mmonwealth, was laid;
He stooped, and rose up to it, though the road
Shot suddenly downwards, not a whit dismayed.

He labored incessantly in urging forward the preparations for the great
struggle which, however he might regret it, he now saw was inevitable.
He was in daily conference with the officers of the army and of the War
Department, and was present at innumerable reviews and parades of the
soldiers. The 4th of July was memorable for a grand review of all the
New York troops in and about the city. It was a brilliant and impressive
scene. Says a spectator, Hon. A.G. Riddle: "As they swept
past--twenty-five thousand boys in blue--their muskets flashing, bands
playing, and banners waving, I stood near a distinguished group
surrounding the President, and noted his countenance as he turned to the
massive moving column. All about him were excited, confident, exultant.
He stood silent, pale, profoundly sad, as though his prophetic soul saw
what was to follow. He seemed to be gazing beyond the splendid pageant
before him, upon things hidden from other eyes. Was there presaged to
him a vision of that grander review of our victorious armies at the
close of the war, which he was not to see?"

A few days later, all the troops in Washington crossed the Long Bridge
and marched, gallant and exultant, straight toward the enemy in
Virginia. The advance of our army resulted, on the 21st of July, in the
shameful disaster at Bull Run. The North was filled with surprise and
dismay, and even the stoutest hearts were burdened with anxiety for the
future. Lincoln at first shared somewhat in the general depression, but
his elastic spirits quickly rallied from the shock. Three or four days
after the battle, some gentlemen who had been on the field called upon
him. He inquired very minutely regarding all the circumstances of the
affair, and after listening with the utmost attention, said, with a
touch of humor: "So it's your notion that we _whipped the rebels_, and
then _ran away from them_!" Not long after this, the President made a
personal visit to the army in Virginia. General Sherman, at that time
connected with the Army of the Potomac, says: "I was near the
river-bank, looking at a block-house which had been built for the
defense of the aqueduct, when I saw a carriage coming by the road that
crossed the Potomac river at Georgetown by a ferry. I thought I
recognized in the carriage the person of President Lincoln. I hurried