In modern wars, panics have been as common as ever they were in the contests of antiquity. No people has been exempt from them. It has pleased the English critics on our defeat at Bull Run to speak with much bitterness of the panic that occurred to the Union army on that field, and in some instances to employ language that would leave the impression that never before did it happen to an army to suffer from panic terror. No reflecting American ought to object to severe foreign criticism on our recent military history; for through such criticism, perhaps, our faults may be amended, and so our cause finally be vindicated. The spectacle of soldiers running from a field of battle is a tempting one to the enemies of the country to whom such soldiers may belong, and few critics are able to speak of it in any other than a contemptuous tone. Would Americans have spoken with more justice of Englishmen than Englishmen have spoken of Americans, had the English army failed at the Alma through a panic, as our army failed at Bull Run? Not they! The bitter comments of our countrymen on the inefficiency of the British forces in the Crimea, and the general American tendency to attribute the successes of the Allies in the Russian War to the French, to the Sardinians, or to the Turks,—to anybody and everybody but to the English, who really were the principal actors in it,—are in evidence that we are drinking from a bitter cup the contents of which were brewed by ourselves. It is wicked and it is foolish to accuse our armies of cowardice and inefficiency because they have met with some painful reverses; but the sin and the folly of foreigners in this respect are no greater than the sin and the folly that have characterized most American criticism on the recent military history of England.

The most important fruitful battle mentioned in British history, next to that of Hastings, is the Battle of Bannockburn, the event of which secured the independence and nationality of Scotland, with all the consequences thereof; and that event was the effect of a panic. The day was with Bruce and his brave army; but it was by no means certain that their success would be of that decisive character which endures forever, until the English host became panic-stricken. Brilliant deeds had been done by the Scotch, who had been successful in all their undertakings, when Bruce brought up his reserve, which forced even the bravest of his opponents either to retreat or to think of it; but their retreat might have been conducted with order, and the English army have been saved from utter destruction and for future work, had it not been for the occurrence of one of those events, in which the elements of tragedy and of farce are combined, by which the destinies of nations are often decided, in spite of "the wisdom of the wise and the valor of the brave." The followers of the Scottish camp, anxious to see how the day went, or to obtain a share of the expected spoil, at that moment appeared upon the ridge of an eminence, known as the Gillies' Hill, behind their countrymen's line of battle, displaying horse-cloths and similar articles for ensigns of war. The struggling English, believing that they saw a new Scottish army rising as it were from the earth, were struck with panic, and broke and fled; and all that followed was mere butchery, though perfectly in accordance with the stern laws of the field. The English army was routed even more completely than was the French army, five centuries later, at Waterloo. Scott, with his usual skill, has made use of this incident in "The Lord of the Isles," but he ascribes to patriotic feeling what had a less lofty origin, which was an exercise of his license as a poet.[A]

[Footnote A: An incident closely resembling that which created the English panic at Bannockburn happened, with the same results, in one of the battles won by the Swiss over their invaders; but we cannot call to mind the name of the action in which it occurred.]

"To arms they flew,—axe, club, or spear,— And mimic ensigns high they rear, And, like a bannered host afar, Bear down on England's wearied war.

"Already scattered o'er the plain, Reproof, command, and counsel vain, The rearward squadrons fled amain, Or made but fearful stay: But when they marked the seeming show Of fresh and fierce and marshalled foe, The boldest broke array."

The last three lines describe almost exactly what, we are told, took place at Bull Run, where our soldiers were beaten, it is asserted, in consequence of the coming up of fresh men to the assistance of the enemy, but who were not camp-followers, but the flower of that enemy's force. The reinforcements, contrary to what was supposed, were not numerous; but a fatigued, worn-out, ill-handled army cannot be expected to be very clever at its arithmetic. Our men greatly overrated the strength of the new column that presented itself,—at least, so we judge from some powerful narratives of the crisis at Manassas that have appeared. The eye of the mind did the counting, not the more trustworthy bodily organ. They "looked, and saw what numbers numberless" "the sacred soil of Virginia" appeared to be sending up to aid in its defence against "the advance," and it cannot be surprising that their hearts failed them at the moment, as has happened to veterans who had grown gray since they had received the baptism of fire. Had there been a couple of trained regiments at the command of General McDowell, at that time, with which to have met the regiments that were restoring the enemy's battle, the day would, perhaps, have remained with the Union army; but, as there was no reserve force, trained or untrained, a retreat became inevitable; and a retreat, in the case of a new army that had become exhausted and alarmed, meant a rout, and could have meant nothing else. We shall never hear the last of it, particularly from our English friends, who are yet jeered and joked about the business at Gladsmuir, in 1745, where and when their army was beaten in five minutes and some odd seconds by Prince Charles Edward's Highlanders, their cavalry running off in a panic, and their General never stopping until he had put twenty miles between himself and the nearest of the plaid-men. Indeed, he did not consider himself safe until he had left even all Scotland behind him, and had got within his Britannic Majesty's town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which, as it was well fortified, promised him protection for the time. Four months later, at Falkirk, a portion of another English army was thrown into a panic by the sight of "the wild petticoat-men," and made capital time in getting out of their way. Two regiments of cavalry rushed right over a body of infantry lying on the ground, bellowing, as they galloped, "Dear brethren, we shall all be massacred this day!" They did their best to make their prediction true. A third regiment, and that composed of veterans, were so frightened, that, though they ran away with the utmost celerity, they did not have sense enough to run out of danger, but galloped along the Highland line, and received its entire fire. Some of the infantry were literally so swift to follow the example of the cavalry, that the Highlanders believed they were shamming, and so did not follow up their success with sufficient promptitude to reap its proper fruits. One of the regiments that ran was the Scots Royals, seeing which, Lord John Drummond exclaimed, "These men behaved admirably at Fontenoy: surely this is a feint." This suspicion of the enemy's purpose to entrap them actually paralyzed the Highland army for so long a time that the panic-stricken English were enabled for the most part to escape; so that to the completeness of their fright the English owed their power to rally their army, which did not stop in its retreat until it reached Edinburgh, the next day. In the same war, half a dozen MacIntosh Highlanders, commanded by a blacksmith, so acted as to throw fifteen hundred men, under Lord Loudoun, into a panic, which caused them all to fly; and though but one of their number was hurt by the enemy, they did much mischief to themselves. This incident is known as "The Rout of Moy," as Loudoun's force was marching upon Moy Castle, the principal seat of the MacIntoshes, for the purpose of capturing Prince Charles Edward, who was the guest of Lady MacIntosh, whose husband was with Lord Loudoun. To render the mortification of the flying party complete, the affair was suggested by a woman, Lady MacIntosh herself.

