Bull Run and the panic that accompanied it were not
due to cowardice among our men. During long hours our troops had fought
well, and showed their gallantry under the most trying circumstances.
They were not afraid to die. It was not strange that raw volunteers, as
many of them were, inefficiently supported, and poorly led, should at
length give way before superior force, and yield to the weakness induced
by exhaustion and hunger. But the lesson of defeat would be imperfectly
learned, did not the army and the nation alike gain from it a juster
sense than they before possessed of the value of individual life.
Never has life been so much prized and so precious as it has become in
America. Never before has each individual been of so much worth. It
costs more to bring up a man here, and he is worth more when brought up,
than elsewhere. The long peace and the extraordinary amount of comfort
which the nation has enjoyed have made us (speaking broadly) fond of
life and tender of it. We of the North have looked with astonishment at
the recklessness of the South concerning it. We have thought it braver
to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly
led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of
its value. We have been in danger of thinking too much of it, and of
being mean-spirited in its use. But the first sacrifice for which war
calls is life; and we must revise our estimates of its value, if we
would conduct our war to a happy end. To gain that end, no sacrifice can
be too precious or too costly. The shudder with which we heard the first
report that three thousand of our men were slain was but the sign of the
blow that our hearts received. But there must be no shrinking from the
prospect of the death of our soldiers. Better than that we should fail
that a million men should die on the battle-field. It is not often that
men can have the privilege to offer their lives for a principle; and
when the opportunity comes, it is only the coward that does not welcome
it with gladness. Life is of no value in comparison with the spiritual
principles from which it gains its worth. No matter how many lives it
costs to defend or secure truth or justice or liberty, truth and justice
and liberty must be defended and secured. Self-preservation must yield
to Truth's preservation. The little human life is for to-day,--the
principle is eternal. To die for truth, to die open-eyed and resolutely
for the "