Able statesmen and influential journalists advised the
President to abandon the attempt. But Lincoln, true to the trust
which had been committed to his keeping, never flinched from his
resolve that the Union should be restored. He, too, stood like a wall
between his defeated legions and the victorious foe. Nor was the
nation less determined. The dregs of humiliation had been drained,
and though the draught was bitter it was salutary. The President was
sustained with no half-hearted loyalty. His political opponents raved
and threatened; but under the storm of recrimination the work of
reorganising the army went steadily forward, and the people were
content that until the generals declared the army fit for action the
hour of vengeance should be postponed.
To the South, Bull Run was a Pyrrhic victory. It relieved Virginia of
the pressure of the invasion; it proved to the world that the
attitude of the Confederacy was something more than the reckless
revolt of a small section; but it led the Government to indulge vain
hopes of foreign intervention, and it increased the universal
contempt for the military qualities of the Northern soldiers. The
hasty judgment of the people construed a single victory as proof of
their superior capacity for war, and the defeat of McDowell's army
was attributed to the cowardice of his volunteers.
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