The Civil War — Episode 1: The Cause 1861 — Ken Burns

We have shared
the incommunicable experience of war.

"We have felt, we still feel,

"the passion of life to its top.

"In our youth, our hearts
were touched with fire."

— Oliver Wendell Holmes.

By the summer 1861
Wilmer McLean had had enough.

Two great armies
were converging on his farm

and what would be
the first major battle of the Civil War,

Bull Run, or Manassas,
as the Confederates called it,

would soon rage
across the aging Virginian's farm,

a Union shell going so far as to explode
in the summer kitchen.

Now McLean moved his family
away from Manassas

far south and west of Richmond.

Out of harm's way, he prayed,

to a dusty little crossroads
called Appomattox Courthouse.

And it was there, in his living room,
three and a half years later,

that Lee surrendered to Grant.

And Wilmer McLean could rightfully say,

"The war began in my front yard
and ended in my front parlor".

[The Civil War]

The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places,

from Valverde, New Mexico
and Tullahoma, Tennessee,

to St. Albans, Vermont,
and Fernandina, on the Florida coast.

More than three million Americans
fought in it

and over 600,000 men,
2% of the population, died in it.

American homes became headquarters.

American churches and schoolhouses
sheltered the dying.

And huge foraging armies
swept across American farms

and burned American towns.

Americans slaughtered one another
wholesale, here, in America,

in their own corn fields,
and peach orchards,

along familiar roads and by waters
with old American names.

In two days, at Shiloh,
on the banks of the Tennessee,

more American men fell than
on all previous American wars combined.

At Cold Harbor, 7,000 Americans
fell in 20 minutes.

Men who had never strayed 20 miles
from their own front doors,

now found themselves
soldiers in great armies,

fighting epic battles
hundreds of miles from home.

They knew they were making history

and it was the greatest adventure
of their lives.

The war made some rich, ruined others

and change forever the lives
of all who lived through it.

A lackluster clerk from Galena, Illinois,

a failure at everything
except marriage and war,

who in three years would be
head of the Union army

and in seven
President the United States.

An eccentric student of theology
and military tactics,

a hypochondriac who rode in the battle
with one hand raised

"to keep", he said, "the blood balanced".

A college professor from Maine,
who on a little hill in Pennsylvania,

ordered an unlikely textbook maneuver,

that saved the Union army
and possibly the Union itself.

Two ordinary soldiers,
one from Providence, Rhode Island,

the other from Columbia, Tennessee,

who each serve four years

and together seemed to have been
everywhere during the war

and live to tell the tale.

The courtly unknowable aristocrat

who disapproved of secession and slavery.

yet went on to defend them both

at the head of one
of the greatest armies of all time.

The runaway boy
who "stole himself" from slavery,

recruited two regiments of black soldiers

and helped transform the Civil War

into a struggle for the freedom
of all Americans.

And then there was
the rough man from Illinois,

who would rise to be the greatest President
the country has ever seen.

Between 1861 and 1865,
Americans made war on each other

and killed each other in great numbers

if only to become the kind of country

that could no longer conceive
how that was possible.

What began as a bitter dispute
over Union and states' rights,

ended as a struggle over
the meaning of freedom in America.

At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln
can said perhaps more than he knew.

The war was about "a new birth of freedom".

1938 — 75th anniversary
of the Battle of Gettysburg.

President Roosevelt spoke
to the remaining few Civil War veterans.

"Veterans of the Blue and the Gray.

"On behalf of the people
of the United States,

"I accept this monument

"in the spirit of brotherhood and peace".

Year after year, the nation remembered.

In 1930, veterans of the Union army
marched in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Four years later in New York City.

They and the surviving veterans
of the Confederacy

were the last link
with the terrible conflict

that tore America apart,

from 1861 to 1865.

The last Civil War veteran
would die in 1959

and no longer were there been
living memories of long ago battles.

Only History and legends.

Any understanding of this nation
has to be based,

and I mean, really based
on an understanding of the Civil War.

I believe that firmly. It defined us.

The Revolution did what it did.

Our involvement in European wars,
beginning with the I World War,

did what it did.

But the Civil War defines us
as what we are

and it opened us to being what we became,

good and bad things.

It is very necessary
if you are going to understand

the American character,
in the 20th century,

to learn about this enormous catastrophe
of the mid-19th century.

It was the crossroads of our being
and it was a hell of a crossroads.

For me, the picture of the Civil War,

as a historic phenomenon,

is not on the battlefield.

It's not about weapons.

It's not about soldiers,

except to the extent that weapons
and soldiers at that crucial moment,

joined a discussion
about something higher,

about humanity, about human dignity,

about human freedom.

"From whence shall we expect
the approach of danger?

"Shall some trans-Atlantic giant
step the earth and crush us at a blow?

"Never.

"All the armies of Europe and Asia

"could not by force take a drink
from the Ohio River

"or make a track on the Blue Ridge
in the trial of a thousand years.

"No, if destruction be our lot we must
ourselves be its author and finisher.

"As a nation of free men,
we will live forever

"or die by suicide".

— Abraham Lincoln, 1837.

[1861— the Cause]

In 1861 most of the nation's
31 million people

live peaceably on farms
and in small towns.

At Sharpsburg, Maryland,
a German pacifist sect, the Dunkards,

made their home
in a sea of wheat and corn.

In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania,
population 2,400,

young men studied Latin and Mathematics
at the small college there.

Steamboats filled with cotton,

came and went at Vicksburg
on the Mississippi.

In Washington D.C.,
Senator Jefferson Davis

reviewed plans for remodeling the Capitol.

In Richmond, the 900 employees
of the Tredegar Iron Works

turned out gun carriages and cannon
for the US government.

At West Point, on the Hudson,
officers trained

and friendships were formed,
they thought, would last a lifetime.

"In thinking of America,

"I sometimes find myself
admiring her bright blue sky

"her grand old woods, her fertile fields,

"her beautiful rivers,

"her mighty lakes
and star-crowned mountains.

"But my rapture is soon checked

"when I remember that all is cursed

"with the infernal spirit
of slaveholding and wrong,

"when I remember that
with the waters of her noblest rivers

"the tears of my brethren
are borne to the ocean,

"disregarded and forgotten,

"that her most fertile fields drink daily
of the warm blood of my outraged sisters,

"I am filled with an unutterable loathing".

— Frederick Douglass.

[All Night Forever]

"No day ever dawns for the slave",
a freed black man wrote.

"nor is it looked for.

"For the slave, it is all night,

"all night forever."

One white Mississippian was more blunt.

"I'd rather be dead", he said,

"than be a nigger on one
of these big plantations".

