The nation had learned that war must be conducted according to strict principles of military science, and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless confidence in a just cause.
Blaine reflects on the lessons learned from the Bull Run disaster regarding military conduct and strategy.
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Many Northern Democrats had indeed given the assurance that if any attempt at coercion should be made by the Republican National Administration, they would themselves meet it with force, and that, if war should come, it would be in the…
He had placed himself in a position from which he could not with grace retreat, and to go forward in which was still further to blight his hopes of promotion in his party.
In all the revolted states, upon the testimony of your ablest generals, there is no safety to the property or lives of loyal men.
In turn, the course of the National Administration would certainly be influenced, and its fate in large degree determined, by the conduct of the Southern men, in whom the President was placing unbounded trust.
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