Taking renewed courage
they once more opened their houses and the shops that had been
closed since the beginning of the blockade, and business began
anew.
The greater part of the three months' regiments had been ordered
to Washington, and the outskirts of the capital soon became a
busy military camp. The great Departments of the Government,
especially of War and Navy, could not immediately handle the
details of all this sudden increase of work. Men were
volunteering rapidly enough, but there was sore need of rations
to feed them, money to pay them, tents to shelter them, uniforms
to clothe them, rifles to arm them, officers to drill them, and
of transportation to carry them to the camps of instruction where
they must receive their training and await further orders. In
this carnival of patriotism and hurly-burly of organization the
weaknesses as well as the virtues of human nature quickly showed
themselves; and, as if the new President had not already enough
to distress and harass his mind, almost every case of confusion
and delay was brought to him for complaint and correction. On him
also fell the delicate and serious task of deciding hundreds of
novel questions as to what he and his cabinet ministers had and
had not the right to do under the Constitution.
The month of May slipped away in all these preparatory vexations;
but the great machine of war, once started, moved on as it always
does, from arming to massing of troops, and from that to skirmish
and battle.
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