hat the Confederate Congress must not meet.
The Senators and Congressmen now in Washington were not quite so
exacting, but they had come there unanimous in their readiness to vote
taxes and support the war in every way, and they wanted to see
something done; and they wanted it all the more because the three
months' service of the militia was running out. General Scott, still
the chief military adviser of Government, was quite distinct in his
preference for waiting and for perfecting the discipline and
organisation of the volunteers, who had not yet even been formed into
brigades. On the militia he set no value at all. For long he refused
to countenance any but minor movements preparatory to a later advance.
It is not quite certain, however, that Congress and public opinion were
wrong in clamouring for action. The Southern troops were not much, if
at all, more ready for use than the Northerners; and Jefferson Davis
and his military adviser, Lee, desired time for their defensive
preparations. It was perhaps too much to expect that the country after
its great uprising should be content to give supplies and men without
end while nothing apparently happened; and the spirit of the troops
themselves might suffer more from inaction than from defeat. A further
thought, while it made defeat seem more dangerous, made battle more
tempting. There was fear that European Powers might recognise the
Southern Confederacy and enter into relations with it. Whether they
did so depended on whether they were confirmed in their growing
suspicion that the North could not conquer the South. Balancing the
military advice which was given them as to the risk against this
political importunity, Lincoln and his Cabinet chose the risk, and
Scott at length withdrew his opposition. Lincoln was possibly more
sensitive to pressure than he afterwards became, more prone to treat
himself as a person under the orders of the people, but there is no
reason to doubt that he acted on his own sober judgment as well as that
of his Cabinet. Whatever degree of confidence he reposed in Scott,
Scott was not very insistent; the risk was not overwhelming; the battle
was very nearly won, would have been won if the orders of Scott had
been carried out. No very great harm in fact followed the defeat of
Bull Run; and the danger of inaction was real. He was probably then,
as he certainly was afterwards, profoundly afraid that the excessive
military caution which h