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was accompanied by a realization that neither bribery nor the lure of fighting Britain would make the Southern states return to the Union. The change in Seward could be discerned in early July after Gideon Welles engineered a bill through Congress that gave Lincoln the authority to close Southern ports by decree. The foreign ministers in Washington warned Seward that Europe would ignore any attempt by the North to impose legal restrictions on ports it did not physically control. If he genuinely sought a foreign war, all Seward had to do was demand compliance with these fictitious port closures, and the Great Powers would revolt. Seward believed them and persuaded Lincoln to say nothing publicly about the bill.

A few days later, on July 19, Seward paid a private visit to the legation. He “proceeded, with some hesitation,” reported Lord Lyons, “and with an injunction to me to be secret,” swearing “that he had used strong language in his earlier communications to Foreign Powers … from the necessity of making them clearly understand the state of Public Feeling here.” He added that his only motive had been to prevent disunion, not begin a foreign war. “I was not altogether unprepared for the change in Mr. Seward’s tone,” Lyons admitted; he had heard from the French legation that Seward had made a similar speech to Mercier a few hours earlier. He thought the real question was whether the change was temporary or permanent—and that would depend on the Federal army’s progress in Virginia.56

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The decision to send the army into battle rather than wait until the civilian recruits had been trained into soldiers had been made by the president’s cabinet on June 29. The military advisers at the meeting had argued against the idea: General Scott had already presented Lincoln with a strategy, derisively called the “Anaconda Plan” by critics, which aimed to minimize the bloodshed on American soil by trapping the South behind its own borders and slowly applying pressure. But Northern newspapers were demanding a battle. Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune had started running the same banner headline every day: FORWARD TO RICHMOND! FORWARD TO RICHMOND! THE REBEL CONGRESS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO MEET THERE ON 20 OF JULY!, which incited newspapers in other states to follow suit.57 Lincoln explained to General Scott that it would be politically impossible to delay a fight, and even if it were not, there was the problem of the 75,000 volunteers whose ninety days were about to expire.

General Winfield Scott had fought in every American war since 1812 and was a revered national figure, although some of the younger officers in the army referred to him as “Old Fuss and Feathers.” He was too old and infirm to lead the troops himself, so the command of the new Federal army at Washington went to Irvin McDowell, a young officer on his staff, whose drive and intelligence had already marked him out as a future general. McDowell had not been Scott’s first choice; he had originally offered the position to Colonel Robert E. Lee, who lived in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington. But Lee declined, deciding that his loyalty belonged to Virginia and therefore the South.

McDowell was energetic, but he had never actually commanded an army, nor was Scott convinced that he would remain calm under pressure. He had sufficient experience, however, to know that the 35,000 would-be soldiers currently camping in the woods around Washington were more of a danger to themselves than to the Confederacy. His objections were dismissed by Lincoln, who told him: “You are green, it is true, but they are green, also, you are all green alike.” McDowell diligently executed Lincoln’s order to engage the enemy and devised a plan that he thought would answer the country’s wish for a quick and dramatic victory. He would march his men into Virginia to Manassas, where a Confederate army of 22,000 soldiers was stationed under the command of General Beauregard. Manassas was a small town some twenty-five miles west of Washington; though it was hardly more than a hamlet, its