It maybe
well to recall to memory the boastful spirit and arrogant self- confidence,
with which the North entered upon the struggle with the South. The Tribune said:
" The hanging of traitors is sure to begin before the month is over. The
nations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff. Davis & Co. will be swinging
from the battlements of Washington, at least by the 4th of July. We spit upon a
later and longer deferred justice." The New York Times said: " Let us
make quick work. The ' rebellion, ' as some people designate it, is an unborn
tadpole. Let us not fall into the delusion of mistaking a ' local commotion, '
for a revolution. A strong active ' pull together ' will do our work
effectually in thirty days." The Philadelphia Press declared that "
no man of sense could, for a moment, doubt that this much-ado- about- nothing
would end in a month." The Northern people were " simply
invincible." "The rebels, a mere band of ragamuffins, will fly, like
chaff before the wind, on our approach.” But who can wonder that the press of
America should pander thus to the ignorance and the arrogance of the North,
when Seward himself, just a month before the Battle of Manassas, wrote thus in
a public document, addressed to Mr. Dayton, the Minister at the French Court :
"France seems to have mistaken a mere casual and ephemeral insurrection
here, such as is incidental in the experience of all nations, for a war, which
has flagrantly separated this nation into two co- existing political powers, who
are contending in arms against each other, after the separation." And
again: "It is erroneous to suppose that any war exists in the United
States. Certainly there cannot be two belligerent powers, where there is no
war." Read in the light of subsequent events, can anything appear more
grotesque, more contemptible? (R. L. Dabney, Life
and Campaigns of Lieut. Gen. Thomas J.
Jackson [New York: Blelock & Co., 1866], 210)
Further Reading:
