Within the circle of the Administration there was, of course, deep mortification.  Old General Scott passionately declared himself to have been the greatest coward in America in having ever given way to the President’s desire for action.  Lincoln, who was often to prove his readiness to take blame on his own shoulders, evidently thought that the responsibility in this case was shared by Scott, and demanded to know whether Scott accused him of having overborne his judgment.  The old general warmly, if a little ambiguously, replied that he had served under many Presidents, but never known a kinder master.  Plainly he felt that his better judgment had somehow been overpowered, and yet that there was nothing in their relations for which in his heart he could blame the President; and this trivial dialogue is worth remembering during the dreary and controversial tale of Lincoln’s relations with Scott’s successor.  Lincoln, however bitterly disappointed, showed no signs of discomposure or hesitancy.  The business of making the army of the Potomac quietly began over again.  To the four days after Bull Run belongs one of the few records of the visits to the troops which Lincoln constantly paid when they were not too far from Washington, cheering them with little talks which served a good purpose without being notable.  He was reviewing the brigade commanded at Bull Run by William Sherman, later, but not yet, one of the great figures in the war.  He was open to all complaints, and a colonel of militia came to him with a grievance; he claimed that his term of service had already expired, that he had intended to go home, but that Sherman unlawfully threatened to shoot him if he did so.  Lincoln had a good look at Sherman, and then advised the colonel to keep out of Sherman’s way, as he looked like a man of his word.  This was said in the hearing of many men, and Sherman records his lively gratitude for a simple jest which helped him greatly in keeping his brigade in existence.

Not one of the much more serious defeats suffered later in the war produced by itself so lively a sense of discomfiture in the North as this; thus none will equally claim our attention.  But, except for the first false alarms in Washington, there was no disposition to mistake its military significance.  The “second uprising of the North,” which followed upon this bracing shock, left as vivid a memory as the little disaster of Bull Run.  But there was of necessity a long pause while McClellan remodelled the army in the East, and the situation in the West was becoming ripe for important movements.  The eagerness of the Northern people to make some progress, again asserted itself before long, but to their surprise, and perhaps to that of a reader to-day, the last five months of 1861 passed without notable military events.  Here then we may turn to the progress of other affairs, departmental affairs, foreign affairs, and domestic policy, which, it must not be forgotten, had pressed heavily upon the Administration from the moment that war began.