ture of our national politics
for a moment wonder.

Montgomery had been a condensed and desiccated preparation of the
Washington stew, highly flavored with the raciest vices. Richmond
enjoyed the same mess, with perhaps an additional kernel or two of that
garlic.

CHAPTER XIX.

DAYS OF DEPRESSION.

The proverb that misfortunes never come singly soon became a painful
verity in the South; and a terrible reaction began to still the
high-beating pulses of her triumph.

The merry echoes of the winter had not yet died away, when it became
oppressingly apparent that proper methods had not been taken to meet
the steady and persevering preparations of the North. Disaster after
disaster followed the arms of the South in close succession; and the
spirits of all classes fell to a depth the more profound, from their
elevation of previous joyance.

As early as the 29th of the previous August, a naval expedition under
Commodore Stringham had, after a short bombardment, reduced the forts
at Hatteras Inlet. In the stream of gratulation following Manassas,
this small event had been carried out of sight; and even the conquest
of Port Royal, South Carolina, by Admiral Dupont's fleet, on the 7th of
November, had been looked upon as one of those little mischances that
only serve to shade all pictures of general victory.

They were not taken for what they really were--proofs of the entirely
defenseless condition of an immense sweep of coast, in the face of the
heavy and increasing naval armament of the United States. They were
considered reverses merely; inquiry went but little deeper and the
lesson they should have taught was lost; while the inexplicable
tardiness of the War Department left still more important points
equally defenseless.

But the news of General Crittenden's utter defeat at Mill Springs, on
the 17th of January--of the disastrous results of his miscalculation,
or misguided impetuosity, and of the death of Zollicoffer--came with
stunning effect; opening wide the eyes of the whole country to the
condition in which apathy, or mismanagement, had left it.

As usual, too, in the popular estimate of a success, or a reverse, the
public laid much stress on the death of Zollicoffer, who was a favorite
both with them and the army. He was declared uselessly sacrificed, and
his commanding general and the Government came in for an equal share of
popular condemnation.

Mr. Davis soon afterward relieved Secretary Walke