they have not the shadow of a claim to aristocratical origin.

Lord Macaulay's brilliant account of the Battle of Landen (July 19,

1693) establishes the fact, that it is possible for an army of veterans,

led by some of the best officers of their time, to become panic-stricken

while defending intrenchments and a strong position. "A little after

four in the afternoon," he says, "the whole line gave way." "Amidst

the rout and uproar, while arms and standards were flung away, while

multitudes of fugitives were choking up the bridges and fords of the

Gette or perishing in its waters, the King, [William III.,] having

directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of

a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress

of the enemy." Luxembourg failed to follow up his victory, or all would

have been lost. The French behaved as did the Southrons after Bull Run:

they gave their formidable foe time to rally, and to recover from the

effect of the panic that had covered the country with fugitives; and

time was all that was necessary for either the English King or the

American General to prevent defeat from being extended into conquest.

Two of Marlborough's greatest victories were largely owing to the

occurrence of panic among the veteran troops of France. At Ramillies,

the French left, which was partially engaged in covering the retreat of

the rest of their army, were struck with a panic, fled, and were pursued

for five leagues. At Oudenarde, (July 11, 1708,) the French commander,

Vendôme, "urged the Duke of Burgundy and a crowd of panic-struck

generals to take advantage of the night, and restore order; but finding

his arguments nugatory, he gave the word for a retreat, and generals

and privates, horse and foot, instantly hurried in the utmost disorder

toward Ghent." The retreat of this crowd, which was a complete flight,

he covered by the aid of a few brave men whom he had rallied and formed,

and whose firm countenance prevented the entire destruction of

the French army. Yet the French soldiers of that time were men of

experience, and were accustomed to all the phases of war.

At the Battle of Rossbach, (November 5, 1757,) the troops of France and

of the German Empire fell into a panic, and were routed by half their

number of Prussians. That defeat was the most disgraceful that ever

befell the arms of a military nation. The panic was complete, and no

body of terrified militia ever fled more rapidly than did the veteran

troops of Germany and France on that eventful day. Napoleon, half a

century later, said that Rossbach produced a permanent effect on the

French military, and on France, and was one of the causes of the

Revolution. The disgrace was laid to the account of the French

commander, the Prince de Soubise, who was a profligate, a coward, and a

booby, and who neither knew war nor was known by it.

The English army experienced whatever of pleasure there may be in a

panic, or rather in a pair of panics, at the grand Battle of Fontenoy,

(May 11, 1745,) on which field they were so unutterably thrashed by the

French and the Irish. In the first part of the action, the Allies were

successful, when suddenly the Dutch troops fell into a panic, and fled

as fast as it is ever given to Dutchmen to fly. There is nothing so

contagious as panic terror, and the rest of the army, exposed as it was

to a tremendous fire, soon caught the disease, and was giving way under

it, when their commander, the Duke of Cumberland, who was well seconded

by his officers, succeeded in rallying them. They renewed the combat,

and their enemy became so alarmed in their turn that even the French

King, and his son the Dauphin, were in danger of being swept away in the

rout. Again there came a turn in the battle, and, mostly because of the

daring and dash of the famous Irish Brigade, the Allies were beaten and

forced to retreat. It is stated that the whole body of heroic British

Grenadiers who were engaged at Fontenoy gave a strong proof of the

effect of the panic upon their minds--and bodies; thus establishing the

fact that they had stomachs for something besides the fight. "Not to put

too fine a point upon it," they, with a unity of place and time that

speaks well for their discipline, did that which was done by the valiant

General Sterling Price at the Battle of Boonville, and which has caused

them to leave a deep impression on the historic page, though nothing can

be said in support of the attractiveness of the illustration which those

gallant men contributed to that page.

There was a partial exhibition of panic terror made by the English

troops at the Battle of Bunker's Hill. They were twice made to run on

that Seventeenth of June of which something has been said during the

last six-and-eighty years; and they were brought up to the point

of making a third attack only by the greatest exertions of their

commanders, and after having been considerably reinforced. This third

attack would have been as promptly repulsed as its predecessors had

been, but that the American troops had used up all their powder, and few

of them had bayonets. The firmness, and skill as marksmen, of a body of

militia had caused a larger body of British veterans twice to retreat

in great disorder, and under circumstances much resembling those that

characterize what is known as a panic. Had a third repulse of the

assailants occurred, nothing could have prevented their flight to their

boats. But it was written that the Americans should retreat; and it is

safe to say that they showed much more steadiness in the retreat than

the enemy did alacrity in the pursuit.

