The Doctor smoked.  I thought of many things.  His view of war was not new, by any means; of course, in the abstract he was right:  war is wrong, and that which is wrong is unwise; but how to prevent war?  A nation that will not preserve itself, how can it exist?  I could not doubt that secession is destruction.  If the Union should now or ever see itself broken up, then farewell to American liberties; farewell to the hopes of peoples against despotism.  To refuse war, to tamely allow the South to withdraw and set up a government of her own, would be but the beginning of the end; at the first grievance California, Massachusetts, any State, could and would become independent.  No; war must come; the Union must be preserved; the nation was at the forks of the road; for my part, I could not hesitate; we must take one road or the other; war was forced upon us.  But why reason thus, as though we still had choice?  War already exists; we must make the best of it; we are down to-day, but Bull Run is not the whole of the war; one field is lost, but all is not lost.

“Doctor,” I asked, “why do you say that yesterday will prove to be the crisis of the war?”

“Because,” he answered, “yesterday’s lesson was well taught and will be well learned; it was a rude lesson, but it will prove a wholesome one.  Your government now knows the enormous work it has to do.  We shall now see preparation commensurate with the greatness of the work.  Three months’ volunteers are already a thing of the past.  This war might have been avoided; all war might be avoided; but this war has not been avoided; America will be at war for years to come.”

I was silent.

“We shall have a new general, Jones; General McClellan is ordered to report immediately in person to the war department.”

“Why a new general?  McClellan is well enough, I suppose; but what has McDowell done to deserve this?”

“He has failed.  Failure in war is unpardonable; every general that fails finds it so; McClellan may find it so.”

“You are not much of a comforter, Doctor.”

“The North does not need false comforters; she needs to look things squarely in the face.  Mind you, I did not say that McClellan will fail.  I think, however, that there will be many failures, and much injustice done to those who fail.  In war injustice is easily tolerated—­any injustice that will bring success; success is demanded—­not justice.  Wholesale murder was committed yesterday and brought failure; wholesale murder that brings success is what is demanded by this superstitious people.”

“Why do you say superstitious?”

“A nation at war believes in luck; if it has not good luck, it changes; it is like the gambler who bets high when he thinks he has what he calls a run in his favor.  If the cards go against him, he changes his policy, and very frequently changes just as the cards change to suit his former play.  You are now changing to McClellan, simply because McDowell has had bad luck and McClellan good luck.  I do not know that McClellan’s good luck will continue.  War and cards are alike, and they are unlike.”