222

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN.

we required. Even if those points had been captured, though none were theneven threatened, they must have reverted as a direct consequence to so deci-sive a success. I was willing, then, should it have come to that, to exchangeeven Richmond temporarily for Washington. Yet it was precisely from simi-lar combinations and elements that the army was made up, to enable it thenext spring, under General Lee , to encounter McClellan at the very door ofRichmond. If that which was accepted as a last defensive resort against anoverwhelming aggressive army had been used in an enterprising offensiveagainst that same army while yet in the raw, the same venture had beenmade at less general risk, less cost of valuable lives, and with greatercertain results. The Federal army would have had no chance meanwhileto become tempered to that magnificent military machine which, throughall its defeats and losses, remained sound, and was stronger, with itsreadily assimilating new strength, at the end of the war than ever before;the pressure would have been lifted from Kentucky and Missouri , andwe should have maintained what is called an active defensive warfare,that is, should have taken and kept the offensive against the enemy,enforcing peace.

No people ever warred for independence with more relative advantagesthan the Confederates; and if, as a military question, they must have failed,then no country must aim at freedom by means of war. We were one insentiment as in territory, starting out, not with a struggling administrationof doubtful authority, but with our ancient State governments and a fullyorganized central government. As a military question, it was in no sense acivil war, but a war between two countries—for conquest on one side, forself-preservation on the other. The South, with its great material resources,its defensive means of mountains, rivers, railroads, and telegraph, with theimmense advantage of the interior lines of war, would be open to discreditas a people if its failure could not be explained otherwise than by merematerial contrast. The great Frederick, at the head of a little people, notonly beat back a combination of several great military powers, but conqueredand kept territory; and Napoleon held combined Europe at the feet ofFrance till his blind ambition overleaped itself. It may be said that theSouth had no Fredericks or Napoleons; but it had at least as good com-manders as its adversary. Nor was it the fault of our soldiers or people.Our soldiers were as brave and intelligent as ever bore arms; and, if onlyfor reasons already mentioned, they did not lack in determination. Ourpeople bore a devotion to the cause never surpassed, and which no war-mak-ing monarch ever had for his support; they gave their all—even the laststriplings under the family roofs fi lling the ranks voided by the fall of theirfathers and brothers. But the narrow military view of the head of the Govern-ment, which illustrated itself at the outset by ordering from Europe , not 100,000or 1,000,000, but 10,000 stands of arms, as an increase upon 8000, its firstestimate, was equally narrow and timid in its employment of our armies.

The moral and material forces actually engaged in the war made our successamoral certainty, but for the timid policy which—ignoring strategy as ascience and boldness of enterprise as its ally — could never be brought to