A slave entered the world in a one-room,
dirt-floored shack.

Drafty in winter, reeking in summer,

slave cabins bred pneumonia, typhus,

cholera, lockjaw, tuberculosis.

The child who survived
to be sent to the fields at 12,

was likely to have rotten teeth,
worms, dysentery, malaria.

Fewer than four out of a hundred
lived to be 60.

Work began at sunrise and continued
as long as there was light.

Fourteen hours sometimes,

unless there was a full moon
when it went on still longer.

On the auction block,
blacks be made to jump and dance

to demonstrate their sprightliness

and stripped to show
how little whipping they needed.

Buyers poked and prodded them,

examined their feet, eyes and teeth,

"precisely", one ex-slave recalled,
"as a jockey examines a horse".

"A slave could expect to be sold
at least once in his lifetime.

"maybe two times, maybe more.

"Since slave marriages had no legal status,

"preachers changed
the wedding vows to read

"until death or distance do you part".

"You know what I'd rather do,

"if I thought that I'd ever be
a slave again?

"I'd take a gun and just end it
all right away.

"Because you're nothing but a dog.

"You're not a thing but a dog.

"Some slaves refused to work.

"Some ran away.

"Still, blacks struggled
to hold their families together,

"created their own culture
under the worst of conditions

"and yearned to be free.

If there was a single event
that caused the war,

it was the establishment
of the United States

in independence from Great Britain,

with slavery still a part of its heritage.

It was because we failed to do the thing.

We really have a genius for,
which is compromise.

Americans like to think of themselves
as uncompromising.

Our true genius is for compromise,
our whole governments founded on it,

and it failed.

"There was never a moment in our History

"when slavery was not a sleeping serpent.

"It laid coiled up under the table

"during the deliberations
of the Constitutional Convention.

"Owing to the Cotton Gin,
it was more than half awake.

"Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind,

"though not always on his tongue".

— John G. Chapman.

By the time the nation was founded,
slavery was dying in the North.

There were doubts in the South too.

But few could conceive of any alternative.

Thomas Jefferson in Virginia said

maintaining slavery
was like holding a wolf by the ears.

"You didn't like it
but you didn't dare let it go".

Then, in 1793, a Northerner, Eli Whitney,

taught the South how to make slavery pay.

Whitney's engine, or "gin", made it easier
to separate cotton from its seed.

Where before it had taken one slave

ten hours to produce
a single pound of lint,

the Cotton Gin could crank out
a thousand pounds a day.

Production soared

and with it, the demand for slaves.

By 1860, the last year of peace,

one out of every seven Americans
belonged to another American.

Four million men, women
and children were slaves.

[Are We Free?]

In Boston, in 1831, claiming
that "which is not just, is not law",

William Lloyd Garrison began publishing

a militant, anti-slavery
newspaper, "The Liberator".

He called for complete
and immediate abolition.

"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate.

"I will not excuse,

"I will not retreat a single inch

"and I will be heard!"

He was heard

and his message was clear.

Slavery was sin

and those who maintained it, criminals.

The abolition movement grew
inspired by passionate leaders.

Harriet Tubman, called Moses by the slaves
who followed her north to freedom.

Wendell Phillips, named
the Golden Trumpet of Abolitionism,

for his oratory

and Frederick Douglass,

the son of a slave and a white man.

"I appear this evening
as a thief and robber

"I stole this head, these limbs

"this body from my master

"and ran off with them.

Douglass was so eloquent that skeptics
charged he could never have been a slave.

In part to prove them wrong,
he wrote an autobiography,

purchased his freedom with 600 dollars
obtained from English admirers

and returned to the struggle.

[Southern men!
Down with the abolition press]

"The abolitionists would raise the negroes

"to a social and political equality
with the whites

"and, that being effected, would soon see

"the present condition
of the two races reversed.

"They and their Northern allies
would be the masters and we the slaves".

— John C. Calhoun.

More and more Southerners worried

about the growing political as well
as economic power of the North.

Northerners were increasingly
hostile to slavery.

Still most Southerners refused
to acknowledge even the possibility

of changing their way of life.

"On the North Bank of the Ohio
everything is activity, industry.

"Labor is honored. There are no slaves.

"Pass to the South Bank
and the scene changes so suddenly

"that you think yourself
on the other side of the world.

"The enterprising spirit is gone."

— Alexis de Tocqueville.

"We are separated because
of incompatibility of temper.

"We are divorced North from South

"because we hated each other so."

— Mary Chesnut.

On the clear moonlit night
of November 7th, 1837,

a mob surrounded a warehouse
at Alton, Illinois,

intent on destroying
an antislavery newspaper,

run by the Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy.

When one of the mob moved
to set the building on fire,

Lovejoy armed with a pistol
came out to stop him.

(Gunfire)

The slavery men shot him dead

and dumped his printing press
into the Mississippi.

The news stunned the nation.

A white man had been killed
over black slavery.

Protest meetings were held
throughout the North.

One abolitionist wrote that,

"Thousands of our citizens
who lately believed

"that they had nothing to do with slavery,

"now begin to discover their error".

In Hudson, Ohio, a clergyman
told a church gathering,

"The question now before us is no longer
'can slaves be made free?'

"but 'are we free
or are we slaves under mob law?'"

In the back of the church
a strange gaunt man

rose to his feet
and raised his right hand.

"Here, before God,
in the presence of these witnesses,

"I consecrate my life
to the destruction of slavery".

— John Brown.

[A House Divided]

In 1846 a lawyer
from Springfield, Illinois,

was elected to Congress.

He was born in Kentucky,
the son of a farmer,

who could barely sign his name.

He became a legislator at 24,
a prosperous attorney

and, after a turbulent courtship,
the husband of Miss Mary Todd,

the daughter of a slave-holding
Kentucky banker.

For Abraham Lincoln,
the Declaration of Independence

was to be taken literally.

All men had the right to rise
as far as talent would take them,

just as he had.

He detested slavery,

but he called for its restriction,
not immediate abolition.

By mid-century the country
was deeply divided.

Southerners feared the North
might forbid slavery.

Northerners feared
slavery might move west.

As each new state was added to the Union,

it threatened to upset
the delicate equilibrium of power.

"There are grave doubts
at the hugeness of the land

"and whether one government
can comprehend the whole.

— Henry Adams.

Now events accelerated.

In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe
published "Uncle Tom's Cabin".

Its portrayal of slavery's cruelty
moved readers as nothing else had.

Queen Victoria wept over.

Within a year more than 1.5 million copies
were in print worldwide.

In 1854, Congress allowed settlers
in the Kansas and Nebraska territories

to decide for themselves
whether or not to permit slavery.

