ed
for July 4, the period of service extended only until August 3.

[134] When General Grant took command of the Eastern armies he said that
the country should be cautioned against expecting too great success,
because the loyal and rebel armies were made up of men of the same race,
having about the same experience in war, and neither able justly to
claim any great superiority over the other in endurance, courage, or
discipline. Chittenden, _Recoll._ 320.

[135] The third, fourth, and sixth. Schouler, _Mass. in the Civil War_,
i. 52.

[136] Schouler, _Mass. in the Civil War_, i. 72.

[137] Mayor Brown thinks that the estimate of these at 20,000 is too
great. Brown, _Baltimore and Nineteenth April_, 1861, p. 85.

[138] N. and H. iv. 98; Chittenden, 102; Lee's biographer, Childe, says
that "President Lincoln offered him the effective command of the Union
Army," and that Scott "conjured him ... not to quit the army." Childe,
_Lee_, 30.

[139] Shortly before this time he had written to his son that it was
"idle to talk of secession," that it was "nothing but revolution" and
"anarchy." N. and H. iv. 99.

[140] Childe, _Lee_, 32; Mr. Childe, p. 33, says that Lee's resignation
was accepted on the 20th (the very day on which his letter was dated!),
so that he "ceased to be a member of the United States Army" before he
took command of the state forces. _Per contra_, N. and H. iv. 101.

[141] Childe, _Lee_, 34.

[142] Greeley in his _Amer. Conflict_, i. 349, says that the "open
Secessionists were but a handful." This, however, is clearly an
exaggerated statement.

CHAPTER IX

A REAL PRESIDENT, AND NOT A REAL BATTLE

The capture of Fort Sumter and the call for troops established one fact.
There was to be a war. The period of speculation was over and the period
of action had begun. The transition meant much. The talking men of the
country had not appeared to advantage during the few months in which
they had been busy chiefly in giving weak advice and in concocting
prophecies. They now retired before the men of affairs, who were to do
better. To the Anglo-Saxon temperament it was a relief to have done with
waiting and to begin to do something. Activity cleared the minds of men,
and gave to each his appropriate duty.

The gravity of the crisis being undeniable, the people of the North
queried, with more anxiety than ever before, as to what kind of a chief
they had taken to carry them through it. But the questi