Panic terror was no uncommon thing during the Reign of Terror in France,

in the armies of the French Republic. The early efforts of the French

Republicans in the field sometimes failed because of panics occurring in

their armies; and they were not unknown to any of the armies that took

part in the long series of wars that began in 1792 and lasted, with

brief intervals of peace, down to the summer of 1815. At Marengo, both

armies suffered from panics. As early as ten o'clock in the forenoon,

a portion of Victor's corps retired in disorder, crying out, "All is

lost!" There were, in fact, three Battles of Marengo, the Austrians

winning the first and second, and losing the third, which was losing

all,--war not exactly resembling whist. When Desaix said, at three

o'clock in the afternoon, that the battle was lost, but there was time

enough to win another, he spoke the truth, and like a good soldier. The

new movements that followed his arrival and advice caused surprise to

the Austrians, and surprise soon passed into panic. The panic extended

to a portion of the cavalry, no one has ever been able to say why;

and it galloped off the field toward the Bormida, shouting, "To the

bridges!" The panic then reached to men of all arms, and cavalry,

artillery, and infantry were soon crowded together on the banks of the

stream which they had crossed in high hopes but a few hours before. The

artillery sought to cross by a ford, but failed, and the French made

prisoners, and seized guns, horses, baggage, and all the rest of

the trophies of victory. Thus a battle which confirmed the Consular

government of Bonaparte, which prepared the way for the creation of

the French Empire, and which settled the fate of Europe for years, was

decided by the panic cries of a few horse-soldiers. The Austrian cavalry

has long and justly been reputed second to no other in the world, and in

1800 it was a veteran body, and had been steadily engaged in war, with

small interruption, for eight years; but neither its experience, nor its

valor, nor regard for the character which it had to maintain, could save

it from the common lot of armies. It became terrified, and senselessly

fled, and its evil example was swiftly communicated to the other troops:

for there is nothing so contagious as a panic, every man that runs

thinking, that, while he is himself ignorant of the existence of any

peculiar danger, all the others must know of it, and are acting upon

their knowledge. That Austrian panic made the conqueror master of Italy,

and with France and Italy at his command he could aspire to the dominion

of Europe. The man who began the panic at Marengo really opened the way

to Vienna to the legions of France, and to Berlin, and (but that brought

compensation) to Moscow also.

There were panics in most of the great battles of the French Empire,

or those battles were followed by panics. At Austerlitz the Austrians

suffered from them; and though the Russian soldiers are among the

steadiest of men, and keep up discipline under very extraordinary

difficulties, they fared no better than their associates on that

terrible field. They had more than one panic, and the confusion

was prodigious. It was while flying in terror, that the dense, yet

disorderly crowds sought to escape over some ponds, the ice of which

broke, and two thousand of them were ingulfed. One of their generals,

writing of that day, said,--"I had previously seen some lost battles,

but I had no conception of such a defeat." Jena was followed by panics

which extended throughout the army and over the monarchy, so that the

Prussian army and the Prussian kingdom disappeared in a month, though

Napoleon had anticipated a long, difficult, and doubtful contest with so

renowned a military organization as that which had been created by the

immortal Frederick; and he had remarked, at the beginning of the war,

that there would be much use for the spade in the course of it. In the

Austrian campaign of 1809, there was the beginning of a panic that might

have produced serious consequences. The Archduke John, the Patterson of

those days, was at the head of an Austrian army which was expected to

take part in the Battle of Wagram; but it was not until after that

battle had been gained by the French that that prince arrived near the

Marchfeld, in the rear of the victors. A panic broke out among

the persons who saw the heads of his columns,--camp-followers,

_vivandières_, long lines of soldiers bearing off wounded men, and

others. The young soldiers, who were exhausted by their labors and the

heat, were conspicuous among the runaways, and there was a general race

to "the banks of the dark-rolling Danube." Nay, it is said that the

panic was taken up on the other side of the river, and that quite a

number of individuals did not stop till they had reached Vienna. Terror

prevailed, and the confusion was fast spreading, when Napoleon, who had

been roused from an attempt to obtain some rest under a shelter formed

of drums, fit materials for a house for him, arrived on the scene. In

reply to his questions, Charles Lebrun, one of his officers, answered,

"It is nothing, Sire,--merely a few marauders." "What do you call

nothing?" exclaimed the Emperor. "Know, Sir, that there are no trifling

events in war: nothing endangers an army like an imprudent security.

Return and see what is the matter, and come back quickly and render me

an account." The Emperor succeeded in restoring order, but not without

difficulty, and the Archduke withdrew his forces without molestation.

The circumstances of the panic show, that, if he had arrived at his

intended place a few hours earlier, the French would have been beaten,

and probably the French Empire have fallen at Vienna in 1809, instead

of falling at Paris in 1814; and then the House of Austria would have

achieved one of those extraordinary triumphs over its most powerful

enemies that are so common in its extraordinary history. The incident

bears some resemblance to the singular panic that happened the day after

the Battle of Solferino, and which was brought on by the appearance of a

few Austrian hussars, who came out of their hiding-place to surrender,

many thousand men running for miles, and showing that the most

successful army of modern days could be converted into a mob by--

nothing.