"The Races of Castlebar" are very renowned in the military history of Britain. In 1798 after the Irish Rebellion had been suppressed, a small French force was landed at Killala, under command of General Humbert, and soon established itself in that town. A British army, full four thousand strong, was assembled to act against the invader, at the head of which was General Lake, afterward Lord Lake,—elevated to the peerage in reward of services performed in India, and one of the most ruthless of those harsh and brutal proconsuls employed by England to destroy the spirit of the people of Ireland. The two armies met at Castlebar, the French numbering only eight hundred men, with whom were about a thousand raw Irish peasants, most of whom had never had a musket in their hands until within the few days that preceded the battle,—races, we mean. A panic seized the British army, and it fled from the field with the swiftness of the wind, but not with the wind's power of destruction. The French had one small gun,—the British, fourteen guns. Humbert afterward kept the whole British force at bay for more than a fortnight, and did not surrender until his little army had been surrounded by thirty thousand men. It is calculated that the British made the best time from Castlebar that ever was made by a flying army. It was no exaggeration to say that "the speed of thought was in their limbs" for a short time. Bull Run was a slow piece of business compared to Castlebar; and our countrymen did not run from a foe that was not half so strong as themselves, and who had neither position nor artillery. The English have accused the Irish of not always standing well to their work on the battle-field; but it would have required two Irishmen to run half the distance in an hour that was made at Castlebar by one Englishman. The most flagrant cases of panic that happened in the 'Forty-Five affair befell Englishmen, and rarely occurred to Irishmen or to Scotchmen. The conduct of the Scots Royals at Falkirk was the only striking exception to what closely approached to the nature of a general rule.

The civil war which ours most resembles is that which was waged in England a little more than two centuries ago, and which is known in English history as "The Great Civil War," though in fact it was but a small affair, if we compare it with that which took place nearly two centuries earlier than Cromwell's time,—the so-called Wars of the Roses. The resemblance between our contest and that in which the English rose against, fought with, defeated, dethroned, tried, and beheaded their king, is not very strong, we must confess; but the main thing is, that both contests belong to that class of wars in which, to borrow Shakspeare's words, "Civil blood makes civil hands unclean." Were there no exhibitions of fear in that war, no flights, no panics on the grand scale? Unless history is as great a liar as Talleyrand said it was, when he declared that it was founded on a general conspiracy against truth,—and who could suppose an English historian capable of lying?—shameful exhibitions of fear, flights of whole bodies of troops, and displays of panic terror were very common things with our English ancestors who fought and flourished tempore Caroli Primi. The first battle between the forces of the King and those of the Parliament was that of Edgehill, which was fought on Sunday, October 23d, 1642. Prince Rupert led his Cavaliers to the charge, ordering them, like a true soldier, to use only the sword, which is the weapon that horsemen always should employ. "The Roundheads," says Mr. Warburton, "seemed swept away by the very wind of that wild charge. No sword was crossed, no saddle emptied, no trooper waited to abide the shock; they fled with frantic fear, but fell fast under the sabres of their pursuers. The cavalry galloped furiously until they reached such shelter as the town could give them; nor did their infantry fare better. No sooner were the Royal horse upon them than they broke and fled; Mandeville and Cholmondely vainly strove to rally their terror-stricken followers; they were swept away by the fiery Cavaliers." If this was not exactly the effect of a panic, then it was something worse: it followed from abject, craven fear. The bravest and best of armies have been known to suffer from panic terror, but none but cowards run away at the first charge that is made upon them. It is said, by way of excuse for the men who thus fled, in spite of the gallant efforts of their officers to rally them, that they were new troops. So were our men at Bull Run new troops; and this much can be said of them, that, if they became panic-stricken, it was not until after they had fought for several hours on a hot day, and that they were not well commanded, the officers setting the example of abandoning the field, and not seeking to encourage the soldiers, as was done by the English Parliamentary commanders at Edgehill. Therefore the English Bull Run was a far more disgraceful affair than was that of America.

We shall not dwell upon the multitudinous panics and flights that happened on both sides in the Great Civil War, but come at once to what took place on the grand field-days of that contest,—Long-Marston Moor and Naseby. At Long-Marston Moor, fought July 2, 1644, English, Irish, and Scotch soldiers were present, so that all the island races were on the field in the persons of some of the best of their number. The Royalists charged the Scotch centre, and were twice repulsed; but their third charge was more successful, and then most of the gallant Scotch force broke in every direction, only some fragments of three regiments standing their ground. "The Earl of Leven in vain hastened from one part of the line to the other," says Mr. Langton Sanford, "endeavoring by words and blows to keep the soldiers in the field, exclaiming, 'Though you run from your enemies, yet leave not your general; though you fly from them, yet forsake not me!' The Earl of Manchester, with great exertions, rallied five hundred of the fugitives, and brought them back to the battle. But these efforts to turn the fate of the day in this quarter were fruitless, and at length the three generals of the Parliament were compelled to seek safety in flight. Leven himself, conceiving the battle utterly lost, in which he was confirmed by the opinion of others then on the place near him, seeing they were fleeing upon all hands toward Tadcaster and Cawood, was persuaded by his attendants to retire and wait his better fortune. He did so, and never drew bridle till he came to Leeds, nearly forty miles distant, having ridden all that night with a cloak of drap-de-berrie about him belonging to the gentleman from whom we derive the information, then in his retinue, with many other officers of good quality. Manchester and Fairfax, carried away in the flight, soon returned to the field, but the centre and right wing of their army were utterly broken. 'It was a sad sight,' exclaims Mr. Ash, [an eye-witness of the affair,] 'to behold many thousands posting away, amazed with panic fears!' Many fled without striking a blow; and multitudes of people that were spectators ran away in such fear as daunted the soldiers still more, some of the horse never looking back till they got as far as Lincoln, some others toward Hull, and others to Halifax and Wakefield, pursued by the enemy's horse for nearly two miles from the field. Wherever they came, the fugitives carried the news of the utter rout of the Parliament's army."[B] This strong picture of the panic that prevailed in the very army that won the Battle of Long-Marston Moor is confirmed by Sir Walter Scott, who says that the Earl of Leven was driven from the field, and was thirty miles distant, in full flight toward Scotland, when he was overtaken by the news that his party had gained a complete victory. Yet Leven was an experienced soldier, having served in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, in which he rose to very high rank; and the Scottish forces had many soldiers who had been trained in the same admirable school. That there were many spectators of the battle, whose fright "daunted the soldiers still more," shows that people were as fond of witnessing battles in 1644 as they are in 1861, and that their presence on the Moor was productive of almost as much evil to the Roundheads as the presence of Congressmen and other civilians at Manassas was to the Federal troops on the 21st of July. There would seem to be indeed nothing new under the sun, and folly is eternally reproducing itself. One of the names connected with our defeat is that of one of the most gallant of the Parliament's commanders at Long-Marston: Fairfax being named after the sixth Lord Fairfax, whose singular history furnished to Mr. Thackeray the plan for his "Virginians."

[Footnote B: Mr. Sanford quotes from a letter written by a spectator of the panic at Long-Marston Moor, which is so descriptive of what we should expect such a scene to be, that we copy it. "I could not," says the writer, "meet the Prince [Rupert] until after the battle was joined; and in fire, smoke, and confusion of the day I knew not for my soul whither to incline. The runaways on both sides were so many, so breathless, so speechless, so full of fears, that I should not have taken them for men but by their motion, which still served them very well, not a man of them being able to give me the least hope where the Prince was to be found, both armies being mingled, both horse and foot, no side keeping their own posts. In this terrible distraction did I scour the country; here meeting with a shoal of Scots crying out, 'Wae's me! We're a' undone!' and so full of lamentations and mourning, as if their day of doom had overtaken them, and from which they knew not whither to fly. And anon I met with a ragged troop, reduced to four and a cornet; by-and-by, a little foot-officer, without a hat, band, or indeed anything but feet, and so much tongue as would serve to inquire the way to the next garrisons, which, to say truth, were well filled with stragglers on both sides within a few hours, though they lay distant from the place of fight twenty or thirty miles."—See Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, (p. 606,) the best work ever written on the grand constitutional struggle made by the English against the usurpations of the Stuarts. The letter here quoted was written by an English gentleman, Mr. Trevor, to the best of the Royalist leaders, the Marquis (afterward first Duke) of Ormond.]

