sted no
time in utilizing the reaction on its people. The press and the public
clamored for a victim, and General Scott was thrown into its maw
unhesitatingly. The old hero was replaced by the new, and General
McClellan--whose untried and inexperienced talent could hardly have
augured his becoming, as he did, the best general of the northern
army--was elevated to his place to please the "dear public."

The rabid crowds of men and men-women--whose prurient curiosity had
driven them to follow the great on-to-Richmond, with hopes of a first
view of the triumphant entry of the Grand Army--soon forgot their
uncomfortable and terrified scramble to the rear. They easily changed
their whine of terror to a song of triumph; and New England Judiths,
burning to grasp the hair of the Holofernes over the Potomac, pricked
the flagging zeal of their male companions.

The peculiar error that they were fighting for the Union and the
flag--so cruelly dissipated of late--threw thousands into the ranks;
heavy bounties and hopes of plunder drew many more; and the still
frequent interstices were filled with many an Irish-German amalgam,
that was supposed to be peculiarly good food for powder.

And so the summer wore on, the demoralizing influence of the inaction
in the camps of the South increasing toward its close. The affair at
Leesburg, occurring on the 20th of October, was another brilliant
success, but equally barren of results. It showed that the men would
still fight as readily and as fiercely, and that their officers would
lead them as gallantly, as before; it put a few hundred of the enemy
_hors de combat_ and maintained "the right of way" by the river to the
South. But it was the occasion for another shout of triumph--perfectly
incommensurate with its importance--to go up from the people; and it
taught them still more to despise and underrate the power of the
government they had so far successfully and brilliantly defied.

Elsewhere than on the Potomac line, the case had been a little
different. Magruder, on the Peninsula, had gained no success of note. A
few unimportant skirmishes had taken place and the Confederate lines
had been contracted--more from choice than necessity. But the combatants
were near enough--and respected each other enough--for constant
watchfulness to be considered necessary; and, though the _personnel_ of
the army was, perhaps, not as good as that of the Potomac, in the main
its condition was better.

At