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The president closed his graceful speech with a pledge to provide the troops with all they needed, and even encouraged them to call on him “personally in case they were wronged.” One aggrieved officer took him at his word, revealing that, as a three-month volunteer, he had tried to leave, but Sherman had “threatened to shoot” him. In a “stage-whisper,” Lincoln counseled the officer: “Well, if I were you, and he threatened to shoot, I would not trust him, for I believe he would do it.” The response produced gales of laughter among the men while upholding Sherman’s discipline.

Northern public opinion reflected Lincoln’s firm resolve. Republican newspapers across the land reported a “renewed patriotism,” bringing thousands of volunteers to sign up for three years. “Let no loyal man be discouraged by the reverse,” the Chicago Tribune proclaimed. “Like the great Antaeas, who, when thrown to the ground, gathered strength from the contact with mother earth and arose refreshed and stronger than before, to renew the contest, so of the Sons of Liberty; the loss of this battle will only nerve them to greater efforts.” Several papers compared the Bull Run disaster to George Washington’s early defeats in the Revolutionary War, which eventually resulted in triumph at Yorktown. “The spirit of the people is now thoroughly aroused,” the New York Times announced, “and, what is equally important, it has been chastened and moderated by the stern lessons of experience.”

With the stunning reversal and rout at Bull Run, however, Northern delusions of easy triumph dissolved. “It is pretty evident now that we have underrated the strength, the resources and the temper of the enemy,” the Times conceded. “And we have been blind, moreover, to the extraordinary nature of the country over which the contest is to be waged,—and to its wonderful facilities for defence.” Yet the harrowing lessons of Bull Run generated a perverse confidence that the North could “take comfort” in already knowing the worst that could happen. It was unimaginable in the anxious chaos following the first major battle of the Civil War that far worse was yet to come.

CHAPTER 14

“I DO NOT INTEND TO BE SACRIFICED”

“NOTHING BUT A PATENT PILL was ever so suddenly famous,” it was said of George B. McClellan when he arrived in Washington on July 27, 1861, to take command of the Army of the Potomac. “That dear old domestic bird, the Public,” an essayist later wrote, “was sure she had brooded out an eagle-chick at last.” Among the Union’s youngest generals at thirty-four, the handsome, athletic McClellan seemed to warrant the acclaim and great expectation. He was the scion of a distinguished Philadelphia family. His father graduated from Yale College and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. His mother was elegant and genteel. Educated in excellent schools, including West Point, McClellan had served on the staff of General Scott in the Mexican War. Most important, to a public looking for deliverance, he had recently defeated a guerrilla band in western Virginia, handing the North its only victory, albeit a small one.

To the nerve-worn residents of Washington, McClellan seemed “the man on horseback,” just the leader to mold the disorganized Union troops into a disciplined army capable of returning to Manassas and defeating the enemy. Within days of his arrival, one diarist noted, Washington itself had assumed “a more martial look.” Hotel bars no longer overflowed with drunken soldiers, nor did troops wander the city late at night in search of lodgings. The young general seemed able to mystically project his own self-confidence onto the demoralized troops, restoring their faith in themselves and their hope for the future. “You have no idea how the men brighten up now, when I go among them—I can see every eye glisten,” he wrote proudly to his wife, Mary Ellen. “Yesterday they nearly pulled me to pieces in one regt. You never heard such yelling.”

Lincoln hoped that between Scott’s seasoned wisdom as general-in-chief