Seldom has the world seen such a panic as followed the Battle of

Vittoria, in which Wellington dealt the French Empire the deadly blow

under which it reeled and fell; for, if that battle had not been fought

and won, the Allies would probably have made peace with Napoleon,

following up the armistice into which they had already entered with him;

but Vittoria encouraged them to hope for victory, and not in vain. The

French King of Spain there lost his crown and his carriage; the Marshal

of France commanding lost his _bâton_, and the honorable fame which he

had won nineteen years before at Fleurus; and the French army lost its

artillery, all but one piece, and, what was of more consequence, its

honor. It was the completest rout ever seen in that age of routs and

balls. And yet the defeated army was a veteran army, and most of its

officers were men whose skill was as little to be doubted as their

bravery.

There were panics at Waterloo, not a few; and, what is remarkable, they

happened principally on the side of the victors, the French suffering

nothing from them till after the battle was lost, when the pressure of

circumstances threw their beaten army into much confusion, and it was

not possible that it should be otherwise. Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian

brigade ran away from the French about two o'clock in the afternoon, and

swept others with them in their rush, much to the rage of the British,

some of whom hissed, hooted, and cursed, forgetting that quite as

discreditable incidents had occurred in the course of the military

history of their own country. One portion of the British troops that

desired to fire upon those exhibitors of "Dutch courage" actually

belonged to the most conspicuous of the regiments that ran away at

Falkirk, seventy years before. At a later hour Trip's Dutch-Belgian

cavalry-brigade ran away in such haste and disorder that some squadrons

of German hussars experienced great difficulty in maintaining their

ground against the dense crowd of fugitives. The Cumberland regiment

of Hanoverian hussars was deliberately taken out of the field by its

colonel when the shot began to fall about it, and neither orders nor

entreaties nor arguments nor execrations could induce it to form under

fire. Nay, it refused to form across the high-road, _out_ of fire, but

"went altogether to the rear, spreading alarm and confusion all the

way to Brussels." Nothing but the coming up of the cavalry-brigades

of Vivian and Vandeleur, at a late hour, prevented large numbers of

Wellington's infantry from leaving the field. The troops of Nassau fell

"back _en masse_ against the horses' heads of the Tenth Hussars, who,

keeping their files closed, prevented further retreat." The Tenth

belonged to Vivian's command. D'Aubremé's Dutch-Belgian infantry-brigade

was prevented from running off when the Imperial Guard began their

charge, only because Vandeleur's cavalry-brigade was in their rear, with

even the squadron-intervals closed, so that they had to elect between

the French bayonet and the English sabre. There was something resembling

a temporary panic among Maitland's British Guards, after the repulse

of the first column of the Imperial Guard, but order was very promptly

restored. It is impossible to read any extended account of the Battle of

Waterloo without seeing that it was a desperate business on the part of

the Allies, and that, if the Prussians could have been kept out of the

action, their English friends would have had an excellent chance to keep

the field--as the killed and wounded. Wellington never had the ghost of

a chance without the aid of Bülow, Zieten, and Blücher.[C]

