“How alike and unlike?”

“Games of chance, so called, lose everything like chance in the long run; they equalize ‘chances’ and nobody wins.  War also destroys chance, and nobody wins; both sides lose, only one side loses less than the other.  In games, the result of one play cannot be foretold; in war, the result of one battle cannot be foretold.  In games and in war the general result can be foretold; in the one there will be a balance and in the other there will be destruction.  Even the winner in war is ruined morally, just as is the gambler.”

“And can you foretell the result of this war?”

“Conditionally.”

“How conditionally?”

“If the North is in earnest, or becomes in earnest, and her people become determined, there is no mystery in a prediction of her nominal success; still, she will suffer for her crime.  She must suffer largely, just as she is suffering to-day in a small way for the crime of yesterday.”

“It is terrible to think of yesterday’s useless sacrifice.”

“Not useless, Jones, regarded in its relation to this war, but certainly useless in relation to civilization.  Bull Bun will prove salutary for your cause, or I woefully mistake.  Nations that go to war must learn from misfortune.”

“But, then, does not the misfortune of yesterday justify a change in generals?”

“Not unless the misfortune was caused by your bad generalship, and that is not shown—­at least, so far as McDowell is concerned.  The advance should not have been made, but he was ordered to make it.  We now know that Beauregard’s army was reenforced by Johnston’s; it was impossible not to see that it could be so reenforced, as the Confederates had the interior line.  The real fault in the campaign is not McDowell’s.  His plan was scientific; his battle was better planned than was his antagonist’s; he outgeneralled Beauregard clearly, and failed only because of a fact that is going to be impressed frequently upon the Northern mind in this war; that fact is that the Southern troops do not know when they are beaten.  McDowell defeated Beauregard, so far as those two are concerned; but his army failed, and he must be sacrificed; the North ought, however, to sacrifice the army.”

“What do you mean by that, Doctor?”

“I mean that war is wrong; it is always so.  It is essentially unjust and narrow.  You have given up your power to be just; you cannot do what you know to be just.  You act under compulsion, having yielded your freedom.  A losing general is sacrificed, regardless of his real merit.”

“Was it so in Washington’s case?”

“Washington’s first efforts were successful; had he been, defeated at Boston, he would have been superseded—­unless, indeed, the colonies had given up the struggle.”

“And independence would have been lost?”

“No; I do not say that.  The world had need of American independence.”