The panic at Naseby (June 14, 1645) was not of so pronounced a character as that at Long-Marston; but it helps to prove the Englishman's aptitude for running, and shows, that, if we have skill in the use of heels, we have inherited it: it is, in a double sense, matter of race. In spite of the exertions of Ireton, the cavalry of the left wing of the Roundheads was swept out of the field by Prince Rupert's dashing charge; while the foot were as deaf to the entreaties of old Skippon that they would keep their ranks. Later in the day the Cavaliers took their turn at the panic business, their horse flying over the hills, and leaving the infantry and the artillery, the women and the baggage, to the mercy of the Puritans,—and everybody knows what that was. The Cavaliers were even more subject to panics than the Puritans, as was but natural, seeing that they could not or would not be disciplined; and there were many of the leaders of the deboshed, godless crew of whom it could have been sung, as it was of Peveril of the Peak,—

"There was bluff old Sir Geoffrey loved brandy and mum well, And to see a beer-glass turned over the thumb well; But he fled like the wind, before Fairfax and Cromwell, Which nobody can deny!"

Cromwell's last victory but one, that of Dunbar, (September 3, 1650,) was due to the impertinent interference of "outsiders" with the business of the Scotch general, and to the occurrence of a panic in the Scotch army. The priests did for Leslie's army what the politicians are charged with having done for that of General McDowell. The Scotch were mostly raw troops, and soon fell into confusion; and then came one of those scenes of slaughter which were so common after the Cromwellian victories, and which, in spite of Mr. Carlyle's crazy admiration of them, must ever be regarded by sane and humane people as the work of the Devil. It is in dispute whether Cromwell's last great victory, that of Worcester, (September 3, 1651,) was a panic affair or not; for while Cromwell himself wrote that "indeed it was a stiff business," and that the dimensions of the mercy were above his thoughts, he complacently says, "Yet I do not think we have lost above two hundred men." Now, as the English critics on the Battle of Bull Run will have it that it was but a cowardly affair on our side, because but few men were at one time reported to have fallen in it, it follows that Cromwell's army at Worcester must have been an army of cowards, as it lost less than two hundred men, though it had to fight hard for several hours for victory. "As stiff a contest, for four or five hours," said the Lord-General, "as ever I have seen." And what shall we think of the Scotch, who lost fourteen thousand men? Mr. Lodge, whose sympathies are all with the Cavaliers, says that the action is undeservedly called the Battle of Worcester, "for it was in fact the mere rout of a panic-stricken army." Certainly all the circumstances of the day tend to confirm this view of what occurred on it: the heavy loss of the Scotch, the small loss of the English, and the all but total destruction of the Royal army. That Cromwell should make the most of his victory, of the "crowning mercy," as he hoped it might prove, was natural enough. Nothing is more common than for the victor to sound the praises of the vanquished, that being a delicate form of self-praise. If they were so clever and so brave, how much greater must have been the cleverness and bravery of the man who conquered them? The difficulty is in inducing the vanquished to praise the victor. We have no doubt that General Beauregard speaks very handsomely of General McDowell; but how speaks General McDowell of General Beauregard? Wellington often spoke well of Napoleon's conduct in the campaign of 1815; but among the bitterest things ever said by one great man of another great man are Napoleon's criticisms on the conduct of Wellington in that campaign. We are not to suppose that Wellington was a more magnanimous person than Napoleon, which he assuredly was not; but he was praising himself, after an allowable fashion, when he praised Napoleon. There would have been a complete change of words in the mouths of the two men, had the result of Waterloo been, as it should have been, favorable to the French. Napoleon said that he never saw the Prussians behave well but at Jena, where he broke the army of the Great Frederick to pieces. He had not a word to say in praise of the Prussians who fought at the Katzbach, at Dennewitz, and at Waterloo. Human nature is a very small thing even in very great men.

As we see that the Roundheads triumphed in England, notwithstanding the panics from which their armies suffered, subduing the descendants of the conquering chivalry of Normandy, "to whom victory and triumph were traditional, habitual, hereditary things," may we not hope that the American descendants and successors of the Roundheads will be able to subdue the descendants of the conquered chivalry of the South, a chivalry that has as many parents as had the Romans who proceeded from the loins of the "robbers and reivers" who had been assembled, as per proclamation, at the Rogues' Asylum on the Palatine Hill? The bravery of the Southern troops is not to be questioned, and it never has been questioned by sensible men; but their pretensions to Cavalier descent are at the head of the long list of historical false pretences, and tend to destroy all confidence in their words. They may be aristocrats, but they have not the shadow of a claim to aristocratical origin.

Lord Macaulay's brilliant account of the Battle of Landen (July 19, 1693) establishes the fact, that it is possible for an army of veterans, led by some of the best officers of their time, to become panic-stricken while defending intrenchments and a strong position. "A little after four in the afternoon," he says, "the whole line gave way." "Amidst the rout and uproar, while arms and standards were flung away, while multitudes of fugitives were choking up the bridges and fords of the Gette or perishing in its waters, the King, [William III.,] having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy." Luxembourg failed to follow up his victory, or all would have been lost. The French behaved as did the Southrons after Bull Run: they gave their formidable foe time to rally, and to recover from the effect of the panic that had covered the country with fugitives; and time was all that was necessary for either the English King or the American General to prevent defeat from being extended into conquest.

Two of Marlborough's greatest victories were largely owing to the occurrence of panic among the veteran troops of France. At Ramillies, the French left, which was partially engaged in covering the retreat of the rest of their army, were struck with a panic, fled, and were pursued for five leagues. At Oudenarde, (July 11, 1708,) the French commander, Vendome, "urged the Duke of Burgundy and a crowd of panic-struck generals to take advantage of the night, and restore order; but finding his arguments nugatory, he gave the word for a retreat, and generals and privates, horse and foot, instantly hurried in the utmost disorder toward Ghent." The retreat of this crowd, which was a complete flight, he covered by the aid of a few brave men whom he had rallied and formed, and whose firm countenance prevented the entire destruction of the French army. Yet the French soldiers of that time were men of experience, and were accustomed to all the phases of war.

At the Battle of Rossbach, (November 5, 1757,) the troops of France and of the German Empire fell into a panic, and were routed by half their number of Prussians. That defeat was the most disgraceful that ever befell the arms of a military nation. The panic was complete, and no body of terrified militia ever fled more rapidly than did the veteran troops of Germany and France on that eventful day. Napoleon, half a century later, said that Rossbach produced a permanent effect on the French military, and on France, and was one of the causes of the Revolution. The disgrace was laid to the account of the French commander, the Prince de Soubise, who was a profligate, a coward, and a booby, and who neither knew war nor was known by it.

