It occurred to many who heard this language, that matters would have
gone better with the army if the political and civil departments had
been less lavish of care and attention. None the less the fact remained
that the interest and anticipation of the whole loyal part of the nation
were concentrated in the Virginia campaign. Correspondingly cruel was
the disappointment at its ultimate miscarriage. Probably, as a single
trial, it was the most severe that Mr. Lincoln ever suffered. Hope then
went through the painful process of being pruned by failure, and it was
never tortured by another equal mutilation. Moreover, the vastness of
the task, the awful cost of success, were now, for the first time,
appreciated. The responsibility of a ruler under so appalling a destiny
now descended with a weight that could never become greater upon the
shoulders of that lonely man in the White House. A solitary man, indeed,
he was, in a solitude impressive and painful to contemplate. Having none
of those unofficial counselors, those favorites, those privy confidants
and friends, from whom men in chief authority are so apt to seek relief,
Mr. Lincoln secretively held his most important thoughts in his own
mind, wrought out his conclusions by the toil of his own brain, carried
his entire burden wholly upon his own shoulders, and in every part and
way met the full responsibility of his office in and by himself alone.
It does not appear that he ever sought to be sustained or comforted or
encouraged amid disaster, that he ever endeavored to shift upon others
even the most trifling fragment of the load which rested upon himself;
and certainly he never desired that any one should ever be a sharer in
any ill repute attendant upon a real or supposed mistake. Silent as to
matters of deep import, self-sustained, facing alone all grave duties,
solving alone all difficult problems, and enduring alone all
consequences, he appears a man so isolated from his fellow men amid such
tests and trials, that one is filled with a sense of awe, almost beyond
sympathy, in the contemplation.