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Show Hj Bull Run Memories AB WRITER in a California publication cal'.ed ''The Grizzly Bear" tells of the humiliation m that was felt in California, by the union H men, .pn receipt of the news of the battle of Bull H Run; how the press of the east had led everyone H to expect a union victory, etc. It is true that Mr. B Greeley had in his Tribune been shouting his bat H tie cry of "On to Richmond" for a month, and H excoriating the authorities for not pressing the H war. In that, . Greeley made clearer than ever H before his wonderful abilities and at the same H time his utter lack of practical and newspaper H judgment. The writer closes by saying that, H looked back upon, that battle was more a rabble H scramble than a battle. It was better described by H a Confederate officer who was in the battle, who H said, "Our men were the most frightened men I H ever saw except yours." Our belief is that a H higher than mortal power directed that battle. H Had it been i union victory, a truce would have H followed anu then a peace would have been H patched up, and slavery would have had more H safeguards drawn around it, and that was not to H be. The North had to receive blow after blow H in order to crystalize public sentiment into a de- H termination that there should be no truce until H the system should be wiped away forever. H The only lesson to be considered in connec- H tion with Bull Run is that the scramble and the H shame, and the deaths in vain in that battle were H due to the utter unpreparedness of the country H for war. It would be almost as bad were a war H to ibe suddenly sprung upon the country now. It H would be worse indeed were it to be by some H strong power that is prepared for war. There H would be all the humiliation; the sacrifice of H vastly more lives, and the old cry would come H back of hospitals filled with sick soldiers because H every sanitary law had been violated in the form- H ation of camps. M When the war with Spain was sprung, the B memory of the great war was more fre3h in Hi men's minds than it now is, but, nevertheless, we Hi suspect that more men died in the unsanitary H camp of Chichamaugua than were killed in all the H battles of that Avar. |