mies, beyond their lines of defence into Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, or Pennsylvania, may be said to have cost them an army. Precisely how these

errors were regarded by men who understood the matter was in later years well expressed by Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill, one of the ablest officers of the Confederate army: "The bitterness of death had passed with me before our great reverses of July 4th [1863, Vicksburg and Gettysburg]. . . . The drums that beat for the advance into Pennsylvania seemed to many of us to be beating the funeral march of the dead Confederacy.'

It had no thought of dying in the Summer of 1861, and altogether the most harassing difficulties hampering the action of President Lincoln arose from the mournful fact that so large a number of Northern citizens were palsied by a half-hearted fear that the Union must perish instead, or were poisoned by a disloyal hope that it might, while jealous powers beyond the Atlantic did not conceal their desire for the dismemberment of the great Western Republic.

The first great victory won for the Union, after the call to arms, was political as well as military. It was the permanent separation of Virginia, west of the mountains, from the remainder of the State, by the spontaneous action of the people of about forty counties, whose votes on May 23d had not been given for secession. Their delegates met in convention at Wheeling on June 11th, 1861, repudiated the action of the existing State authorities, executive and legislative, and proceeded to form a provisional government.

On July 9th the new organization chose two United States Senators, who were at once admitted to seats, but not to votes in the Senate, and in due season the commonwealth of West Virginia became a State of the Union. The military operations connected with this political movement began with it. The Confederate troops sent to occupy the disaffected district were badly handled, and were outmarched, shattered, and driven out by the Union forces under General George B. McClellan. There were several smart skirmishes fought, in which the Union loss was thirteen killed and forty wounded, while the Confederates lost two hundred killed, many wounded, a thousand prisoners, and seven field pieces. Not the least important of the consequences was the sudden fame acquired by the Union commander, and this was also political as well as military in its fruitage.

Matters in Missouri, and in the Western States generally, seemed at this time to be getting along fairly well. On July 1st President Lincoln commissioned John C. Frémont a major-general of the regular army, and gave him command of the Western department, consisting of Illinois and all the States and Territories west of it to the Rocky Mountains. Little more than his commission could at first be given him, and he was sent to take charge of something like a chaos, but it contained abundant resources which only required time and patience for their development. Perhaps the most serious perils in the way of Frémont's success were that his character was impetuous rather than patient, and

that success required him to deal cautiously with delicate political and social problems for the decision of which the great masses of the people of the loyal States were not yet prepared. That he acted with energy and performed important services is undeniable, but his methods of dealing with various phases of the situation occasioned discords which terminated his career as commander of the department in the following October.

A military and political problem of the most perplexing nature was before the President in the first weeks of the Summer of 1861. Congress was to assemble on July 4th, and all the financial and other measures which he was taking were entered upon in confident anticipation of the approval of the National Legislature, but he was severely crippled in many ways without the formal declaration of that approval, and without further action for which he was preparing to ask. The Confederate Congress was to meet at Richmond, Va., on July 20th, and a loud cry was rising at the North demanding the occupation of that city in advance, that it might not become the capital of the Confederacy. There was much good sense in that shout of "On to Richmond," if there had been at the disposal of the War Department any armed force with which the march could have been made or the position occupied and held. Many newspaper editors said and believed that Lincoln had an army of seventy-five thousand men to take Richmond with, and that he was in duty bound to do so. He really had somewhat more than half that number of very good militia,

not well prepared, however, for the exigencies of a prolonged march. Only a few weeks remained of the militia term of service, moreover, and while there seemed to be a reason for giving them something more than mere camp duty to tell of on their return home, the fact that they were so soon to return almost removed them from any extended military calculations.

The Confederate forces held one important position-the Manassas railway junction-which seemed to be within striking distance, and its capture, with a reasonably good victory, might, indeed, become an opening for an advance upon Richmond. The Union army, now under command of General Irvin McDowell, was therefore ordered, and, as far as might be, prepared for an advance toward Manassas, intended to begin on July 9th, but variously delayed until the 16th. About thirty-four thousand men took part in the movement, but the duties necessarily assigned to over six thousand of them reduced McDowell's fighting strength below twenty-eight thousand, with forty-nine guns and a battalion of cavalry. A numerically superior Confederate force was encountered in what was afterward known as the battle of Bull Run on July 21st. It began with what promised to be a victory, and was reported as such, but it ended in a stunning defeat and a disgraceful panic, after which there could be no more use made of the militia army, however completely its officers and men might regain their courage. The Confederate losses in killed, wounded, and a few prisoners, were about two thousand men ;

the Union losses did not exceed three thousand, but with these went twenty-five cannon, some flags, and the victory. The importance of the engagement was incomparably more political than military. While it aroused to virulence every Northern critic of President Lincoln's Administration, it had a tremendously encouraging effect upon the minds of the Southern people, and it added marvellously to the standing which the Confederacy had previously obtained beyond the Atlantic.

When Congress assembled on July 4th, it contained a complete personal representation of all the faults which had been found with the course pursued by Mr. Lincoln up to that date. There was a small but vehement minority which accused him of doing too much, and of having transcended both the dictates of prudence and the limits of his Constitutional authority. There was also a very patriotic knot of zealots, who were ready to denounce him for having done too little, and for not having already crushed the Rebellion in its very well-defended cradle. The large majority, however, including a number of men who had not voted for him, but who now became distinguished as war Democrats, came prepared to give the Administration a most unflinching and vigorous support. He sent in a message which they were all disposed, at first, to consider with more or less deliberation. He gave his views of the ideas of "neutrality" which had been permitted to work much mischief in Kentucky, after being rudely driven out of Maryland. He explained and de