Kansas exploded.

Five thousand pro-slavery men
invaded the territory.

In the next three months
200 men died in bleeding Kansas.

The killing would not stop for 10 years.

In 1857, the Supreme Court
refused to free a slave, Dred Scott,

even though he had lived
for many years on free soil.

Chief justice Roger B. Taney said

a black man had no rights
a white man was bound to respect.

"As a nation we began by declaring
that 'all men are created equal'.

"We now practically read it
'all men are created equal, except negroes'.

"Soon it will read

" 'all men are created equal, except negroes
and foreigners and Catholics'.

"When it comes to this, I should prefer
emigrating to some country

"where they make no pretense
of loving liberty.

"to Russia, for instance,

"where despotism can be taken pure

"and without the base alloy of hypocrisy".

— Abraham Lincoln.

Violence reached the floor
the United States Senate

where congressman Preston Brooks
of South Carolina

savagely beat abolitionist
Senator Charles Sumner with his cane.

Southern sympathizers
sent Brooks new canes.

Members began carrying knives and pistols
into the Chamber.

Meanwhile, the nation's chief executive,
James Buchanan, did nothing.

"A House divided against itself
cannot stand.

"I believe this government cannot endure,

"permanently half slave and half free.

"I do not expect the Union to be dissolved,

"I do not expect the House to fall,

"but I do expect
it will cease to be divided.

"It will become all one thing

"or all the other.

— A. Lincoln.

[The Meteor]

On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859,

the radical abolitionist John Brown

led 5 blacks and 13 whites
into Harper's Ferry, Virginia.

He brought along a wagon loaded of guns

to arm the slaves
he was sure would rally to him.

Once they had, he planned
to lead them southward

along the crest of the Appalachians

and destroy slavery.

Brown was an inept businessman
who had failed 20 times in six states

and defaulted on his debts.

Yet he believed himself
God's agent on Earth.

In 1856, at Pottawatomie Creek, in Kansas,

he and his sons had hacked five proslavery
men to death with broadswords.

All in the name of defeating Satan
and his legions.

Brown and his men quietly seized
the armory, arsenal and engine house

and took up hostages, including
George Washington's great-grandnephew.

After that, nothing went right.

The first person killed was
the town baggage master, a free black.

The slaves did not rise up.

Angry town's people did.

The first of Brown's followers to fall
was Dangerfield Newby,

a former slave.

Someone in the crowd
cut off his ears as souvenirs.

On Tuesday morning, Federal troops
arrive from Washington

led by a U.S. army colonel, Robert E. Lee.

Lee's men stormed the engine house

and nine more of Brown's men were killed,

including two of his sons.

Brown, severely wounded,
was turned over to Virginia

to be tried for treason.

"In firing his gun

"John Brown has merely told
what time of day it is.

"It is high noon, thank God!"

— William Lloyd Garrison.

"An undivided South says,
'Let him hang'."

— Albany Georgia patriot.

Virginia found Brown guilty
and sentenced him to death.

Among the troops
at the scene of his hanging

were cadets from
the Virginia military Institute,

led by an eccentric professor,
Thomas J. Jackson.

Also there was a private
in the Richmond Grays,

a young actor named John Wilkes Booth.

December 2nd, 1859.

"Old John Brown has been executed
for treason against the state.

"We cannot object even though he agreed
with us in thinking slavery wrong.

"That cannot excuse violence,
bloodshed and treason.

"It could avail him nothing
that he might think himself right."

— Abraham Lincoln.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
likened Brown to Christ.

Nathaniel Hawthorne declared,
"No man ever more justly hanged".

And Herman Melville called him
"the meteor of the war".

Brown had said nothing from the gallows,

but he did hand one of his guards a note.

"I, John Brown, am now quite certain

"that the crimes of this guilty land
will never be purged away but with blood".

"His zeal in the cause of freedom
was infinitely superior to mine.

"Mine was as the taper light.

"His was as the burning sun.

"I could live for the slave.

John Brown could die for him".

John Brown... John Brown...
very important person in History.

Important, though, for only one episode.

Failure of everything in life,

except he becomes
the single most important factor,

in my opinion, in bringing on the war.

The militia system in the South

which had been a joke
before this, before them,

becomes a viable instrument

as the Southern militias
begin to take a true form

and the South begins to worry
about Northerners

agitating the blacks
to murder them in their beds.

It was the beginning
of the Confederate army.

[Secessionists]

"The feeling among the Southern members

"for dissolution of the Union
is becoming more general.

"Men are now beginning
to talk of it seriously

"who twelve months ago hardly
permitted themselves to think of it.

"The crisis is not far ahead.

— Alexander Stephens.

The country was coming apart.

In the presidential election of 1860,
Buchanan happily stepped aside

but not before his ruling Democratic Party

was fatally split
over the issue of slavery.

The Republicans, a new party,
saw their chance

and nominated Abraham Lincoln, a moderate.

His platform pledged only
to halt slavery's further spread.

"On that point, hold firm
as with a chain of steel.

"Those who denied freedom to others
deserve it not for themselves.

"and under a just,
God cannot long retain it".

Radical abolitionists
in the North complained

that Lincoln's opposition to slavery
did not go far enough.

But to most people in the South

the prospect of Lincoln's election
posed a lethal threat.

The 1860 campaign had become a referendum

on the southern way of life.

On November 6th, 1860, Abraham Lincoln

won the presidency
with only 40% of the votes.

He did not even appear on the ballot
in 10 Southern states.

"The election of Mr. Lincoln
is undoubtedly the greatest evil

"that has ever befallen this country

"but the mischief is done,

"and the only relief
for the American people

"is to shorten sail, send down the top masts,
and prepare for a hurricane".

— Richmond Whig.

In the South, Lincoln was burned in effigy.

Now the South Carolina legislature
called for a convention

to consider seceding from the Union.

Southerners would have told you
they were fighting for self-government.

They believed the gathering of power
in Washington was against them.

When they entered into that Federation,

they certainly would never
have entered into it,

if they hadn't believe
it would be possible to get out.

And when the time came
that they wanted to get out,

they thought they had every right.

The Southerners saw
the election of Lincoln as a sign

that the Union was about to be radicalized

and that they were about to be taken
in directions they did not care to go.

They figured they were about to lose
what they call their property

and face ruin.

Yet many Southerners thought
secession was madness.

"South Carolina",
one Southern politician wrote,

"Is too small for a republic

"and too large for an insane asylum".

"November 18th, 1860.

"A most gloomy day in Wall Street.

"Everything at a deadlock.

"First class paper not negotiable.