The English army experienced whatever of pleasure there may be in a panic, or rather in a pair of panics, at the grand Battle of Fontenoy, (May 11, 1745,) on which field they were so unutterably thrashed by the French and the Irish. In the first part of the action, the Allies were successful, when suddenly the Dutch troops fell into a panic, and fled as fast as it is ever given to Dutchmen to fly. There is nothing so contagious as panic terror, and the rest of the army, exposed as it was to a tremendous fire, soon caught the disease, and was giving way under it, when their commander, the Duke of Cumberland, who was well seconded by his officers, succeeded in rallying them. They renewed the combat, and their enemy became so alarmed in their turn that even the French King, and his son the Dauphin, were in danger of being swept away in the rout. Again there came a turn in the battle, and, mostly because of the daring and dash of the famous Irish Brigade, the Allies were beaten and forced to retreat. It is stated that the whole body of heroic British Grenadiers who were engaged at Fontenoy gave a strong proof of the effect of the panic upon their minds—and bodies; thus establishing the fact that they had stomachs for something besides the fight. "Not to put too fine a point upon it," they, with a unity of place and time that speaks well for their discipline, did that which was done by the valiant General Sterling Price at the Battle of Boonville, and which has caused them to leave a deep impression on the historic page, though nothing can be said in support of the attractiveness of the illustration which those gallant men contributed to that page.

There was a partial exhibition of panic terror made by the English troops at the Battle of Bunker's Hill. They were twice made to run on that Seventeenth of June of which something has been said during the last six-and-eighty years; and they were brought up to the point of making a third attack only by the greatest exertions of their commanders, and after having been considerably reinforced. This third attack would have been as promptly repulsed as its predecessors had been, but that the American troops had used up all their powder, and few of them had bayonets. The firmness, and skill as marksmen, of a body of militia had caused a larger body of British veterans twice to retreat in great disorder, and under circumstances much resembling those that characterize what is known as a panic. Had a third repulse of the assailants occurred, nothing could have prevented their flight to their boats. But it was written that the Americans should retreat; and it is safe to say that they showed much more steadiness in the retreat than the enemy did alacrity in the pursuit.

Panic terror was no uncommon thing during the Reign of Terror in France, in the armies of the French Republic. The early efforts of the French Republicans in the field sometimes failed because of panics occurring in their armies; and they were not unknown to any of the armies that took part in the long series of wars that began in 1792 and lasted, with brief intervals of peace, down to the summer of 1815. At Marengo, both armies suffered from panics. As early as ten o'clock in the forenoon, a portion of Victor's corps retired in disorder, crying out, "All is lost!" There were, in fact, three Battles of Marengo, the Austrians winning the first and second, and losing the third, which was losing all,—war not exactly resembling whist. When Desaix said, at three o'clock in the afternoon, that the battle was lost, but there was time enough to win another, he spoke the truth, and like a good soldier. The new movements that followed his arrival and advice caused surprise to the Austrians, and surprise soon passed into panic. The panic extended to a portion of the cavalry, no one has ever been able to say why; and it galloped off the field toward the Bormida, shouting, "To the bridges!" The panic then reached to men of all arms, and cavalry, artillery, and infantry were soon crowded together on the banks of the stream which they had crossed in high hopes but a few hours before. The artillery sought to cross by a ford, but failed, and the French made prisoners, and seized guns, horses, baggage, and all the rest of the trophies of victory. Thus a battle which confirmed the Consular government of Bonaparte, which prepared the way for the creation of the French Empire, and which settled the fate of Europe for years, was decided by the panic cries of a few horse-soldiers. The Austrian cavalry has long and justly been reputed second to no other in the world, and in 1800 it was a veteran body, and had been steadily engaged in war, with small interruption, for eight years; but neither its experience, nor its valor, nor regard for the character which it had to maintain, could save it from the common lot of armies. It became terrified, and senselessly fled, and its evil example was swiftly communicated to the other troops: for there is nothing so contagious as a panic, every man that runs thinking, that, while he is himself ignorant of the existence of any peculiar danger, all the others must know of it, and are acting upon their knowledge. That Austrian panic made the conqueror master of Italy, and with France and Italy at his command he could aspire to the dominion of Europe. The man who began the panic at Marengo really opened the way to Vienna to the legions of France, and to Berlin, and (but that brought compensation) to Moscow also.

There were panics in most of the great battles of the French Empire, or those battles were followed by panics. At Austerlitz the Austrians suffered from them; and though the Russian soldiers are among the steadiest of men, and keep up discipline under very extraordinary difficulties, they fared no better than their associates on that terrible field. They had more than one panic, and the confusion was prodigious. It was while flying in terror, that the dense, yet disorderly crowds sought to escape over some ponds, the ice of which broke, and two thousand of them were ingulfed. One of their generals, writing of that day, said,—"I had previously seen some lost battles, but I had no conception of such a defeat." Jena was followed by panics which extended throughout the army and over the monarchy, so that the Prussian army and the Prussian kingdom disappeared in a month, though Napoleon had anticipated a long, difficult, and doubtful contest with so renowned a military organization as that which had been created by the immortal Frederick; and he had remarked, at the beginning of the war, that there would be much use for the spade in the course of it. In the Austrian campaign of 1809, there was the beginning of a panic that might have produced serious consequences. The Archduke John, the Patterson of those days, was at the head of an Austrian army which was expected to take part in the Battle of Wagram; but it was not until after that battle had been gained by the French that that prince arrived near the Marchfeld, in the rear of the victors. A panic broke out among the persons who saw the heads of his columns,—camp-followers, vivandieres, long lines of soldiers bearing off wounded men, and others. The young soldiers, who were exhausted by their labors and the heat, were conspicuous among the runaways, and there was a general race to "the banks of the dark-rolling Danube." Nay, it is said that the panic was taken up on the other side of the river, and that quite a number of individuals did not stop till they had reached Vienna. Terror prevailed, and the confusion was fast spreading, when Napoleon, who had been roused from an attempt to obtain some rest under a shelter formed of drums, fit materials for a house for him, arrived on the scene. In reply to his questions, Charles Lebrun, one of his officers, answered, "It is nothing, Sire,—merely a few marauders." "What do you call nothing?" exclaimed the Emperor. "Know, Sir, that there are no trifling events in war: nothing endangers an army like an imprudent security. Return and see what is the matter, and come back quickly and render me an account." The Emperor succeeded in restoring order, but not without difficulty, and the Archduke withdrew his forces without molestation. The circumstances of the panic show, that, if he had arrived at his intended place a few hours earlier, the French would have been beaten, and probably the French Empire have fallen at Vienna in 1809, instead of falling at Paris in 1814; and then the House of Austria would have achieved one of those extraordinary triumphs over its most powerful enemies that are so common in its extraordinary history. The incident bears some resemblance to the singular panic that happened the day after the Battle of Solferino, and which was brought on by the appearance of a few Austrian hussars, who came out of their hiding-place to surrender, many thousand men running for miles, and showing that the most successful army of modern days could be converted into a mob by— nothing.

