When he took arms against the sea of troubles that awaited him at Washington he had dire need of all his calm tolerance and strength. To add to his burdens, he was beset by far more than the usual horde of office-seekers. These men were doubly ravenous because their party was so new to power. They were peculiarly hard to place with due regard for all the elements within the coalition. And each appointment needed most discriminating care, lest a traitor to the Union might creep in. While the guns were thundering against Fort Sumter, and afterwards, when the Union Government was marooned in Washington itself, the vestibules, stairways, ante-rooms, and offices were clogged with eager applicants for every kind of civil service job. And then, when this vast human flood subsided, the "interviewing" stream began to flow and went on swelling to the bitter end. These war-time interviewers claimed most of Lincoln's personal attention just when he had the least to spare. But he would deny no one the chance of receiving presidential aid or comfort and he gladly suffered many fools for the chance of relieving the sad or serious others. Add to all this the ceaseless work of helping to form public opinion, of counteracting enemy propaganda, of shaping Union policy under ever-changing circumstances, of carrying it out by coalition means, and of exercising civil control over such vast armed forces as no American had hitherto imagined: add these extra burdens, and we can begin to realize what Lincoln had to do as the chief war statesman of the North. A sound public opinion is the best embattlement of any home front. So Lincoln set out to help in forming it. War on a national scale was something entirely new to both sides, and especially unwelcome to many people in the North, though the really loyal North was up at Lincoln's call. Then came Bull Run; and Lincoln's renewed determination, so well expressed in Whitman's words: "The President, recovering himself, begins that very night--sternly, rapidly sets about the task of reorganizing his forces, and placing himself in positions for future and surer work. If there was nothing else of Abraham Lincoln for history to stamp him with, it is enough to send him with his wreath to the memory of all future time, that he endured that hour, that day, bitterer than gall--indeed a crucifixion day--that it did not conquer him that he unflinchingly stemmed it, and resolved to lift himself and the Union out of it."