In the wake of the ignominious defeat at Bull Run, a prominent journalist spoke for many when he confided to a colleague, “I am feeling bad—very bad. The Manassas disaster broke me down in a measure, but I could get over this—could understand it, and extract something good from it, were it not that I am wanting in Confidence in the Administration,” which “either does not comprehend the magnitude of this rebellion; or they don’t know, or don’t want to learn, how to put it down.” It could not “be suppressed by kindness; that’s clear—and yet Mr Lincoln seems to think it can.” The Republican Party, he lamented, “has gone up—and I only hope that our country, through the imbecility or cowardice, or treachery of her rulers, may not follow. We want a firm and able Administration, with a great and determined National policy, vigorously executed.” He feared that another Bull Run “blunder and all would be lost. The people now more than half disgusted would then be wholly demoralized.”
Source: Abraham Lincoln ∶ A Life ▫𓂃
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