"Stocks falling".

— George Templeton Strong.

In New York emotions
were no less explosive.

And George Templeton Strong,
a conservative lawyer,

who distrusted Lincoln,

began to keep track of events in his diary.

"The bird of our country
is a debilitated chicken

"disguised in eagle feathers.

"We have never been a nation.

"We are only an aggregate of communities

"ready to fall apart
at the first serious shock".

When Abraham Lincoln was elected President,

there were 33 states in the Union

and a 34th, free Kansas,
was about to join.

By the time of his inauguration,
five months later,

just 27 states would remain.

The suddenness of secession
took everyone by surprise.

South Carolina led the way
on December, 20th.

A bell in Charleston tolled
the succession of departing states.

Mississippi, on January, 9th.

Florida, on the 10th.

Then Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana.

In Texas, Governor Sam Houston
was deposed,

when he tried to stop his state
from joining the Confederacy.

"Let me tell you what is coming.

"After the sacrifice
of countless millions of treasure

"and hundreds of thousands of lives

"you may win Southern independence

"but I doubt it.

"The North is determined
to preserve this Union.

"They are not a fiery,
impulsive people as you are

"for they live in colder climates.

"But when they begin to move
in a given direction,

"they move with the steady momentum
and perseverance of a mighty avalanche".

Texas left anyway.

Even Virginia, the most popular
Southern state,

birthplace of seven Presidents,
seem sure to follow.

"All the indications are that
this treasonable inflammation,

"secessionists, keeps on making
steady progress, week by week.

"If disunion becomes an established fact,

"we have one consolation.

"The self-amputated members were diseased
beyond immediate cure

"and their virus
will infect our system no longer.

— George Templeton Strong.

The Charleston Mercury:

"The tea has been thrown overboard.

"The revolution of 1860 has been initiated".

After South Carolina seceded,
the handful of federal troops,

still stationed in Charleston,
withdrew to Fort Sumter,

far out in the harbor.

Their commander, Major Robert Anderson,

said he has moved his men in order
to prevent the effusion of blood.

They were quickly surrounded
by rebel batteries.

[Gen. Jefferson Davis,
President of the Southern Republic]

[On his way to Montgomery]

"Thank God, we have a country at last

"to live for, to pray for
and, if need be, to die for".

— Lucius Quintus Lamar.

On February, 18th,
a few minutes after noon,

Jefferson Davis stood on the steps
of the Alabama Statehouse at Montgomery.

He took the oath of office as President

of the provisional
Confederate States of America.

The crowds cheered, wept, sang farewell
to the star-spangled banner and Dixie,

a minstrel tune written by a Northerner.

He was brittle, nervous,
often unable to sleep,

and partly blind in one eye.

Accustomed to being obeyed,
he scorned the bargaining

that made Democratic government work.

Sam Houston said he was cold as a lizard
and ambitious as Lucifer.

Like Lincoln he was a Kentuckian,

the son of an itinerant farmer,

but he had been educated at West Point,

fought in Mexico
and served as Secretary of War.

As Senator from Mississippi, he resisted
secession as long as he could.

But when his state
withdrew from the Union,

he headed home to his plantation,
Brierfield, South of Vicksburg.

He and his wife Varina, were there,

clipping roses in the garden,

when word came that
he had been elected President.

"Reading that telegram
he looked so grieved

"that I feared some evil
had fallen in our family.

"After a few minutes he told me

"as a man might speak
of a sentence of death".

"Upon my head were showered
smiles, plaudits and flowers

"but beyond them,
I saw troubles innumerable".

— Jefferson Davis.

The Confederate Constitution was almost
identical to the U.S. Constitution.

But it gave the President a line-item veto,
a six-year term

and it outlawed international
slave trading.

The Confederate cabinet met
for the first time in a hotel room.

A sheet of stationery pinned to the door,
marked the President's office.

"Where will I find the State Department?"

a visitor asked Robert Toombs,
Secretary of State.

"In my hat, sir, and the archives
in my coat pocket".

"Our new government is founded
upon the great truth

"that the negro is not equal
to the white man".

— Vice President Alexander Stephens.

"God forgive us!
But ours is a monstrous system.

"Like the patriarchs of old,
our men live all in one house

"with their wives and their concubines

"and the mulattoes one sees in every family

"exactly resemble the white children.

"All the time they seem to think themselves
patterns, models of husbands and fathers".

— Mary Chestnut.

Mary Chestnut and her husband James,

a former United States Senator
from South Carolina,

moved among the highest circles
of the Confederacy

and were close
to Jefferson Davis and his wife.

Mary was subject
to depressions and nightmares

for which she sometimes took opium.

Now she, too, began to keep a diary.

"This journal is intended
to be entirely objective.

"My subjective days are over".

"The impression produced
by the size of his extremities

"and by his flapping
and wide-projecting ears,

"may be removed by the appearance
of kindliness, sagacity.

"The nose itself, a prominent organ,

"stands out from the face,
with an inquiring, anxious air,

"as though it were sniffing
for some good thing in the wind.

"The eyes dark, full, and deeply set,

"are penetrating, but full of an expression

"which almost amounts to tenderness".

— William Russel, The London Times

Two days after Jefferson Davis left home,

Abraham Lincoln set out from Springfield,
Illinois, for his capital.

"Here I have lived a quarter of a century

"and passed from a young to an old man.

"Here my children have been born
and one is buried.

"I now leave not knowing
when or whether ever I may return,

"with the task before me greater
than that which rested upon Washington.

"Without the assistance of that divine Being
who ever attended him,

"I cannot succeed.

"With that assistance, I cannot fail.

"To His care commending you, as I hope
in your prayers you will commend me,

"I bid you an affectionate farewell".

En route to Washington,
the President's train stopped

at Cleveland, Buffalo,
Albany and New York.

In Philadelphia, warned
of plots to kill him,

Lincoln declared he would rather
be assassinated

than see a single star removed
from the American flag.

Two days later he reluctantly canceled plans
for a grand arrival in Washington

and slipped into the capital
by train at dawn,

wrapped in a shawl and protected
by two armed guards.

Inauguration day, in Washington,
was cloudy and cold.

A large, tense crowd gathered
beneath the unfinished dome.

Cannon guarded the Capitol grounds.

Sharp shooters lined the roof.

Lincoln promised
not to interfere with slavery,

but he denied the right
of any state to secede,

vowed to defend Federal installations,

and spoke directly to the South.

"In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen,
and not in mine,

"is the momentous issue of civil war.

"The government will not assail you.

"You can have no conflict without being
yourselves the aggressors.

"We are not enemies but friends.

"We must not be enemies".

"Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bounds of affection.

"The mystic chords of memory
stretching from every battlefield

"and patriotic grave to every living heart
and hearthstone all over this broad land,

"will yet swell the chorus of the Union,

"when again touched,
as surely they will be,

"by the better angels of our nature".

[Revival of rumors of war]

[An attack on Fort Sumter Expected]

[4:30 a.m. April 12, 1861]

"I do not pretend to go to sleep,
how can I?

"If Anderson does not accept terms,
at four,

"the orders are he shall be fired upon.

"I count... four St. Michael chimes.

"I begin to hope.

(Cannon fire)

"The heavy booming of a cannon.

"I sprang out of the bed
and on my knees prostrated,

"I prayed as I have never prayed before".

(Cannon fire)

The Civil War began at 4:38 a.m.
on the 12th of April, 1861.

General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
ordered his Confederate gunners

to open fire on Fort Sumter,

at that hour, only a dark shape out
in Charleston Harbor.

Confederate commander
Beauregard was a gunner,

so skilled as an artillery student
at West Point

that his instructor kept him on
as his assistance for another year.

That instructor was Major Robert Anderson,

Union commander inside Fort Sumter.

All the pent-up hatred
of the past months and years

is voiced in the thunder of this cannon.

And the people seem almost
beside themselves

in the exultation of a freedom
they deemed already won.

The signal to fire the first shot
was given by a civilian, Edmund Ruffin,

a Virginia farmer, and editor,
who had preached secession for 20 years.

"Of course", he said,
"I was delighted to perform the service".

34 hours later, a white flag over the Fort
ended the bombardment.

The only casualty had been
a Confederate horse.

It was a bloodless opening
to the bloodiest war in American history.

"The first gun that was fired in Fort Sumter
sounded the dead knell of slavery.

"They who fired it were
the greatest practical abolitionists

this nation has produced.

"April 13, so Civil War
is inaugurated at last.

"God defend the right".

[Fort Sumter surrender!]

[Maj. Anderson, a prisoner of war]

[The white flag displayed on the walls!]

["Nobody hurt!"]

[Major Anderson taken!]

[Entrance obtained under a flag of truce]

[New Yorkers implicated!]

14 April, Montgomery daily advertiser:

"The intelligence that Fort Sumter
has surrendered

"to the Confederate forces yesterday

"sent a thrill of joy to the heart
of every true friend of the South.

"The face of every Southern man
was brighter, his step lighter

"and his bearing prouder
than had been before".

In Boston, jubilant volunteers
marched past Faneuil Hall,

eager to avenge Fort Sumter.

In Baltimore, anti-Lincoln men
rampaged through the streets.

In Richmond a mob
marched on the Statehouse,

tore down the stars and stripes

and raised the stars and bars.

There was no longer any doubt
that Virginia would secede.

In New York a hundred thousand people
crowded Union Square

where the Sumter flag now flew.

Walt Whitman, sometime poet
and journalist for the Brooklyn Standard

was stunned by the news.

"All the past we leave behind
with the Sumter", he said.

"Woe to those who began this war
if they were not in bitter earnest."

— Mary Chestnut.

[Traitors and Patriots]

"Father and I were husking out corn
when William Corry came across the field.

"He was excited and said,

"'Jonathan, the rebels
have fire upon Fort Sumter'.

"Father got white and couldn't say a word".

— Theodore F. Upson.

[Lincoln declares war]

April, 15. Events multiply.

The President is out with a proclamation
calling to 75,000 volunteers.

It is said 200,000 more
will be called within a few days.

On the day Sumter fell,
the regular army of the United States

consisted of fewer than 17,000 men,

most of whom were stationed
in the Far West.

Only two of his generals had ever
commanded an army in the field

and both were long past their prime.

Winfield Scott,
the hero of the Mexican war,

"Old Fuss and Feathers",

was too fat even to mount a horse.

[To arms! To arms!]

[The capital of our country in danger!]

[A few good men wanted]

[Young men join this company!]

[Sharp shooters for the war]

[The best regiment yet!]

[Recruits wanted immediately]

[Ho! For the war!]

[Soldiers for the U.S. army wanted!]

"We were treated as good as a company
could be at every station.

"We got kisses from the girls
at a good many places

"and we returned the same to them".

— Hercules Stanard.

"I've got the best suit of clothes
I ever had in my life".

In the North they came
by hundreds and by thousands,

from Boston, Massachusetts,

from Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan,

and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the rain.

Whole towns signed up.

The 10th Michigan Volunteer Infantry
was made up of Flint boys.

Their commander was the Mayor.

Their regimental doctor, the man
who had been taking care of them

since they were young.

The 6th New York contained so many boweries

it was said a man had to have done time
in prison just to get into the regiment.

The elite 7th, on the other hand,

set out for Washington
with sandwiches from Delmonico's,

and 1,000 velvet covered campstools

on which to sit and eat them.

On his way to war, Lieutenant
George Armstrong Custer, just 22,

and less than a month out of West Point,

where he graduated
at the bottom of his class,

stopped in New York
to have himself fitted out

with a splendid new uniform,

then went to a photographer.

In Pawtuxet, Rhode Island, 19 year old,
Elisha Hunt Rhodes left his job

as a harness maker's clerk

and signed on as a private
in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers.

He would have joined earlier but his
widowed mother begged him to stay home.

"We drilled all day and night.

"Standing before a long mirror,

"I put many hours of weary work
and soon thought myself quite a soldier.

"I was elected first Sergeant,
much to my surprise.

"Just what a first sergeant's duties
might be, I had no idea".

After two weeks of drilling,
the 2nd Rhode Island moved out.

"Today, we have orders to pack up
and be ready to leave for Washington.

"My knapsack was so heavy that I could
scarcely stagger under the load.

"At the wharf an immense crowd had gathered
and we went on board our steamer

"with mingled feelings of joy and sorrow.

"In Baton Rouge William Tecumseh Sherman

"resigned as superintendent
of the Louisiana Military Academy

"and headed North".

"You politicians", he told his brother
Senator John Sherman of Ohio,

"have got things in a hell of a fix

"and you may get them out
as best as you can.

"I will have no more to do with it".

But when Sumter fell,
he put his uniform back on

and reluctantly he went to war.

"You might as well attempt
to put out the flames

"of a burning house with a squirt gun".

"I think this is to be
a long war, very long,

"much longer than any politician thinks.

"There were but two parties now,

"Traitors and Patriots.

"And I want hereafter
to be ranked with the latter".

— Ulysses S. Grant.

In Galena, Illinois,
39 year old, Ulysses S. Grant

was working
in his father's harness shop.