[Footnote C: There is no great battle concerning which so much nonsense

has been written and spoken as that of Waterloo, which ought to console

us for the hundred-and-one accounts that are current concerning the

action of the 21st of July, no two of which are more alike than if the

one related to Culloden and the other to Arbela. The common belief is,

that toward the close of the day Napoleon formed two columns of the

_Old_ Guard, and sent them against the Allied line; that they advanced,

and were simultaneously repulsed by the weight and precision of the

English fire in front; and that, on seeing the columns of the Guard fall

into disorder, the French all fled, and Wellington immediately ordered

his whole line to advance, which prevented the French from rallying,

they flying in a disorderly mass, which was incapable of resistance. So

far is this view of the "Crisis of Waterloo" from being correct, that

the repulse of the Guard would not have earned with it the loss of the

battle, had it not been for a number of circumstances, some of

which made as directly in favor of the English as the others worked

unfavorably to the French. When Napoleon found that the operations of

Bülow's Prussians threatened to compromise his right flank and rear, he

determined to make a vigorous attempt to drive the Allies from their

position in his front, not merely by employing two columns of his Guard,

but by making a general attack on Wellington's line. For this purpose,

he formed one column of four battalions of the _Middle_ Guard, and

another of four other battalions of the _Middle_ Guard and two

battalions of the Old Guard. At the same time the corps of D'Erlon and

Reille were to advance, and a severe _tiraillade_ was opened by a great

number of skirmishers; and the attack was supported by a tremendous fire

from artillery. So animated and effective were the operations of the

various bodies of French not belonging to the Guard, that nothing but

the arrival of the cavalry brigades of Vandeleur and Vivian, from the

extreme left of the Allied line, prevented that line from being pierced

in several places. Those brigades had been relieved by the arrival of

the advance of Zieten's Prussian corps, and were made available for the

support of the points threatened by the French. They were drawn up in

rear of bodies of infantry, whom they would not permit to run away,

which they sought to do. The first column of the Guard was repulsed by

a fire of cannon and musketry, and when disordered it was charged by

Maitland's brigade of British Guards. The interval between the advance

of that column and that of the second column was from ten to twelve

minutes; and the appearance of the second column caused Maitland's

Guards to fall into confusion, and the whole body went to the rear. This

confusion, we are told, was not consequent upon either defeat or panic,

but resulted simply from a misunderstanding of the command. The coming

up of the second column led to a panic in a Dutch-Belgian brigade, which

would have left the field but for the presence of Vandeleur's cavalry,

through which the men could not penetrate; and yet the panic-stricken

men could not even see the soldiers before whose shouts they endeavored

to fly! The second column was partially supported, at first, by a body

of cavalry; but it failed in consequence of a flank attack made by the

Fifty-Second Regiment, which was aided by the operations of some other

regiments, all belonging to General Adam's brigade. This attack on its

left flank was assisted by the fire of a battery in front, and by the

musketry of the British Guards on its right flank. Thus assailed, the

defeat of the second column was inevitable. Had it been supported by

cavalry, so that it could not have been attacked on either flank, it

would have succeeded in its purpose. Adam's brigade followed up its

success, and Vivian's cavalry was ordered forward by Wellington, to

check the French cavalry, should it advance, and to deal generally

with the French reserves. Adam and Vivian did their work so well that

Wellington ordered his whole line of infantry to advance, supported by

cavalry and artillery. The French made considerable resistance after

this, but their retreat became inevitable, and soon degenerated into a

rout. An exception to the general disorganization was observed by the

victors, not unlike to an incident which we have seen mentioned in an

account of the Bull Run flight. In the midst of the crowd of fugitives

on the 21st of July, and forcing its way through that crowd, was seen a

company of infantry, marching as coolly and steadily as if on parade. So

it was after Waterloo, when the _grenadiers à cheval_ moved off at a

walk, "in close column, and in perfect order, as if disdaining to allow

itself to be contaminated by the confusion that prevailed around it." It

was unsuccessfully attacked, and the regiment "literally walked from the

field in the most orderly manner, moving majestically along the stream,

the surface of which was covered with the innumerable wrecks into which

the rest of the French army had been scattered." It was supposed that

this body of cavalry was engaged in protecting the retreat of the

Emperor, and, had all the French been as cool and determined as were

those veteran horsemen, the army might have been saved. Troops in

retreat, who hold firmly together, and show a bold countenance to the

enemy, are seldom made to suffer much.]

The Russian War was not of a nature to afford room for the occurrence of

any panic on an extensive scale, but between that contest and ours there

is one point of resemblance that may be noted. The failures and losses

of the Allies, who had at their command unlimited means, and the bravest

of soldiers in the greatest numbers, were all owing to bad management;

and our reverses in every instance are owing to the same cause. The

disaster at Bull Run, and the inability of our men to keep the ground

they had won at Wilson's Creek, in Missouri, (August 10,) were the

legitimate consequences of action over which the mass of the soldiers

could have no control. It is due to the soldiers to say this, for it

is the truth, as every man knows who has observed the course of the

contest, and who has seen it proceed from a political squabble to the

dimensions of a mighty war, the end of which mortal vision cannot

foresee.

It would be no difficult task to add a hundred instances to those we

have mentioned of the occurrence of panics in European armies; but it

is not necessary to pursue the subject farther. Nothing is better known

than that almost every eminent commander has suffered from panic terror

having taken control of the minds of his men, and nothing is more unjust

than to speak of the American panic of the 21st of July as if it were

something quite out of the common way of war. True, its origin has never

been fully explained; but in this point it only resembles most other

panics, the causes of which never have been explained and never will be.

It is characteristic of a panic that its occurrence cannot be accounted

for; and therefore it was that the ancients attributed it to the direct

interposition of a god, as arising from some cause quite beyond human

comprehension. If panics could be clearly explained, some device might

be hit upon, perhaps, for their prevention. But we see that they

occurred at the very dawn of history, that they have happened repeatedly

for five-and-twenty centuries, and that they are as common now in the

nineteenth Christian century as they were in those days when Pan was a

god. "Great Pan is _not_ dead," but sends armies to pot now as readily

as he did when there were hoplites and peltasts on earth. We can console

ourselves, though the consolation be but a poor one, with the reflection

that all military peoples have suffered from the same cause that has

brought so much mortification and so great loss immediately home to us.

Our panic is the greatest that ever was known only because it is the

latest one that has happened, and because it has happened to ourselves.

It is idle, and even laughable, to attempt to argue it out of sight. We

should admit its occurrence as freely as it is asserted by the bitterest

and most unfair of our critics; and we should recognize the truth of

what has been well said on the subject, that the only possible answer to

the attacks that have been made on the national character for military

capacity and courage is _victory_. If we shall succeed in this war, the

rout of Bull Run will no more destroy our character for manliness than

the rout of Landen destroyed the character of Englishmen for the same

virtue. If we fail, we must submit to be considered cowards: and we

shall deserve to be so held, if, with our superior numbers, and still

more superior means, we cannot maintain the Republic against the rebels.

OUR COUNTRY.

On primal rocks she wrote her name;

Her towers were reared on holy graves;

The golden seed that bore her came

Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest,

And open flung his sylvan doors;

Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest

To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered land

To swell her virgin vestments grew,

While Sages, strong in heart and hand,

Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of kings!

