t by coalition means, and of exercising civil control over such
vast armed forces as no American had hitherto imagined: add these
extra burdens, and we can begin to realize what Lincoln had to
do as the chief war statesman of the North.

A sound public opinion is the best embattlement of any home front.
So Lincoln set out to help in forming it. War on a national scale
was something entirely new to both sides, and especially unwelcome
to many people in the North, though the really loyal North was
up at Lincoln's call. Then came Bull Run; and Lincoln's renewed
determination, so well expressed in Whitman's words: "The President,
recovering himself, begins that very night--sternly, rapidly sets
about the task of reorganizing his forces, and placing himself in
positions for future and surer work. If there was nothing else
of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to
send him with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he
endured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall--indeed a crucifixion
day--that it did not conquer him that he unflinchingly stemmed it,
and resolved to lift himself and the Union out of it."

Bull Run was only the beginning of troubles. There were many more
rocks ahead in the stormy sea of public opinion. The peace party
was always ready to lure the ship of state out of its true course
by using false lights, even when certain to bring about a universal
wreck in which the "pacifists" would suffer with the rest. But
dissensions within the war party were worse, especially when caused
by action in the field. Fremont's dismissal in November, '61, caused
great dissatisfaction among three kinds of people: those who thought
him a great general because he knew how to pose as one and really
had some streaks of great ability, those who were fattening on
the army contracts he let out with such a lavish hand, and those
who hailed him as the liberator of the slaves because he went
unwarrantably far beyond what was then politically wise or even
possible. He was the first Unionist commander to enter the Northern
Cave of Adullam, already infested with Copperhead snakes.

There he was joined by McClellan exactly a year later; and there
the peace-at-current-prices party continued to nurse and cry their
grievances till the war was over. McClellan's dismissal was a matter
of dire necessity because victory was impossible under his command.
But he was a dangerous reinforcement to the Adullamites