Seldom has the world seen such a panic as followed the Battle of Vittoria, in which Wellington dealt the French Empire the deadly blow under which it reeled and fell; for, if that battle had not been fought and won, the Allies would probably have made peace with Napoleon, following up the armistice into which they had already entered with him; but Vittoria encouraged them to hope for victory, and not in vain. The French King of Spain there lost his crown and his carriage; the Marshal of France commanding lost his baton, and the honorable fame which he had won nineteen years before at Fleurus; and the French army lost its artillery, all but one piece, and, what was of more consequence, its honor. It was the completest rout ever seen in that age of routs and balls. And yet the defeated army was a veteran army, and most of its officers were men whose skill was as little to be doubted as their bravery.

There were panics at Waterloo, not a few; and, what is remarkable, they happened principally on the side of the victors, the French suffering nothing from them till after the battle was lost, when the pressure of circumstances threw their beaten army into much confusion, and it was not possible that it should be otherwise. Bylandt's Dutch-Belgian brigade ran away from the French about two o'clock in the afternoon, and swept others with them in their rush, much to the rage of the British, some of whom hissed, hooted, and cursed, forgetting that quite as discreditable incidents had occurred in the course of the military history of their own country. One portion of the British troops that desired to fire upon those exhibitors of "Dutch courage" actually belonged to the most conspicuous of the regiments that ran away at Falkirk, seventy years before. At a later hour Trip's Dutch-Belgian cavalry-brigade ran away in such haste and disorder that some squadrons of German hussars experienced great difficulty in maintaining their ground against the dense crowd of fugitives. The Cumberland regiment of Hanoverian hussars was deliberately taken out of the field by its colonel when the shot began to fall about it, and neither orders nor entreaties nor arguments nor execrations could induce it to form under fire. Nay, it refused to form across the high-road, out of fire, but "went altogether to the rear, spreading alarm and confusion all the way to Brussels." Nothing but the coming up of the cavalry-brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, at a late hour, prevented large numbers of Wellington's infantry from leaving the field. The troops of Nassau fell "back en masse against the horses' heads of the Tenth Hussars, who, keeping their files closed, prevented further retreat." The Tenth belonged to Vivian's command. D'Aubreme's Dutch-Belgian infantry-brigade was prevented from running off when the Imperial Guard began their charge, only because Vandeleur's cavalry-brigade was in their rear, with even the squadron-intervals closed, so that they had to elect between the French bayonet and the English sabre. There was something resembling a temporary panic among Maitland's British Guards, after the repulse of the first column of the Imperial Guard, but order was very promptly restored. It is impossible to read any extended account of the Battle of Waterloo without seeing that it was a desperate business on the part of the Allies, and that, if the Prussians could have been kept out of the action, their English friends would have had an excellent chance to keep the field—as the killed and wounded. Wellington never had the ghost of a chance without the aid of Buelow, Zieten, and Bluecher.[C]

[Footnote C: There is no great battle concerning which so much nonsense has been written and spoken as that of Waterloo, which ought to console us for the hundred-and-one accounts that are current concerning the action of the 21st of July, no two of which are more alike than if the one related to Culloden and the other to Arbela. The common belief is, that toward the close of the day Napoleon formed two columns of the Old Guard, and sent them against the Allied line; that they advanced, and were simultaneously repulsed by the weight and precision of the English fire in front; and that, on seeing the columns of the Guard fall into disorder, the French all fled, and Wellington immediately ordered his whole line to advance, which prevented the French from rallying, they flying in a disorderly mass, which was incapable of resistance. So far is this view of the "Crisis of Waterloo" from being correct, that the repulse of the Guard would not have earned with it the loss of the battle, had it not been for a number of circumstances, some of which made as directly in favor of the English as the others worked unfavorably to the French. When Napoleon found that the operations of Buelow's Prussians threatened to compromise his right flank and rear, he determined to make a vigorous attempt to drive the Allies from their position in his front, not merely by employing two columns of his Guard, but by making a general attack on Wellington's line. For this purpose, he formed one column of four battalions of the Middle Guard, and another of four other battalions of the Middle Guard and two battalions of the Old Guard. At the same time the corps of D'Erlon and Reille were to advance, and a severe tiraillade was opened by a great number of skirmishers; and the attack was supported by a tremendous fire from artillery. So animated and effective were the operations of the various bodies of French not belonging to the Guard, that nothing but the arrival of the cavalry brigades of Vandeleur and Vivian, from the extreme left of the Allied line, prevented that line from being pierced in several places. Those brigades had been relieved by the arrival of the advance of Zieten's Prussian corps, and were made available for the support of the points threatened by the French. They were drawn up in rear of bodies of infantry, whom they would not permit to run away, which they sought to do. The first column of the Guard was repulsed by a fire of cannon and musketry, and when disordered it was charged by Maitland's brigade of British Guards. The interval between the advance of that column and that of the second column was from ten to twelve minutes; and the appearance of the second column caused Maitland's Guards to fall into confusion, and the whole body went to the rear. This confusion, we are told, was not consequent upon either defeat or panic, but resulted simply from a misunderstanding of the command. The coming up of the second column led to a panic in a Dutch-Belgian brigade, which would have left the field but for the presence of Vandeleur's cavalry, through which the men could not penetrate; and yet the panic-stricken men could not even see the soldiers before whose shouts they endeavored to fly! The second column was partially supported, at first, by a body of cavalry; but it failed in consequence of a flank attack made by the Fifty-Second Regiment, which was aided by the operations of some other regiments, all belonging to General Adam's brigade. This attack on its left flank was assisted by the fire of a battery in front, and by the musketry of the British Guards on its right flank. Thus assailed, the defeat of the second column was inevitable. Had it been supported by cavalry, so that it could not have been attacked on either flank, it would have succeeded in its purpose. Adam's brigade followed up its success, and Vivian's cavalry was ordered forward by Wellington, to check the French cavalry, should it advance, and to deal generally with the French reserves. Adam and Vivian did their work so well that Wellington ordered his whole line of infantry to advance, supported by cavalry and artillery. The French made considerable resistance after this, but their retreat became inevitable, and soon degenerated into a rout. An exception to the general disorganization was observed by the victors, not unlike to an incident which we have seen mentioned in an account of the Bull Run flight. In the midst of the crowd of fugitives on the 21st of July, and forcing its way through that crowd, was seen a company of infantry, marching as coolly and steadily as if on parade. So it was after Waterloo, when the grenadiers a cheval moved off at a walk, "in close column, and in perfect order, as if disdaining to allow itself to be contaminated by the confusion that prevailed around it." It was unsuccessfully attacked, and the regiment "literally walked from the field in the most orderly manner, moving majestically along the stream, the surface of which was covered with the innumerable wrecks into which the rest of the French army had been scattered." It was supposed that this body of cavalry was engaged in protecting the retreat of the Emperor, and, had all the French been as cool and determined as were those veteran horsemen, the army might have been saved. Troops in retreat, who hold firmly together, and show a bold countenance to the enemy, are seldom made to suffer much.]

The Russian War was not of a nature to afford room for the occurrence of any panic on an extensive scale, but between that contest and ours there is one point of resemblance that may be noted. The failures and losses of the Allies, who had at their command unlimited means, and the bravest of soldiers in the greatest numbers, were all owing to bad management; and our reverses in every instance are owing to the same cause. The disaster at Bull Run, and the inability of our men to keep the ground they had won at Wilson's Creek, in Missouri, (August 10,) were the legitimate consequences of action over which the mass of the soldiers could have no control. It is due to the soldiers to say this, for it is the truth, as every man knows who has observed the course of the contest, and who has seen it proceed from a political squabble to the dimensions of a mighty war, the end of which mortal vision cannot foresee.

