There are
instances of a similar character in old romances, where great armies are
long kept at bay by the arts of necromancers, who build airy towers and
battlements, and muster warriors of terrible aspect, and thus feign a
defence of seeming impregnability, until some bolder champion of the
besiegers dashes forward to try an encounter with the foremost foeman,
and finds him melt away in the death grapple. With such heroic
adventures let the march upon Manassas be hereafter reckoned. The whole
business, though connected with the destinies of a nation, takes
inevitably a tinge of the ludicrous. The vast preparation of men and
warlike material,--the majestic patience and docility with which the
people waited through those weary and dreary months,--the martial skill,
courage, and caution, with which our movement was ultimately made,--and,
at last, the tremendous shock with which we were brought suddenly up
against nothing at all! The Southerners show little sense of humor
nowadays, but I think they must have meant to provoke a laugh at our
expense, when they planted those Quaker guns. At all events, no other
Rebel artillery has played upon us with such overwhelming effect.
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