e minds of his advisers. Lincoln was
still in the pliable mood which was his when he entered office, which
continued to be in evidence, except for sudden momentary disappearances
when a different Lincoln flashed an instant into view, until another
year and more had gone by. Still he felt himself the apprentice hand
painfully learning the trade of man of action. Still he was deeply
sensitive to advice.

And what advice did the country give him? There was one roaring shout
dinning into his ears all round the Northern horizon-"On to Richmond!"
Following Virginia's secession, Richmond had become the Confederate
capital. It was expected that a session of the Confederate Congress
would open at Richmond in July. "On to Richmond! Forward to Richmond!"
screamed The Tribune. "The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet
there on the 20th of July. By that date the place must be held by the
national army." The Times advised the resignation of the Cabinet; it
warned the President that if he did not give prompt satisfaction he
would be superseded. Though Lincoln laughed at the threat of The
Times to "depose" him, he took very seriously all the swiftly
accumulating evidence that the North was becoming rashly impatient
Newspaper correspondents at Washington talked to his secretaries
"impertinently."(5) Members of Congress, either carried away by the
excitement of the hour or with slavish regard to the hysteria of their
constituents, thronged to Washington clamoring for action. On purely
political grounds, if on no other, they demanded an immediate advance
into Virginia. Military men looked with irritation, if not with
contempt, on all this intemperate popular fury. That grim Sherman,
who had been offended by Lincoln's tone the month previous, put their
feeling into words. Declining the offer of a position in the War
Department, he wrote that he wished "the Administration all success in
its almost impossible task of governing this distracted and anarchial
people."(6)

In the President's councils, General Scott urged delay, and the
gathering of the volunteers into camps of instruction, their deliberate
transformation into a genuine army. So inadequate were the resources of
the government; so loose and uncertain were the militia organizations
which were attempting to combine into an army; such discrepancies
appeared between the nominal and actual strength of commands, between
the places where men were supposed to be and the places whe