It was a moment of strained pause, everybody waiting upon circumstance.  And in Washington, every eye was turned Southward.  How soon would they glimpse the first messenger from that glorious victory which “Fighting Joe” had promised them.  “The enemy is in my power,” said he, “and God Almighty can not deprive me of them."(13)

Something of the difference between Hooker and Lincoln, between all the Vindictives and Lincoln, may be felt by turning from these ribald words to that Fast Day Proclamation which this strange statesman issued to his people, that anxious spring,—­that moment of trance as it were—­when all things seemed to tremble toward the last judgment: 

“And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord: 

“And insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people.  We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven.  We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity.  We have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown; but we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us: 

“It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

“All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings, that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace."(14)

Alas, for such men as Hooker!  What seemed to him in his vainglory beyond the reach of Omnipotence, was accomplished by Lee and Jackson and a Confederate army at Chancellorsville.  Profound gloom fell upon Washington.  Welles heard the terrible news from Sumner who came into his room “and raising both hands exclaimed, ‘Lost, lost, all is lost!’"(15)