Having failed as a peace time soldier
and considered by some a drunk,

now he signed on as mustering officer

handling the flood of volunteers

at 4.20 dollars a day.

New Orleans, 1861.

"I feel if I would like to shoot a Yankee

"and yet I know that this would not be
in harmony with the spirit of Christianity".

— William Nugent.

"So impatient did I become for starting

"that I felt like a thousand pins
were pricking me in every part of my body

"and I started off
a week in advance of my brothers."

"I found Mobile boiling over
with enthusiasm.

The young merchants
had dropped their ledgers

and were forming and drilling
companies by night and day.

"Everyday regiments marched by.

"Charleston is crowded with soldiers.

"These new ones are running in fairly.

"They fear the war will be over
before they get sight of the fun.

"Every man from every
little county precinct

"wants a place in the picture".

The Confederate government,
its capital now in Richmond,

called for 100,000 volunteers.

So many Southerners volunteered
that a third of them had to be sent home.

They came from Catahoula,
and Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

Greenville, Mississippi,
Mooresvile, Alabama,

and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Tennessee joined the Confederacy.

So did Arkansas and North Carolina.

In Memphis, Nathan Bedford Forrest,
a blacksmith's son

who had made himself a millionaire
selling land, cotton and slaves,

put up posters calling on anyone
who wanted to kill Yankees

to come and ride with him.

The Clinch Rifles from Augusta, Georgia
started out in May, 1861.

Only the drummer boy would survive.

The odds against
a Southern victory were long.

There were nearly 21 million
people in the North,

just 9 million in the Confederacy,

and 4 million of them were slaves,

whom their masters did not dare arm.

The value of all the manufactured goods
produced in all the Confederate states

added up to less than one fourth
of those produced in New York state alone.

But none of this matter to the men
who joined the Tallapoosa Thrashers

and Chickasaw Desperados
and Cherokee Lincoln Killers.

"The histories of the lost cause
are all written out by big bugs,

"generals and renowned historians.

"Well, I have as much right as any man
to write a history".

— Sam Watkins.

One of the first to answer
the Southern call

was 21-year-old Sam Watkins
of Columbia, Tennessee.

He joined Company "H"
of the 1st Tennessee at Nashville.

Like most rebel soldiers,
he owned no slaves,

The bugle sound...
and place everything aboard the cars.

"We went bowling along
at 30 miles an hour,

"as fast as steam can carry us.

"At every town and station,

"citizens and ladies
were waving their handkerchiefs

"and hurrahing for Jeff Davis
and the Southern Confederacy".

"It's worth soldiering
to receive such a welcome as this".

"If the President of the United States
would tell me

"that a great battle was to be fought
for the liberty or slavery of the country

"and asked my judgement
as to the ability of a commander,

"I would say with my dying breath,
let it be Robert E. Lee".

— General Winfield Scott.

"I can anticipate no greater calamity
for the country

"than a dissolution of the Union.

"It would be an accumulation
of all the evils we complain of.

"And I am willing to sacrifice everything
but honor for its preservation".

— Robert E. Lee.

The most promising officer
in the regular army

was Robert E. Lee of Virginia.

On April 18, four days after Sumter,

Lee was summoned
to Blair House at Lincoln's behest

and offered field command
of the entire Union army.

Lee said he would think about it.

Virginia had voted to secede
the day before.

That night, he paced anxiously
in the gardens,

around his Arlington mansion,
across the Potomac.

At midnight, Saturday the 20th,

Lee wrote his letter of resignation
from the United States army.

On the 21st, the Governor of Virginia

asked Lee to take command
of the state militia.

When Lee had to choose
between the nation and Virginia,

there was never any doubt
about what his choice would be.

He went with his state, and he said,

"I can't draw my sword
against my native state",

or, as he often said, "my country".

Lincoln had lost his best soldier.

"Not by one word or look,
can we detect any change

"in the demeanor of the negro servants.

"They make no sign.

"Are they stupid or wiser than we are?

"Silent and strong, biding their time?"

— Mary Chestnut.

Both sides thought
it would be a 90-day war.

And both sides agreed
it was to be a white man's fight.

Blacks who tried to sign up
were turned away.

[... Regiment attacked in Baltimore!
Two soldiers killed!]

April, 19.

"There has been a serious disturbance
in Baltimore.

"Regiments from Massachusetts
assailed by a mob

"that was repulsed by shot and steel.

"It's a notable coincidence
that the first blood in this great struggle

"is drawn by Massachusetts men
on the anniversary of Lexington."

[Gun Men]

"We are in Washington, and what a city!

"Mud, pigs, negroes, palaces,
shanties everywhere.

"As we passed the White House,
I had my first view of Abraham Lincoln.

"He looks like a good, honest man.

"And I trust that, with God's help,

"he can bring our country safely
out of its peril.

— Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

The Rhode islanders set up their bunks
at the patent office.

New Yorkers slept on the carpeted floor
of the House Chamber.

Massachusetts men camped in the rotunda

and cooked their bacon
on furnaces in the basement.

Overhead, the Capitol dome
remained incomplete.

Despite the war,
Lincoln insisted that the work go on.

"I take it as a sign", he said,
"that the Union will continue".

"The first thing in the morning is drill.

"Then drill, then drill again.

"Then drill, drill,
a little more drill, then drill.

"Then, lastly, drill.

"Between drills, we drill and sometimes
stop to eat a little and have a roll call."

"Outskirts of Baltimore,

"My dear William, I can now march
20 and 25 miles a day,

"live on short rations
of hardtack, raw, rancid bacon,

"green roasting and use cold water,

"sleep out in the rain and heavy dew
with nothing but an army coat over me

"and enjoy myself capitally."

— Edward Hastings Ripley.

Early in the war,
there was a Confederate veteran,

a young country boy, on guard duty.

He's walking his post in the woods.

And there was an owl, unknown to him,
in a tree nearby

and the owl said, "Who-o-o-o!"

And the boy, trembling with fear, said,

"It's me, sir, John Albert,
a friend of yours".

In May, Union troops crossed
the Potomac by torchlight

and took the heights of Arlington.

Robert E. Lee's house would be occupied
by Union troops for the rest of the war.

In late June, the new general in charge
of the Union army, Irvin McDowell,

outlined plans for attacking
the Confederates in Virginia,

but he did not yet want to fight.

"This is not an army",
he warned the President.

"You are green, it is true",
Lincoln answered,

"but they are green also.

"You are all green alike".

To preserve the Constitution,

Lincoln had for three months
gone beyond it,

waging war without congressional consent,

seizing northern telegraph offices,
suspending habeas corpus.

