strength of character and obstinate determination were united with
extreme gentleness of disposition and with absolute tenderness towards
all about him." Men such as these brought to the Southern cause
something besides their military capacity; but as to the greatness of
that capacity, applied in a war in which the scope was so great for
individual leaders of genius, there is no question. A civilian reader,
looking in the history of war chiefly for the evidences of personal
quality, can at least discern in these two famous soldiers the moral
daring which in doubtful circumstances never flinches from the
responsibility of a well-considered risk, and, in both their cases as
in those of some other great commanders, can recognise in this rare and
precious attribute the outcome of their personal piety. We shall
henceforth have to do with the Southern Confederacy and its armies, not
in their inner history but with sole regard to the task which they
imposed upon Lincoln and the North. But at this parting of the ways a
tribute is due to the two men, pre-eminent among many devoted people,
who, in their soldier-like and unreflecting loyalty to their cause,
gave to it a lustre in which, so far as they can be judged, neither its
statesmen nor its spiritual guides had a share.

There were Virginian officers who did not thus go with their State. Of
these were Scott himself, and G. H. Thomas; and Farragut, the great
sailor, was from Tennessee.

Throughout the free States of the North there took place a national
uprising of which none who remember it have spoken without feeling anew
its spontaneous ardour. Men flung off with delight the hesitancy of
the preceding months, and recruiting went on with speed and enthusiasm.
Party divisions for the moment disappeared. Old Buchanan made public
his adhesion to the Government. Douglas called upon Lincoln to ask how
best he could serve the public cause, and, at his request, went down to
Illinois to guide opinion and advance recruiting there; so employed,
the President's great rival, shortly after, fell ill and died, leaving
the leadership of the Democrats to be filled thereafter by more
scrupulous but less patriotic men. There was exultant confidence in
the power of the nation to put down rebellion, and those who realised
the peril in which for many days the capital and the administration
were placed were only the more indignantly determined. Perhaps the
most trustworthy record of po