O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!

The refuge of divinest things,

Their record must abide in thee!

First in the glories of thy front

Let the crown-jewel, Truth, be found;

Thy right hand fling, with generous wont,

Love's happy chain to farthest bound!

Let Justice, with the faultless scales,

Hold fast the worship of thy sons;

Thy Commerce spread her shining sails

Where no dark tide of rapine runs!

So link thy ways to those of God,

So follow firm the heavenly laws,

That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed,

And storm-sped Angels hail thy cause!

O Land, the measure of our prayers,

Hope of the world in grief and wrong,

Be thine the tribute of the years,

The gift of Faith, the crown of Song!

THE WORMWOOD CORDIAL OF HISTORY.

WITH A FABLE.

The great war which is upon us is shaking us down into solidity as corn

is shaken down in the measure. We were heaped up in our own opinion,

and sometimes running over in expressions of it. This rude jostling is

showing us the difference between bulk and weight, space and substance.

In one point of view we have a right to be proud of our inexperience,

and hardly need to blush for our shortcomings. These are the tributes we

are paying to our own past innocence and tranquillity. We have lived

a peaceful life so long that the traditional cunning and cruelty of a

state of warfare have become almost obsolete among us. No wonder that

hard men, bred in foreign camps, find us too good-natured, wanting in

hatred towards our enemies. We can readily believe that it is a special

Providence which has suffered us to meet with a reverse or two, just

enough to sting, without crippling us, only to wake up the slumbering

passion which is the legitimate and chosen instrument of the higher

powers for working out the ends of justice and the good of man.

There are a few far-seeing persons to whom our present sudden mighty

conflict may not have come as a surprise; but to all except these it

is a prodigy as startling as it would be, if the farmers of the North

should find a ripened harvest of blood-red ears of maize upon the

succulent stalks of midsummer. We have lived for peace: as individuals,

to get food, comfort, luxuries for ourselves and others; as communities,

to insure the best conditions we could for each human being, so that he

might become what God meant him to be. The verdict of the world was,

that we were succeeding. Many came to us from the old civilizations;

few went away from us, and most of these such as we could spare without

public loss.

We had almost forgotten the meaning and use of the machinery of

destruction. We had come to look upon our fortresses as the ornaments,

rather than as the defences of our harbors. Our war-ships were the

Government's yacht-squadron, our arsenals museums for the entertainment

of peaceful visitors. The roar of cannon has roused us from this

Arcadian dream. A ship of the line, we said, reproachfully, costs as

much as a college; but we are finding out that its masts are a part of

the fence round the college. The Springfield Arsenal inspired a noble

poem; but that, as we are learning, was not all it was meant for. What

poets would be born to us in the future without the "_placida quies_"

which "_sub libertate_" the sword alone can secure for our children?

It is all plain, but it has been an astonishment to us, as our war-comet

was to the astronomers. The comet, as some of them say, brushed us with

its tail as it passed; yet nobody finds us the worse for it. So, too, we

have been brushed lightly by mishap, as we ought to have been, and as we

ought to have prayed to be, no doubt, if we had known what was good for

us; yet at this very moment we stand stronger, more hopeful, more united

than ever before in our history.

Misfortunes are no new things; yet a man suffering from furuncles will

often speak as if Job had never known anything about them. We will take

up a book lying by us, and find all the evils, or most of those we have

been complaining of, described in detail, as they happened eight or ten

generations before our time.

It was in "a struggle for NATIONAL independence, liberty of conscience,

freedom of the seas, against sacerdotal and _world-absorbing tyranny_."

A plotting despot is at the bottom of it. "While the _riches of the

Indies_ continue, he thinketh he will be able to weary out all other

princes." But England had soldiers and statesmen ready to fight, even

though "Indies"--the King Cotton of that day--were declared arbiter of

the contest. "I pray God," said one of them, "that I live not to see

this enterprise quail, and with it the utter subversion of religion

throughout Christendom."--"The war doth defend England. Who is he that

will refuse to spend his life and living in it? If her Majesty consume

twenty thousand men in the cause, the experimented men that will remain

will double that strength to the realm."--_"The freehold of England will

be worth but little, if this action quail;_ and therefore I wish no

subject to spare his purse towards it."--"God hath stirred up this

action to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the freedom of

England, which through these long times of peace and quietness is

brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted. Our

delicacy is such that we are already weary; yet this journey is nought

in respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and do endure."

"There can be no doubt," the historian remarks, "that the organization

and discipline of English troops were in anything but a satisfactory

state at that period."--"The soldiers required shoes and stockings,

bread and meat, and for those articles there were not the necessary

funds."--"There came no penny of treasure over."--"There is much still

due. They cannot get a penny, their credit is spent, _they perish for

want of victuals and clothing_ in great numbers. The whole are ready

to mutiny."--"There was no soldier yet able to buy himself _a pair of

hose_, and it is too, too great shame to see how they go, and _it

kills their hearts to show themselves among men_."--These "poor subjects

were no better than abjects," said the Lieutenant-General. "There is but

a small number of the first bands left," said another,--"and those so

pitiful and unable to serve again as I leave to speak further of

them, to avoid grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been

somewhere." Of what nature the "monstrous fault" was we may conjecture

from the language of the Commander-in-Chief. "There can be no doubt of

our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive

charges, if every one of us will put our minds to forward, _without

making a miserable gain by the wars_." (We give the Italics as we find

them in the text.) He believed that much of the work might be speedily

done; for he "would undertake to furnish from hence, upon two months'

warning, a navy for strong and tall ships, with their furniture and

mariners."