To keep the border states from seceding,
Lincoln sent troops to occupy Baltimore

and clapped the Mayor and 19 secessionist
legislators in jail without trial.

Chief Justice Taney ruled that the President
had exceeded his power.

Lincoln simply ignored him.

"More rogues than honest men
find shelter under habeas corpus", he said,

and even contemplated
arresting the chief justice.

A very mysterious man,
he's got so many sides to him.

The curious thing about Lincoln to me

is that he could remove himself
from himself,

as if he were looking at himself.

It's a very strange, very eerie thing
and highly intelligent,

it's such a simple thing to say,

but Lincoln's been so smothered
with stories of his compassion,

that people forget
what a highly intelligent man he was.

And almost everything he did,
was calculated for effect.

"Teach the rebels and traitors
that the price they are to pay

"for the attempt to abolish this government

"must be the abolition of slavery".

— Frederick Douglass.

From the start of the war, slaves fled
their plantations for the Union lines,

but Lincoln's policy was clear.

Despite pressure from the abolitionists,
he insisted he was making war on secession,

not slavery,

and ordered the army
to return fugitives to their owners.

But now, an unlikely figure
helped to change men's minds.

General Benjamin Butler
was a Massachusetts politician,

with crossed eyes and mixed motives

who had once backed Jefferson Davis
for President of the United States.

"Returning slaves
only aided the enemy", Butler argued,

And he got permission to hold
fugitive slaves as contraband of war

and employ them as laborers
in the Union army.

"Major Cary of Virginia asked
if I did not feel myself

"bound by my constitutional obligations

"to deliver up fugitives
under the Fugitive Slave Act.

"To this, I replied
that the Fugitive Slave Act

"did not affect a foreign country,

"which Virginia claimed to be.

"And she must reckon it
one of the infelicities of her position

"that insofar, at least,
she was taken at her word".

— General Benjamin Butler.

The trickle of runaways coming
into Northern lines now swelled to a flood.

One ex-slave who had recently
bought his freedom told a Union soldier,

"If I had known you gun men were coming,
I'd have saved my money".

[Explosions)

War was breaking out
all across the country.

There were engagements at Big Bethel,
Virginia and Booneville, Missouri.

Skirmishes from Maryland
to New Mexico territory.

At Philippi, in Western Virginia,
a young Union general, George McClellan

won a small, highly publicized victory
over a tiny Confederate force.

But still, there had been
no decisive battle.

"July 9, our battle Summer.

"May it be our first
and our last so-called.

"After all, we've not had
any of the horrors of war".

— Mary Chestnut.

"July 16, it begins to look warlike

"and we shall probably have a chance

"to pay our Southern brethren a visit
upon the sacred soil of Virginia very soon.

"I hope we shall be successful and give
the rebels a good pounding".

— Elisha Hunt Rhodes.

On July 16th, the Volunteer Union Army
of 37,000 men marched into Virginia.

Their aim, to cut the railroad at Manassas,

then move on at last to Richmond.

Washington Star:

"The scene to the hills was grand.

"Regiment after regiment was seen coming
along the road and across the long bridge,

"their arms gleaming in the sun.

"Cheer after cheer was heard
as regiment greeted regiment.

"With the martial music and sharp,
clear orders of commanding officers,

"it made a combination of sounds
very pleasant to the ear of a Union man".

To stop the Union invasion,

22,000 Confederate troops
had moved north from Richmond

commanded by General Beauregard,

who knew in advance
the Federals were coming.

Rose Greenhow,
a prominent socialite in Washington,

and a Confederate spy, had alerted him.

Now Beauregard made his headquarters
in Wilmer McLean's farm house.

The Confederates formed
a meandering 8-mile line

along one side of Bull Run Creek.

They were less than 25 miles
from Washington, and there they waited.

Hundreds of Washingtonians in holiday mood

rode out to Manassas
hoping to see a real battle.

Some brought field glasses,
picnic baskets, bottles of champagne.

"We saw carriages
which contained civilians,

"who'd driven out from Washington
to witness the operations.

"A Connecticut boy said,
'There's our Senator!'

"and some of our men recognized
other members of Congress.

"We thought it wasn't a bad idea
to have the great men from Washington

"come out to see us thrash the rebs".

— private James Tinkham.

On the morning of the 21st,
McDowell sent his men across Bull Run.

They smashed into the left side
of the Confederate line,

driving the rebels
from one position after another.

The civilian onlookers waved hats
and fluttered handkerchiefs.

It was not yet noon, and all was going
just as they wanted.

"On reaching a clearing separated
from our left flank by a rail fence,

"we were saluted by a volley of musketry

"which was fired so high
that all the bullets went over our heads.

"My first sensation was astonishment
at the peculiar whir of the bullets

"and that the regiment immediately laid down
without waiting for orders".

"We fired a volley
and saw the rebels running.

"The boys were saying constantly
in great glee,

" 'We've whipped them'.

" 'We'll hang Jeff Davis
to a sour apple tree.

" 'They're running. The war's over'."

An onlooker remembered that the advancing
Union army looked like a bristling monster

lifting himself by a slow, wavy motion
up the laborious ascent.

Union victory seemed so sure
that on one part of the battlefield

men stopped to gather souvenirs.

But holding a hill at the center
of the Southern line,

was a Virginia brigade
led by General Thomas Jackson.

While other Southern commands wavered,
Jackson's held firm.

One Confederate officer, trying to rally
his own frightened men, shouted,

"Look! There's Jackson with his Virginians,
standing like a stone wall".

The name stuck.

He had the strange combination

of religious fanaticism
and a glory in battle.

He loved battle. His eyes would light up.

They called him "Old Blue Light"

because of the way his eyes
would light up in battle.

He was totally fearless,
had no thought whatsoever of danger

at any time the battle was on,

and he could define what he wanted to do.

He said, "Once you get them running,
you stay right on top of them.

"That way a small force
can defeat a large one every time".

He knew perfectly well that a reputation
for victory would roll and build.

It was the turning point.

At 4:00, Beauregard ordered
a counterattack.

Jackson urged his men to yell like furies.

The rebel yell first heard that day
would echo from 1,000 battlefields.

Confederate reinforcements began to arrive.

The first came on horseback.

More arrived by train,
something new in war.

The Northern army fell apart.

The retreat soon became a rout,

as Union guns became entangled
with the carriages of fleeing spectators.

"We tried to tell them
that there was no danger,

"called on them to stop,
implored them to stand.

"We called them cowards.

"Put out our heavy revolvers
and threatened to shoot, but all in vain".

"Along the shady little valley
through which our road lay

"the surgeons had been plying their vocation
all the morning upon the wounded.

