They Had
Recognized The Fact That Their Troops Must Be Equipped, Drilled,
And Instructed; And They Had Also Recognized The Perhaps Greater
Fact That Their Enemies Were Neither Weak, Cowardly, Nor Badly
Officered.
I have always thought that the tone and manner with
which the North bore the defeat at Bull's Run was creditable to it.
It was never denied, never explained away, never set down as
trifling.
"We have been whipped," was what all Northerners said;
"we've got an almighty whipping, and here we are." I have heard
many Englishmen complain of this - saying that the matter was taken
almost as a joke, that no disgrace was felt, and that the licking
was owned by a people who ought never to have allowed that they had
been licked. To all this, however, I demur. Their only chance of
speedy success consisted in their seeing and recognizing the truth.
Had they confessed the whipping, and then sat down with their hands
in their pockets - had they done as second-rate boys at school will
do, declare that they had been licked, and then feel that all the
trouble is over - they would indeed have been open to reproach. The
old mother across the water would in such case have disowned her
son. But they did the very reverse of this. "I have been
whipped," Jonathan said, and he immediately went into training
under a new system for another fight.
And so all through September and October the great armies on the
Potomac rested comparatively in quiet - the Northern forces drawing
to themselves immense levies.
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