In the mean time "there was a whisper of peace-overtures," "rumors

which, whether true or false, were most pernicious in their effects";

for "it was war, not peace," that the despot "intended," and the "most

trusty counsellors [of England] knew to be inevitable." Worse than this,

there was treachery of the most dangerous kind. "Take heed whom you

trust," said the brother of the Commander-in-Chief to him; "for that

you have some false boys about you." In fact, "many of those nearest his

person and of highest credit out of England were his deadly foes, sworn

to compass his dishonor, his confusion, and eventually his death, and in

correspondence with his most powerful adversaries at home and abroad."

It was a sad state of things. The General "was much disgusted with the

raw material out of which he was expected to manufacture serviceable

troops." "Swaggering ruffians from the disreputable haunts of London"

"were not the men to be intrusted with the honor of England at a

momentous crisis." "Our simplest men in show have been our best men,

and your _gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all others_." (The

Italics again are the author's.) Yet, said the muster-master, "there is

good hope that his Excellency will shortly establish such good order

for the government and training of our nation, that these weak, badly

furnished, ill-armed, and worse trained bands, thus rawly left unto

him, shall within a few months prove as well armed, complete, gallant

companies as shall be found elsewhere in Europe."

Very pleasant it must have been to the Commander-in-Chief to report to

his Government that in one of the first actions "five hundred Englishmen

of the best Flemish training had flatly and shamefully run away."

Yet this was the commencement of the struggle which ended with the

dispersion and defeat of the great Armada, and destroyed the projects of

the Spanish tyrant for introducing religious and political slavery into

England! It seems as if Mr. Motley's Seventh Chapter were a prophecy,

rather than a history.

* * * * *

An invasion and a conspiracy may always be expected to make head at

first. The men who plan such enterprises are not fools, but cunning,

managing people. They always have, or think they have, a _primâ facie_

case to start with. They have been preparing just as the highwayman has

been preparing for his aggressive movement. They expect to find,

and they commonly do find, their victims only half ready, if at all

forewarned, and to take them at a disadvantage. If conspirators and

invaders do not strike heavy blows at once, their cause is desperate; if

they do, it proves very little, because that is the least they expected

to do.

It is very easy to run up a score behind the door of a tavern; credit

is good, and chalk is cheap. But these little marks have all got to be

crossed out by-and-by, and the time will surely come for turning all

empty pockets wrong side out. The aggressors begin in a great passion,

and are violent and dangerous at first; the nation or community assailed

are surprised, dismayed, perhaps, like the good people in the coach,

when they see Dick Turpin's pistol thrust in at the window.

The Romans were certainly a genuine fighting people. They kept the state

on a perpetual military footing. They were never without veterans, men

and leaders bred in camp and experienced in warfare. Yet what a piece of

work their African invader cut out for them! It seemed they had to learn

everything over again. Thousands upon thousands killed and driven into

Lake Trasimenus,--_fifteen thousand_ prisoners taken; total rout again

at Cannae,--rings picked from slain gentlemen's fingers by the peck or

bushel,--everything lost in battle, and a great revolt through the

Southern provinces as a natural consequence. What then? Rome was not to

be Africanized as yet. The great leader who had threatened the capital,

and scored these portentous victories, had at last to pay for them all

in defeat and humiliation on his own soil.

Even the robber Spartacus beat the Roman armies at first, with their

consuls at their head, and laid waste a large part of the peninsula.

These violent uprisings and incursions are always dangerous at their

onset; they are just like new diseases, which the doctors tell us must

be studied by themselves, and which are rarely treated with great

success until near the period of their natural cessation. After a time

Fabius learns how to handle the hot Southern invaders, and Crassus the

way of fighting the fierce gladiators with their classical bowie-knives.

Remember, _Rome_ never is beaten,--_Romans_ may be. It is inherent in

the very idea of a republic that its peaceful servants shall be liable

to be taken at fault. The counsels of the many, which are meant to

secure all men's rights in tranquil times, cannot in the nature of

things adapt themselves all at once to the sudden exigencies of war.

Consequently, a republic must expect to be beaten at first by any

concentrated power of nearly equal strength. After a time the

commander-in-chief emerges from the confused mass of counsellors, and

substitutes the action of one mind and will for the conflict of many.

