[154] we pledge to the country and the world the employment of every resource, national and individual, for the suppression, overthrow, and punishment of rebels in arms.
While the South reposed on the laurels of Manassas, the active and elastic spirit of the North was at work to repair its fortunes. It accomplished wonders. It multiplied its armies; it built navies with infuriate energy; it recovered itself from financial straits which distant observers thought hopeless; a few weeks after the battle of Manassas it negotiated a loan of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, at a fraction above the legal interest of New York; in short, its universal mind and energy were consolidated in its war upon the South. There is no more remarkable phenomenon in the whole history of the war than the display of fully awakened Northern energy in it, alike wonderful in the ingenuity of its expedients and in the concentrated force of its action. At every stage of the war the North adopted the best means for securing specific results. It used the popularity of Fremont to bring an army into the field. It combined with the science of McClellan, Buell, and Halleck, such elements of popularity as could be found in the names of Banks, Butler, and Baker. It patronized the great ship-brokers and ship-owners of New York to create a navy. The world was to be astonished soon to find the North more united than ever in the prosecution of the contest, and the proportions of the war so swollen as to cover with its armies and its navies the frontiers of half a continent.
While these immense preparations were in progress in the North, and while the South indulged its dreams of confidence, there was a natural pause of large and active operations in the field. The months of summer and early fall following the battle of Manassas are barren of any great events in the history of the war. But within this period there occurred two campaigns, remarkable for other circumstances than decisive influence, taking place on widely separated theatres, and yet much alike in their features of discursive contest. These were the campaigns in the distant State of Missouri and in the mountainous regions of Western Virginia.
The Missouri campaign.
The politics of Missouri had always been strongly Southern. As early as 1848-9, when the North was evidently intent upon excluding the South from the territory obtained in the Mexican war-acquired principally by the blood of Southern soldiers — the Legislature of Missouri passed resolutions affirming the rights of the States, as interpreted by Calhoun, and pledging Missouri to “co-operate with her sister States in any measure they might adopt” against Northern encroachments. On opposition to
