The retreat from Bull Run and the panic that accompanied it were not
due to cowardice among our men. During long hours our troops had fought
well, and showed their gallantry under the most trying circumstances.
They were not afraid to die. It was not strange that raw volunteers, as
many of them were, inefficiently supported, and poorly led, should at
length give way before superior force, and yield to the weakness induced
by exhaustion and hunger. But the lesson of defeat would be imperfectly
learned, did not the army and the nation alike gain from it a juster
sense than they before possessed of the value of individual life.
Never has life been so much prized and so precious as it has become in
America. Never before has each individual been of so much worth. It
costs more to bring up a man here, and he is worth more when brought up,
than elsewhere. The long peace and the extraordinary amount of comfort
which the nation has enjoyed have made us (speaking broadly) fond of
life and tender of it. We of the North have looked with astonishment at
the recklessness of the South concerning it. We have thought it braver
to save than to spend it; and a questionable humanity has undoubtedly
led us sometimes into feeble sentimentalities, and false estimates of
its value.
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