The Romans recognized the Dictatorship as the necessary complement of

the Republic; and it is worthy of remark that that high office was

never abused so long as the people were worthy to be free. "_Ne quid

detrimenti respublica capiat_" was the formula according to which they

surrendered their liberty for the sake of their liberty. A great danger,

doubtless, for a people not leavened through and through with the spirit

of freedom; but not so where the army is only the representative of a

self-governing community. This army is not like to enslave itself or

the families it comes from, to please the leader whom it trusts for an

emergency. The pilot is absolute while the vessel is coming into harbor,

but the crew are not afraid of his remaining master of the ship.

Washington's reply to Nicola's letter, proposing to make him King, was

written at a time when the republican system under the shadow of which

three generations have been bred up to manhood was but as a grain of

mustard-seed compared to this mighty growth which now spreads over our

land. It is not likely that another man will make out so good a claim

to supremacy as he; it is pretty certain, that, if he does, he will not

have the opportunity of rejecting the insignia of royalty, and if this

should happen, he can hardly forget the great example before him.

It is curious to see that the difficulties a general has to contend

with now are much the same that were found in the first Revolution: bad

food,--the poor surgeon at Valley Forge, whose diary was printed the

other day, could not keep it on his stomach at any rate,--insufficient

clothing, and no shoes at all, as the bloody snow bore witness,--and

among our own New England troops "a spirit of insubordination which they

took for independence," as Washington expressed himself. We do not think

the New England men have rendered themselves liable to this reproach

of late,--and this is a remarkable tribute to the influence of a true

republican training. But in various quarters there has been enough of

it, and the consequent disorganization of at least one free and easy

regiment is no more than might have been expected.

A panic or two, with all the disgrace and suffering that attach to such

hysterical paroxysms, or at least a defeat, are the experiences through

which half-organized bodies often pass to teach them the meaning of

discipline and mechanical habit. An army must go through the annealing

process like glass; let a few regiments be cracked to pieces because

their leaders did not know how to withdraw them gradually from the

furnace of action, and the lesson will be all the better remembered

because taught by a costly example. Our early mishaps were all

predicted, sometimes in formal shape, as in various letters dated long

before the breaking out of hostilities, and very often in the common

talk of those about us. But, after all, when the first chastisement

from our hard schoolmaster, Experience, comes upon us, it is a kind of

surprise, in spite of all our preparation.

A writer in the present number of this magazine shows us that there is a

complete literature of panics, not merely as occurring among new levies,

but seizing on the best-appointed armies, containing as much individual

bravery as any that never ran away from an enemy. The men of Israel gave

way before the men of Benjamin, "retired" in the language of Scripture,

in order to lead them into ambush. At a given signal they faced about,

and the men of Benjamin "were amazed" (panic-struck) and "turned their

backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness,"--took to

the woods, as we should say. Their enemies did not lie still or run as

fast the other way, like ours at Bull Run, but they "inclosed" them, and

"chased them, and trode them down with ease," and "gleaned of them in

the highways," and "pursued hard after them." Yet "all these were men of

valor."

Not to return to our old classical friends, what modern nation has ever

known how to fight that had not learned how to be beaten and how to run?

The English ran ninety miles from Bannockburn, seared by the "gillies"

and the baggage-wagons. They paid back their debt at Culloden. The

Prussian armies were routed at Jena and Auerstädt. They had their

revenge in the "_sauve qui peut_" of Waterloo. The great armada, British

and French, undertook to bombard Sebastopol, and eight ships of the line

were so mauled that they had to go back to Toulon and Portsmouth for

repairs. Lord Raglan is said to have so far despaired of success as to

have contemplated raising the siege.

Everybody remembers the feeling produced by the repeated fruitless

attacks on the fortifications, the three unsuccessful bombardments,

the divided counsels, the disappointment and death of Lord Raglan, the

complaints of Canrobert of the want of a single commanding intellect,

and the relinquishment of his own position to Pelissier, itself a

confession of failure. If there ever was a campaign begun with defeat

and disaster, it was that which ended with the fall of Sebastopol.

Read the account of the retreat of the advanced force of our own army

at the Battle of Monmouth Court-House. Washington could not believe the

first story told him. Presently he met one fugitive after another, and

then Grayson's and Patton's regiments in disorderly retreat. He did not

know what to make of it. There had been no fighting except a successful

skirmish with the enemy's cavalry. He met Major Howard; this officer

could give no reason for the running,--had never seen the like. Another

officer swears they are flying from a shadow. Lee tries to account for

it,--troops confused by contradictory intelligence, by disobedience of

orders, by the meddling and blundering of individuals,--vague excuses

all, the plain truth being that they had given way to a panic. But for

Washington's fierce commands and threats, the retreat might have become

a total rout.

It is curious to see how the little incidents, even, of our late

accelerated retrograde movement recall those of the old Revolutionary

story. Mr. Russell speaks thus of the fugitives: "Faces black and dusty,

_tongues out in the heat_, eyes staring,--it was a most wonderful

sight." If Mr. Russell had ever read Stedman's account of his own

countrymen's twenty-mile run from Concord to Bunker's Hill, he would

have learned that they "were so much exhausted with fatigue, that they

were obliged to lie down for rest on the ground, _their tongues hanging

out of their mouths_, like those of dogs after a chase." One rout is as

much like another as the scamper of one flock of sheep like that of all

others.

