Hark! was there muttering thunder in the heavens?--thunder from a sky hitherto all bright blue? Business men, going down town on the morning of the twenty-eighth of June, found that "fighting had commenced before Richmond," and that "McClellan was changing his front." That "change of front" looked ominous. A few read the secret at once--that heavy reinforcements had come into Richmond from the half-disbanded rebel army Halleck had checked but not defeated at Corinth; and coupled with strange rumors of this came hints about "Stonewall Jackson," which indicated to the same persons that that rebel officer had advanced from the North-west and made an attempt to take McClellan's right wing in flank, necessitating a retrograde movement of that wing to bring him in front. Still, confidence was not lost, in McClellan or in the army. While his right wing fell back before an attack in force, his left might swing in towards Richmond and even take the city--who could say?
Then the telegraph closed down, and the morning papers contained "no later intelligence" from the field before Richmond. This was "the feather that broke the camel's back" of the national spirit. The government had no confidence in the people--it dared not trust them with the truth--it dared conceal! Our army was being cut to pieces, and we were permitted to know nothing of the calamity except the dreadful fact. No development could have been so injurious as this concealment--no stroke at the national confidence so deadly as the want of reliance shown by the government censors. The nation's heart went down beneath the blow: to this day[6] it has never risen to the same proud and courageous determination shown through all previous disasters.
It is said to be a terrible spectacle when a strong man weeps--a thousand times more terrible than the grief of the softer sex and the gentler nature, because it is evident what must have been the blow inflicted and what the struggle before the pent waters burst forth. But even the strong man's grief is tame compared to the spectacle of the grief of a _nation_--that aggregation of strong men and of vital interests. When the very sky seems dimmed and the bright sunshine a mockery. When the foot falls without energy and the voice breaks forth without emphasis. When men, who meet on the corners of streets, clasp hands in silence or only speak in low and broken words. When the silver moonlight seems to be shining upon nothing else than new-made graves. When the sound of revelry from ball-rooms jars upon the heart until it creates deadly sickness; and the glare of lights from places of public amusement seems to be an indecorum like a waltz at a funeral. When a uniform in the street is a reproach and a horror; and the music of the band to which soldiers tramp, sounds like nothing but the "Dead March in Saul." When business is impossible, and idleness an agony. When the old flag is looked up to without pride, and the very pulses of patriotism seem dead because they have no hope to keep them in motion. When all is darkness--all discouragement--all shame--all despair. These are the tears of a broad land--this is the spectacle we witness when a nation weeps. The loyal men of this generation have wept more bitterly and sorely, within the past two years, than those wept who saw the armies of the Revolution starved and outnumbered--who pined in the Prison-Ships and tracked the bloody snow at Valley Forge. God forgive those who have wrung these tears--whatever the ultraism they may represent! The people they have outraged will not forgive until a terrible vengeance is taken.