It would be no difficult task to add a hundred instances to those we have mentioned of the occurrence of panics in European armies; but it is not necessary to pursue the subject farther. Nothing is better known than that almost every eminent commander has suffered from panic terror having taken control of the minds of his men, and nothing is more unjust than to speak of the American panic of the 21st of July as if it were something quite out of the common way of war. True, its origin has never been fully explained; but in this point it only resembles most other panics, the causes of which never have been explained and never will be. It is characteristic of a panic that its occurrence cannot be accounted for; and therefore it was that the ancients attributed it to the direct interposition of a god, as arising from some cause quite beyond human comprehension. If panics could be clearly explained, some device might be hit upon, perhaps, for their prevention. But we see that they occurred at the very dawn of history, that they have happened repeatedly for five-and-twenty centuries, and that they are as common now in the nineteenth Christian century as they were in those days when Pan was a god. "Great Pan is not dead," but sends armies to pot now as readily as he did when there were hoplites and peltasts on earth. We can console ourselves, though the consolation be but a poor one, with the reflection that all military peoples have suffered from the same cause that has brought so much mortification and so great loss immediately home to us. Our panic is the greatest that ever was known only because it is the latest one that has happened, and because it has happened to ourselves. It is idle, and even laughable, to attempt to argue it out of sight. We should admit its occurrence as freely as it is asserted by the bitterest and most unfair of our critics; and we should recognize the truth of what has been well said on the subject, that the only possible answer to the attacks that have been made on the national character for military capacity and courage is victory. If we shall succeed in this war, the rout of Bull Run will no more destroy our character for manliness than the rout of Landen destroyed the character of Englishmen for the same virtue. If we fail, we must submit to be considered cowards: and we shall deserve to be so held, if, with our superior numbers, and still more superior means, we cannot maintain the Republic against the rebels.



OUR COUNTRY.

On primal rocks she wrote her name; Her towers were reared on holy graves; The golden seed that bore her came Swift-winged with prayer o'er ocean waves.

The Forest bowed his solemn crest, And open flung his sylvan doors; Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest To clasp the wide-embracing shores;

Till, fold by fold, the broidered land To swell her virgin vestments grew, While Sages, strong in heart and hand, Her virtue's fiery girdle drew.

O Exile of the wrath of kings! O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty! The refuge of divinest things, Their record must abide in thee!

First in the glories of thy front Let the crown-jewel, Truth, be found; Thy right hand fling, with generous wont, Love's happy chain to farthest bound!

Let Justice, with the faultless scales, Hold fast the worship of thy sons; Thy Commerce spread her shining sails Where no dark tide of rapine runs!

So link thy ways to those of God, So follow firm the heavenly laws, That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed, And storm-sped Angels hail thy cause!

O Land, the measure of our prayers, Hope of the world in grief and wrong, Be thine the tribute of the years, The gift of Faith, the crown of Song!



THE WORMWOOD CORDIAL OF HISTORY.

WITH A FABLE.

The great war which is upon us is shaking us down into solidity as corn is shaken down in the measure. We were heaped up in our own opinion, and sometimes running over in expressions of it. This rude jostling is showing us the difference between bulk and weight, space and substance.

In one point of view we have a right to be proud of our inexperience, and hardly need to blush for our shortcomings. These are the tributes we are paying to our own past innocence and tranquillity. We have lived a peaceful life so long that the traditional cunning and cruelty of a state of warfare have become almost obsolete among us. No wonder that hard men, bred in foreign camps, find us too good-natured, wanting in hatred towards our enemies. We can readily believe that it is a special Providence which has suffered us to meet with a reverse or two, just enough to sting, without crippling us, only to wake up the slumbering passion which is the legitimate and chosen instrument of the higher powers for working out the ends of justice and the good of man.

There are a few far-seeing persons to whom our present sudden mighty conflict may not have come as a surprise; but to all except these it is a prodigy as startling as it would be, if the farmers of the North should find a ripened harvest of blood-red ears of maize upon the succulent stalks of midsummer. We have lived for peace: as individuals, to get food, comfort, luxuries for ourselves and others; as communities, to insure the best conditions we could for each human being, so that he might become what God meant him to be. The verdict of the world was, that we were succeeding. Many came to us from the old civilizations; few went away from us, and most of these such as we could spare without public loss.

We had almost forgotten the meaning and use of the machinery of destruction. We had come to look upon our fortresses as the ornaments, rather than as the defences of our harbors. Our war-ships were the Government's yacht-squadron, our arsenals museums for the entertainment of peaceful visitors. The roar of cannon has roused us from this Arcadian dream. A ship of the line, we said, reproachfully, costs as much as a college; but we are finding out that its masts are a part of the fence round the college. The Springfield Arsenal inspired a noble poem; but that, as we are learning, was not all it was meant for. What poets would be born to us in the future without the "placida quies" which "sub libertate" the sword alone can secure for our children?

It is all plain, but it has been an astonishment to us, as our war-comet was to the astronomers. The comet, as some of them say, brushed us with its tail as it passed; yet nobody finds us the worse for it. So, too, we have been brushed lightly by mishap, as we ought to have been, and as we ought to have prayed to be, no doubt, if we had known what was good for us; yet at this very moment we stand stronger, more hopeful, more united than ever before in our history.

Misfortunes are no new things; yet a man suffering from furuncles will often speak as if Job had never known anything about them. We will take up a book lying by us, and find all the evils, or most of those we have been complaining of, described in detail, as they happened eight or ten generations before our time.

It was in "a struggle for NATIONAL independence, liberty of conscience, freedom of the seas, against sacerdotal and world-absorbing tyranny." A plotting despot is at the bottom of it. "While the riches of the Indies continue, he thinketh he will be able to weary out all other princes." But England had soldiers and statesmen ready to fight, even though "Indies"—the King Cotton of that day—were declared arbiter of the contest. "I pray God," said one of them, "that I live not to see this enterprise quail, and with it the utter subversion of religion throughout Christendom."—"The war doth defend England. Who is he that will refuse to spend his life and living in it? If her Majesty consume twenty thousand men in the cause, the experimented men that will remain will double that strength to the realm."—"The freehold of England will be worth but little, if this action quail; and therefore I wish no subject to spare his purse towards it."—"God hath stirred up this action to be a school to breed up soldiers to defend the freedom of England, which through these long times of peace and quietness is brought into a most dangerous estate, if it should be attempted. Our delicacy is such that we are already weary; yet this journey is nought in respect to the misery and hardship that soldiers must and do endure."

