rself utterly
vanquished by the good thing that had come out of Nazareth. There was no
resisting the Zouaves. As the erring Knight of the Round Table said,--

"men went down before his spear at a touch,
But knowing he was Lancelot; his great name conquered."

There were one or two Southern companies that issued insulting
defiances, but, after a little expenditure of epistolary valor,
prudently, though ingloriously, stayed afar,--as is usual in New
Gascony. With these exceptions, the heart of the nation went warmly out
to these young men. Their endurance, their discipline, their alertness,
their _elan_, surprised the sleepy drill-masters out of their propriety,
and waked up the people to intense and cordial admiration. Chicago
welcomed them home proudly, covered with tan and dust and glory.

Ellsworth found himself for his brief hour the most talked-of man in
the country. His pictures sold like wildfire in every city of the land.
School-girls dreamed over the graceful wave of his curls, and shop-boys
tried to reproduce the _Grand Seigneur_ air of his attitude. Zouave
corps, brilliant in crimson and gold, sprang up, phosphorescently, in
his wake, making bright the track of his journey. The leading journals
spoke editorially of him, and the comic papers caricatured his drill.

So one thing was accomplished. He had gained a name that would entitle
him hereafter to respectful attention, and had demonstrated the
efficiency of his system of drill. The public did not, of course,
comprehend the resistless moral power which he exercised,--imperiously
moulding every mind as he willed,--inspiring every soul with his own
unresting energy. But the public recognized success, and that for the
present was enough.

He quietly formed a regiment in the upper counties of Illinois, and made
his best men the officers of it. He tendered its services to Governor
Yates immediately on his inauguration, "for any service consistent with
honor." This was the first positive tender made of an organized force in
defence of the Constitution. He seemed to recognize more clearly than
others the certainty of the coming struggle. It was the soldierly
instinct that heard "the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains,
and the shouting."

Still intent upon the great plan of militia reform, he came to
Springfield. He hoped, in case of the success of Mr. Lincoln in the
canvass then pending, to be able to establish in the War Department a
Bureau of