A pleasing consequence of this war we are engaged in has hardly

been enough thought of. It is a rough way of introducing distant

fellow-citizens of the same land to each other's acquaintance. Next to

the intimacy of love is that of enmity. Nay,

"Love itself could never pant

For all that beauty sighs to grant

With half the fervor hate bestows

Upon the last embrace of foes,

When, grappling in the fight, they fold

Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold."

"We shall learn to respect each other," as one of our conservative

friends said long ago. It is a great mistake to try to prove our own

countrymen cowards and degenerate from the old stock. It is worth the

price of some hard fighting to show the contrary to the satisfaction of

both parties. The Scotch and English called each other all possible hard

names in the time of their international warfare; but the day has come

for them, as it will surely come for us, when the rivals and enemies

must stand side by side and shoulder to shoulder, each proud of the

other's bravery.

* * * * *

For three-quarters of a century we have been melting our several

destinies in one common crucible, to mould a new and mighty empire such

as the world has never seen. Our partners cannot expect to be allowed

to break the crucible or the mould, or to carry away the once separate

portions now flowing in a single incandescent flood. We cannot sell and

they cannot buy our past. Our nation has pledged itself to unity by the

whole course of its united action. There is one debt alone that all

the cotton-fields of the South could never pay: it is the price of

our voluntary humiliation for the sake of keeping peace with the

slaveholders. We may be robbed of our inalienable nationality, if

treason is strong enough, but we are trustees of the life of three

generations for the benefit of all that are yet to be. We cannot sell.

We dare not break the entail of freedom and disinherit the first-born of

half a continent.

When the Plebeians seceded to the Mons Sacer, some five hundred years

before the Christian era, the Consul Menenius Agrippa brought them back

by his well-known fable of the Belly and the Members. Perhaps it would

be too much to expect to call back our seceders with a fable which they

will hardly have the opportunity of reading in the present condition of

the postal service, but the state of the case may be put with a certain

degree of truth in this of

THE FRONT-TEETH AND THE GRINDERS.

Once on a time a mutiny arose among the teeth of a worthy man, in good

health and blessed with a sound constitution, commonly known as Uncle

Samuel. The cutting-teeth, or _incisors_, and the eye-teeth, or

_canines_, though not nearly so many, all counted, nor so large, nor so

strong as the grinders, and by no means so white, but, on the contrary,

very much discolored, began to find fault with the grinders as not good

enough company for them. The eye-teeth, being very sharp and fitted for

seizing and tearing, and standing out taller than the rest, claimed to

lead them. Presently, one of them complained that it ached very badly,

and then another and another. Very soon the cutting-teeth, which

pretended they were supplied by the same nerve, and were proud of

it, began to ache also. They all agreed that it was the fault of the

grinders.

About this time, Uncle Samuel, having used his old tooth-brush (which

was never a good one, having no stiffness in the bristles) for four

years, took a new one, recommended to him by a great number of people as

a homely, but useful article. Thereupon all the front-teeth, one after

another, declared that Uncle Samuel meant to scour them white, which was

a thing they would never submit to, though the whole civilized world was

calling on them to do so. So they all insisted on getting out of the

sockets in which they had grown and stood for so many years. But the

wisdom-teeth spoke up for the others and said,--

"Nay, there be but twelve of you front-teeth, and there be twenty of us

grinders. We are the strongest, and a good deal nearest the muscles

and the joint, but we cannot spare you. We have put up with your black

stains, your jumping aches, and your snappish looks, and now we are not

going to let you go, under the pretence that you are to be scrubbed

white, if you stay. You don't work half so hard as we do, but you can

bite the food well enough, which we can grind so much better than you.

We belong to each other. You must stay."

Thereupon the front-teeth, first the canines or dog-teeth, next the

incisors or cutting-teeth, proceeded to declare themselves out of their

sockets, and no longer belonging to the jaws of Uncle Samuel.

Then Uncle Samuel arose in his wrath and shut his jaws tightly together,

and swore that he would keep them shut till those aching and discolored

teeth of his went to pieces in their sockets, if need were, rather than

have them drawn, standing, as some of them did, at the very opening of

his throat and stomach.

And now, if you will please to observe, all those teeth are beginning

to ache worse than ever, and to decay very fast, so that it will take a

great deal of gold to stop the holes that are forming in them. But the

great white grinders are as sound as ever, and will remain so until

Uncle Samuel thinks the time has come for opening his mouth. In the mean

time they keep on grinding in a quiet way, though the others have had

to stop biting for a long time. When Uncle Samuel opens his mouth, they

will be as ready for work as ever; but those poor discolored teeth will

be tender for a great while, and never be so strong as they were before

they foolishly declared themselves out of their sockets.

* * * * *

The foregoing fable is respectfully dedicated to the Southern Plebs,

who, under the lead of their "Patrician" masters, have "seceded," like

their predecessors in the days of Menenius Agrippa.