"There can be no doubt," the historian remarks, "that the organization and discipline of English troops were in anything but a satisfactory state at that period."—"The soldiers required shoes and stockings, bread and meat, and for those articles there were not the necessary funds."—"There came no penny of treasure over."—"There is much still due. They cannot get a penny, their credit is spent, they perish for want of victuals and clothing in great numbers. The whole are ready to mutiny."—"There was no soldier yet able to buy himself a pair of hose, and it is too, too great shame to see how they go, and it kills their hearts to show themselves among men."—These "poor subjects were no better than abjects," said the Lieutenant-General. "There is but a small number of the first bands left," said another,—"and those so pitiful and unable to serve again as I leave to speak further of them, to avoid grief to your heart. A monstrous fault there hath been somewhere." Of what nature the "monstrous fault" was we may conjecture from the language of the Commander-in-Chief. "There can be no doubt of our driving the enemy out of the country through famine and excessive charges, if every one of us will put our minds to forward, without making a miserable gain by the wars." (We give the Italics as we find them in the text.) He believed that much of the work might be speedily done; for he "would undertake to furnish from hence, upon two months' warning, a navy for strong and tall ships, with their furniture and mariners."

In the mean time "there was a whisper of peace-overtures," "rumors which, whether true or false, were most pernicious in their effects"; for "it was war, not peace," that the despot "intended," and the "most trusty counsellors [of England] knew to be inevitable." Worse than this, there was treachery of the most dangerous kind. "Take heed whom you trust," said the brother of the Commander-in-Chief to him; "for that you have some false boys about you." In fact, "many of those nearest his person and of highest credit out of England were his deadly foes, sworn to compass his dishonor, his confusion, and eventually his death, and in correspondence with his most powerful adversaries at home and abroad."

It was a sad state of things. The General "was much disgusted with the raw material out of which he was expected to manufacture serviceable troops." "Swaggering ruffians from the disreputable haunts of London" "were not the men to be intrusted with the honor of England at a momentous crisis." "Our simplest men in show have been our best men, and your gallant blood and ruffian men the worst of all others." (The Italics again are the author's.) Yet, said the muster-master, "there is good hope that his Excellency will shortly establish such good order for the government and training of our nation, that these weak, badly furnished, ill-armed, and worse trained bands, thus rawly left unto him, shall within a few months prove as well armed, complete, gallant companies as shall be found elsewhere in Europe."

Very pleasant it must have been to the Commander-in-Chief to report to his Government that in one of the first actions "five hundred Englishmen of the best Flemish training had flatly and shamefully run away." Yet this was the commencement of the struggle which ended with the dispersion and defeat of the great Armada, and destroyed the projects of the Spanish tyrant for introducing religious and political slavery into England! It seems as if Mr. Motley's Seventh Chapter were a prophecy, rather than a history.

* * * * *

An invasion and a conspiracy may always be expected to make head at first. The men who plan such enterprises are not fools, but cunning, managing people. They always have, or think they have, a prima facie case to start with. They have been preparing just as the highwayman has been preparing for his aggressive movement. They expect to find, and they commonly do find, their victims only half ready, if at all forewarned, and to take them at a disadvantage. If conspirators and invaders do not strike heavy blows at once, their cause is desperate; if they do, it proves very little, because that is the least they expected to do.

It is very easy to run up a score behind the door of a tavern; credit is good, and chalk is cheap. But these little marks have all got to be crossed out by-and-by, and the time will surely come for turning all empty pockets wrong side out. The aggressors begin in a great passion, and are violent and dangerous at first; the nation or community assailed are surprised, dismayed, perhaps, like the good people in the coach, when they see Dick Turpin's pistol thrust in at the window.

The Romans were certainly a genuine fighting people. They kept the state on a perpetual military footing. They were never without veterans, men and leaders bred in camp and experienced in warfare. Yet what a piece of work their African invader cut out for them! It seemed they had to learn everything over again. Thousands upon thousands killed and driven into Lake Trasimenus,—fifteen thousand prisoners taken; total rout again at Cannae,—rings picked from slain gentlemen's fingers by the peck or bushel,—everything lost in battle, and a great revolt through the Southern provinces as a natural consequence. What then? Rome was not to be Africanized as yet. The great leader who had threatened the capital, and scored these portentous victories, had at last to pay for them all in defeat and humiliation on his own soil.

Even the robber Spartacus beat the Roman armies at first, with their consuls at their head, and laid waste a large part of the peninsula. These violent uprisings and incursions are always dangerous at their onset; they are just like new diseases, which the doctors tell us must be studied by themselves, and which are rarely treated with great success until near the period of their natural cessation. After a time Fabius learns how to handle the hot Southern invaders, and Crassus the way of fighting the fierce gladiators with their classical bowie-knives.

Remember, Rome never is beaten,—Romans may be. It is inherent in the very idea of a republic that its peaceful servants shall be liable to be taken at fault. The counsels of the many, which are meant to secure all men's rights in tranquil times, cannot in the nature of things adapt themselves all at once to the sudden exigencies of war. Consequently, a republic must expect to be beaten at first by any concentrated power of nearly equal strength. After a time the commander-in-chief emerges from the confused mass of counsellors, and substitutes the action of one mind and will for the conflict of many. The Romans recognized the Dictatorship as the necessary complement of the Republic; and it is worthy of remark that that high office was never abused so long as the people were worthy to be free. "Ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat" was the formula according to which they surrendered their liberty for the sake of their liberty. A great danger, doubtless, for a people not leavened through and through with the spirit of freedom; but not so where the army is only the representative of a self-governing community. This army is not like to enslave itself or the families it comes from, to please the leader whom it trusts for an emergency. The pilot is absolute while the vessel is coming into harbor, but the crew are not afraid of his remaining master of the ship. Washington's reply to Nicola's letter, proposing to make him King, was written at a time when the republican system under the shadow of which three generations have been bred up to manhood was but as a grain of mustard-seed compared to this mighty growth which now spreads over our land. It is not likely that another man will make out so good a claim to supremacy as he; it is pretty certain, that, if he does, he will not have the opportunity of rejecting the insignia of royalty, and if this should happen, he can hardly forget the great example before him.

It is curious to see that the difficulties a general has to contend with now are much the same that were found in the first Revolution: bad food,—the poor surgeon at Valley Forge, whose diary was printed the other day, could not keep it on his stomach at any rate,—insufficient clothing, and no shoes at all, as the bloody snow bore witness,—and among our own New England troops "a spirit of insubordination which they took for independence," as Washington expressed himself. We do not think the New England men have rendered themselves liable to this reproach of late,—and this is a remarkable tribute to the influence of a true republican training. But in various quarters there has been enough of it, and the consequent disorganization of at least one free and easy regiment is no more than might have been expected.

A panic or two, with all the disgrace and suffering that attach to such hysterical paroxysms, or at least a defeat, are the experiences through which half-organized bodies often pass to teach them the meaning of discipline and mechanical habit. An army must go through the annealing process like glass; let a few regiments be cracked to pieces because their leaders did not know how to withdraw them gradually from the furnace of action, and the lesson will be all the better remembered because taught by a costly example. Our early mishaps were all predicted, sometimes in formal shape, as in various letters dated long before the breaking out of hostilities, and very often in the common talk of those about us. But, after all, when the first chastisement from our hard schoolmaster, Experience, comes upon us, it is a kind of surprise, in spite of all our preparation.

