"
Reading these bellicose articles, you are perpetually reminded of the
favorite national game of "Poker." In this, a player holding a very bad
hand against a good one, may possibly "bluff" his adversary down, and
win the stakes, if he only has confidence enough to go on piling up the
money, so as to make his own weakness appear strength. That audacity
answers often happily enough, especially with the timid and
inexperienced, but the professional gamblers tell you mournfully that
they sometimes meet an opponent with equal nerve and a longer purse;
then comes the fatal moment when the cards must be shown, and then--_le
quart d'heure de Rabelais_. I think, if ever Britannia is forced to
"see" Federalia's "hand," the world that looks on will find that the
latter has been "bluffing" to hide weakness.
Nevertheless, I am far from undervaluing the actual strength of the
northern land armies. They are composed of the most uncouth and
heterogeneous materials; but they work well enough, after their own
rough fashion, and certainly recover surprisingly fast from temporary
discomfiture; it is difficult to believe that the troops who met Lee so
gallantly at Gettysburg were the same who recrossed the Rappahannock in
sullen despondency, after Chancellorsville.
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