the brief epithet loyal may pass, as not begging any profound legal question--carried on affairs in the interest of the Union; postal communication and the passage of troops were free from interruption by the middle of May; and the pressing alarm about Maryland was over. These incidents of the first days of war have been recounted in some detail, because they may illustrate the gravity of the issue in the border States, in others of which the struggle, though further removed from observation, lasted longer; and because, too, it is well to realise the stress of agitation under which the Government had to make far-reaching preparation for a larger struggle, while Lincoln, whose will was decisive in all these measures, carried on all the while that seemingly unimportant routine of a President's life which is in the quietest times exacting. The alarm in Washington was only transitory, and it was generally supposed in the North that insurrection would be easily put down. Some even specified the number of days necessary, agreeably fixing upon a smaller number than the ninety days for which the militia were called out. Secretary Seward has been credited with language of this kind, and even General Scott, whose political judgment was feeble, though his military judgment was sound, seems at first to have rejected proposals, for example, for drilling irregular cavalry, made in the expectation of a war of some length. There is evidence that neither Lincoln nor Cameron, the Secretary of War, indulged in these pleasant fancies. Irresistible public opinion, in the East especially, demanded to see prompt activity. The North had arisen in its might; it was for the Administration to put forth that might, capture Richmond, to which the Confederate Government had moved, and therewith make an end of rebellion. The truth was that the North had to make its army before it could wisely advance into the assured territory of the South; the situation of the Southern Government in this respect was precisely the same. The North had enough to do meantime in making sure of the States which were still debatable ground. Such forces as were available must of necessity be used for this purpose, but for any larger operations of war military considerations, especially on the side which had the larger resources at its back, were in favour of waiting and perfecting the instrument which was to be used. But in the course of July the pressure of public opinion and of Congress, which had then assembled, overcame, not without some reason, the more cautious military view, and on the 21st of that month the North received its first great lesson in adversity at the battle of Bull Run.