The truth is that the ensnarlment of the
Eastern military affairs with politics made success in that field
impossible for the North. The condition made it practically inevitable
that a Union commander in Virginia should have his thoughts at least as
much occupied with the members of Congress in the capital behind him as
with the Confederate soldiers in camp before him. Such division of his
attention was ruinous. At and before the outbreak of the rebellion the
South had expected to be aided efficiently by a great body of
sympathizers at the North. As yet they had been disappointed in this;
but almost simultaneously with this disappointment they were surprised
by a valuable and unexpected assistance, growing out of the open feuds,
the covert malice, the bad blood, the partisanship, and the wire-pulling
introduced by the loyal political fraternity into campaigning business.
The quarreling politicians were doing, very efficiently, the work which
Southern sympathizers had been expected to do.
FOOTNOTES:
[167] George W. Julian, _Polit. Recoll._ 204.
CHAPTER XII
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
To the people who had been engaged in changing Illinois from a
wilderness into a civilized State, Europe had been an abstraction, a
mere colored spot upon a map, which in their lives meant nothing. Though
England had been the home of their ancestors, it was really less
interesting than the west coast of Africa, which was the home of the
negroes; for the negroes were just now of vastly more consequence than
the ancestors.
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