It was swallowing a
bait so plain that it might almost be said to be labeled. For a general
to come under the suspicion of not seeing through such a ruse was
humiliating. In vain McDowell explained, protested, and entreated with
the utmost vehemence and insistence. When Mr. Lincoln had made up his
mind, no man could change it, and here, as ill fortune would have it,
he had made it up. So, with a heavy heart, the reluctant McDowell set
forth on his foolish errand, and Fremont likewise came upon his,--though
it is true that he was better employed thus than in doing nothing,--and
Jackson, highly pleased, and calculating his time to a nicety, on May 31
slipped rapidly between the two Union generals,--the closing jaws of Mr.
Lincoln's "trap,"--and left them to close upon nothing.[21] Then he led
his pursuers a fruitless chase towards the head of the valley,
continuing to neutralize a force many times larger than his own, and
which could and ought to have been at this very time doing fatal work
against the Confederacy. Presumably he had saved Richmond, and therewith
also, not impossibly, the chief army of the South. The chagrin of the
Union commanders, who had in vain explained the situation with entire
accuracy, taxes the imagination.
There is no use in denying a truth which can be proved. The blunder of
Mr. Lincoln is not only undeniable, but it is inexcusable.
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