A writer in the present number of this magazine shows us that there is a complete literature of panics, not merely as occurring among new levies, but seizing on the best-appointed armies, containing as much individual bravery as any that never ran away from an enemy. The men of Israel gave way before the men of Benjamin, "retired" in the language of Scripture, in order to lead them into ambush. At a given signal they faced about, and the men of Benjamin "were amazed" (panic-struck) and "turned their backs before the men of Israel unto the way of the wilderness,"—took to the woods, as we should say. Their enemies did not lie still or run as fast the other way, like ours at Bull Run, but they "inclosed" them, and "chased them, and trode them down with ease," and "gleaned of them in the highways," and "pursued hard after them." Yet "all these were men of valor."

Not to return to our old classical friends, what modern nation has ever known how to fight that had not learned how to be beaten and how to run? The English ran ninety miles from Bannockburn, seared by the "gillies" and the baggage-wagons. They paid back their debt at Culloden. The Prussian armies were routed at Jena and Auerstaedt. They had their revenge in the "sauve qui peut" of Waterloo. The great armada, British and French, undertook to bombard Sebastopol, and eight ships of the line were so mauled that they had to go back to Toulon and Portsmouth for repairs. Lord Raglan is said to have so far despaired of success as to have contemplated raising the siege.

Everybody remembers the feeling produced by the repeated fruitless attacks on the fortifications, the three unsuccessful bombardments, the divided counsels, the disappointment and death of Lord Raglan, the complaints of Canrobert of the want of a single commanding intellect, and the relinquishment of his own position to Pelissier, itself a confession of failure. If there ever was a campaign begun with defeat and disaster, it was that which ended with the fall of Sebastopol.

Read the account of the retreat of the advanced force of our own army at the Battle of Monmouth Court-House. Washington could not believe the first story told him. Presently he met one fugitive after another, and then Grayson's and Patton's regiments in disorderly retreat. He did not know what to make of it. There had been no fighting except a successful skirmish with the enemy's cavalry. He met Major Howard; this officer could give no reason for the running,—had never seen the like. Another officer swears they are flying from a shadow. Lee tries to account for it,—troops confused by contradictory intelligence, by disobedience of orders, by the meddling and blundering of individuals,—vague excuses all, the plain truth being that they had given way to a panic. But for Washington's fierce commands and threats, the retreat might have become a total rout.

It is curious to see how the little incidents, even, of our late accelerated retrograde movement recall those of the old Revolutionary story. Mr. Russell speaks thus of the fugitives: "Faces black and dusty, tongues out in the heat, eyes staring,—it was a most wonderful sight." If Mr. Russell had ever read Stedman's account of his own countrymen's twenty-mile run from Concord to Bunker's Hill, he would have learned that they "were so much exhausted with fatigue, that they were obliged to lie down for rest on the ground, their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase." One rout is as much like another as the scamper of one flock of sheep like that of all others.

A pleasing consequence of this war we are engaged in has hardly been enough thought of. It is a rough way of introducing distant fellow-citizens of the same land to each other's acquaintance. Next to the intimacy of love is that of enmity. Nay,

"Love itself could never pant For all that beauty sighs to grant With half the fervor hate bestows Upon the last embrace of foes, When, grappling in the fight, they fold Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold."

"We shall learn to respect each other," as one of our conservative friends said long ago. It is a great mistake to try to prove our own countrymen cowards and degenerate from the old stock. It is worth the price of some hard fighting to show the contrary to the satisfaction of both parties. The Scotch and English called each other all possible hard names in the time of their international warfare; but the day has come for them, as it will surely come for us, when the rivals and enemies must stand side by side and shoulder to shoulder, each proud of the other's bravery.

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For three-quarters of a century we have been melting our several destinies in one common crucible, to mould a new and mighty empire such as the world has never seen. Our partners cannot expect to be allowed to break the crucible or the mould, or to carry away the once separate portions now flowing in a single incandescent flood. We cannot sell and they cannot buy our past. Our nation has pledged itself to unity by the whole course of its united action. There is one debt alone that all the cotton-fields of the South could never pay: it is the price of our voluntary humiliation for the sake of keeping peace with the slaveholders. We may be robbed of our inalienable nationality, if treason is strong enough, but we are trustees of the life of three generations for the benefit of all that are yet to be. We cannot sell. We dare not break the entail of freedom and disinherit the first-born of half a continent.

When the Plebeians seceded to the Mons Sacer, some five hundred years before the Christian era, the Consul Menenius Agrippa brought them back by his well-known fable of the Belly and the Members. Perhaps it would be too much to expect to call back our seceders with a fable which they will hardly have the opportunity of reading in the present condition of the postal service, but the state of the case may be put with a certain degree of truth in this of

THE FRONT-TEETH AND THE GRINDERS.

Once on a time a mutiny arose among the teeth of a worthy man, in good health and blessed with a sound constitution, commonly known as Uncle Samuel. The cutting-teeth, or incisors, and the eye-teeth, or canines, though not nearly so many, all counted, nor so large, nor so strong as the grinders, and by no means so white, but, on the contrary, very much discolored, began to find fault with the grinders as not good enough company for them. The eye-teeth, being very sharp and fitted for seizing and tearing, and standing out taller than the rest, claimed to lead them. Presently, one of them complained that it ached very badly, and then another and another. Very soon the cutting-teeth, which pretended they were supplied by the same nerve, and were proud of it, began to ache also. They all agreed that it was the fault of the grinders.

About this time, Uncle Samuel, having used his old tooth-brush (which was never a good one, having no stiffness in the bristles) for four years, took a new one, recommended to him by a great number of people as a homely, but useful article. Thereupon all the front-teeth, one after another, declared that Uncle Samuel meant to scour them white, which was a thing they would never submit to, though the whole civilized world was calling on them to do so. So they all insisted on getting out of the sockets in which they had grown and stood for so many years. But the wisdom-teeth spoke up for the others and said,—

"Nay, there be but twelve of you front-teeth, and there be twenty of us grinders. We are the strongest, and a good deal nearest the muscles and the joint, but we cannot spare you. We have put up with your black stains, your jumping aches, and your snappish looks, and now we are not going to let you go, under the pretence that you are to be scrubbed white, if you stay. You don't work half so hard as we do, but you can bite the food well enough, which we can grind so much better than you. We belong to each other. You must stay."

Thereupon the front-teeth, first the canines or dog-teeth, next the incisors or cutting-teeth, proceeded to declare themselves out of their sockets, and no longer belonging to the jaws of Uncle Samuel.

Then Uncle Samuel arose in his wrath and shut his jaws tightly together, and swore that he would keep them shut till those aching and discolored teeth of his went to pieces in their sockets, if need were, rather than have them drawn, standing, as some of them did, at the very opening of his throat and stomach.

And now, if you will please to observe, all those teeth are beginning to ache worse than ever, and to decay very fast, so that it will take a great deal of gold to stop the holes that are forming in them. But the great white grinders are as sound as ever, and will remain so until Uncle Samuel thinks the time has come for opening his mouth. In the mean time they keep on grinding in a quiet way, though the others have had to stop biting for a long time. When Uncle Samuel opens his mouth, they will be as ready for work as ever; but those poor discolored teeth will be tender for a great while, and never be so strong as they were before they foolishly declared themselves out of their sockets.

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The foregoing fable is respectfully dedicated to the Southern Plebs, who, under the lead of their "Patrician" masters, have "seceded," like their predecessors in the days of Menenius Agrippa.

THE END