It is in the nature of things that the initial battle of a war consolidates and crystallizes the sentiments of both the contestants. After Bull Run there was no further hope of peaceable adjustment, but only an increasing and settled purpose to fight out with the sword the great issue which was dividing the Union. For a brief season after the battle there was a paralysis of the Union cause. It was as much as the authorities at Washington could do to make themselves secure against further disaster. Indeed, the Potomac River now gave positive comfort to the Government, since it furnished in some measure a natural barrier to the northward progress of the exultant Confederates. Immediate steps were taken to fortify the approaches to the capital; but while this work was in progress the Government seemed to stand, like an alarmed sentry, on the Long Bridge of the Potomac.
[Illustration: EXAMINING PASSES AT THE GEORGETOWN FERRY.]
[Illustration: FORT IN FRONT OF WASHINGTON.]
In the South as well as in the North there was much surprise that the Confederates did not pursue the routed Union forces at the battle of Bull Run and capture Washington. Perhaps Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is the best witness on this subject on the Southern side. He says: "All the military conditions, we knew, forbade an attempt on Washington. The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat. The Southern volunteers believed that the objects of the war had been accomplished by their victory, and that they had achieved all their country required of them. Many, therefore, in ignorance of their military obligations, left the army--not to return.... Exaggerated ideas of the victory, prevailing among our troops, cost us more than the Federal army lost by defeat." In writing this passage General Johnston probably took no account of the effect produced in Europe. The early narratives sent there, in which the panic of retreat was made the principal figure, gave the impression that the result arose from constitutional cowardice in Northern men and invincible courage in Southerners. They also gave the impression that the Confederates were altogether superior in generalship; and the effect was deep and long-enduring. The most notable of these was by a correspondent of the London _Times_, who had apparently been sent across the Atlantic for the express purpose of writing down the Republic, writing up the South, and enlisting the sympathies of Englishmen for the rebellion. In his second letter from Charleston (April 30, 1861) he had written that men of all classes in South Carolina declared to him: "If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content." "The New Englander must have something to persecute; and as he has hunted down all his Indians, burnt all his witches, persecuted all his opponents to the death, he invented abolitionism { 63} as the sole resource left to him for the gratification of his favorite passion. Next to this motive principle is his desire to make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly, and shabbily. He has acted on it in all his relations with the South, and has cheated and plundered her in all his dealings, by villanous tariffs." Many an Englishman, counting his worthless Confederate bonds, and trying to hope that he will yet receive something for them, knows he would never have made that investment but for such writing as this, and the accounts from the same pen of the battle of Bull Run.