"Tables about breast-high had been erected

"upon which screaming victims
were having legs and arms cut off.

"The surgeons and their assistants,
stripped to the waist

"and all bespattered with blood,
stood around.

"Some holding the poor fellas,

"while others, armed with long,
bloody knives and saws,

"cut and saw away with frightful rapidity,
throwing the mangled limbs

"on a pile nearby, as soon as removed.

— Lieutenant colonel W.W. Blackford,
1st Cavalry, Virginia.

"What a horrible sight it was!

"Here a man, grasping his gun firmly
in his hands, stone dead.

"Several with distorted features,
all horribly dirty.

"Many were terribly wounded,
some with legs shot off,

"others with arms gone.

"Some so badly wounded,
they could not drag themselves away,

"slowly bleeding to death.

"We stopped many times
to give some a drink

"and soon saw enough
to satisfy us with the horrors of war".

— Lieutenant Josiah Favill.

"I struggled on, clinging
to my gun and cartridge box.

"Many times, I sat down in the mud,
determined to go no further

"and willing to die and end my misery.

"But soon a friend would pass
and urge me to make another effort,

"and I would stagger a mile further.

"At daylight, we could see
the spires of Washington,

"and a welcome sight it was.

"The loss of regiment
in this disastrous affair

"was 93 killed, wounded or missing".

There is a congressman,
I believe from Alabama

— I've forgotten where from —

who said there would be no war.

And he offered to wipe up all blood
that would be shed

with a pocket handkerchief.

That was his prediction.

I've always said, someone could get a Ph.D.

by calculating how many
pocket handkerchiefs it would take

to wipe up all the blood that was shed.

It would be a lot of handkerchiefs.

From the Confederate White House
in Richmond,

Jefferson Davis rejoiced.

"My fellow citizens, your little army,

"derided for its want of arms,

"derided for its lack of all
the essential material of war,

"has met the grand army of the enemy,

"routed it at every point,

"and it now flies inglorious in retreat,

"before our victorious columns.

"We have taught them a lesson

"in their invasion
of the sacred soil of Virginia".

[Great Southern Victory!]

"Today will be known as Black Monday.

"We are utterly and disgracefully routed,
beaten, whipped by secessionists.

— George Templeton Strong,

London Times:

"The inmates of the White House
are in a state of utmost trepidation

"and Mr. Lincoln in despair.

"Why Beauregard does not attack Washington,

"I know not, nor can I well guess".

It was remembered as the "great skedaddle".

For days, discouraged troops
straggled back into Washington.

"I saw a steady stream of men,

"covered with mud,
soaked through with rain,

"who were pouring irregularly
up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.

"A dense stream of vapor
rose from the multitude.

"I asked a pale young man
who looked exhausted to death,

"whether the whole army had been defeated.

"That's more than I know", he said.

"I know I'm going home.

"I've had enough of fighting
to last my lifetime".

The North was appalled
at the 5,000 casualties.

Both sides now knew
it would be no 90 days war.

Two days later,
Canny real estate speculators

bought up the battlefield
to make a second kind of killing.

— as a tourist attraction.

"What upon earth is the matter
with the American people?

"Do they really covet the world's ridicule,

"as well as their own social
and political ruin?

"The national edifice is on fire.

"Every man who can carry a bucket of water
or remove a brick is wanted.

"Yet government leaders persistently refuse

"to receive as soldiers the slaves,

"the very class of men
which has a deeper interest

"in the defeat and humiliation
of the rebels than all others.

"Such is the pride, the stupid prejudice

"and folly that rules the hour".

— Frederick Douglass.

"Little did I conceive
of the greatness of the defeat,

"the magnitude of the disaster,
which had entailed upon the U.S.

"So short-lived has been the American Union

"that men who saw it rise
may live to see it fall".

— William Russell, London Times.

[A Thousand Mile Front]

[Disaster to the National Army]

[90,000 rebels in the field]

[The retreat of our forces
on the eve of victory]

[A panic among the Temmsters and civilians]

[Exaggerated statements of our losses]

[Measures of the government
to retrieve the disaster]

"Washington, August.

"I found no preparations whatever
for defense.

"Not a regiment was properly encamped,

"not a single avenue or approach guarded.

"All was chaos, and the streets,
hotels and bar rooms

"were filled with drunken officers

"and men absent from their regiments
without leave.

"Perfect pandemonium!"

— George McClellan.

Five days after the disaster at Bull Run,

a new general took over what is now
called the "army of the Potomac".

George Brinton McClellan, only 34,
seemed just what the North needed.

He brought with him
to the demoralized capital,

what one aide called
an indescribable air of success.

He replaced inept officers with regulars.

He laid out tidy camps around Washington
to accommodate the 10,000 new volunteers

arriving each week,
drilled them 8 hours a day,

staged grand reviews to boost morale.

"All the attention
was upon the young general

"with the calm eye, with the satisfied air,

"who moved around
followed by an immense staff

"to the clanking of sabers
and the acclamation of the spectators".

— Régis de Trobiand.

"I find myself in a new
and strange position here

"— president, cabinet, general Scott —
and all deferring to me.

"By some strange piece of magic,
I seem to become the power of the land.

"I almost think that were I to win
some small success now,

"I could become dictator
or anything else that might please me.

"But nothing of that kind would please me.

"Therefore, I won't be a dictator".

Admirable self-denial.

The newspapers called him "young Napoleon".

And he could not help
seeing the resemblance himself.

But 100,000 untrained volunteers
had become an army,

McClellan's army.

His men, who loved him
for having made them proud of themselves,

called him Little Mac.

"His specialty is preparing troops to fight

"and he did that superbly.

"McClellan trained that army.

"Whatever the army of the Potomac did
in the after years

"is largely due to the training McClellan
gave them in that first year".

With Lincoln, McClellan and his staff

devised a three-pronged attack
on the Confederacy.

One army would drive into Virginia
and take Richmond.

Another would secure
Kentucky and Tennessee,

then push into the heartland
of the Confederacy

and occupy Mississippi,
Alabama and Georgia.

Meanwhile, the navy would
clear the Mississippi,

surround the Confederacy by sea,
and choke off supplies.

The war would be fought
along a 1,000-mile front.

That fall, Lincoln elevated McClellan
to general in chief,

replacing the aging Winfield Scott.

"I can do it all", McClellan said,

but he did nothing.

As Summer turned to Autumn,
it became increasingly clear

that having made a magnificent army,

George McClellan had no immediate plans
to lead it anywhere.

"As we approached the brow of the hill,

"my heart kept getting higher and higher,

"until it felt to me it was in my throat.

"I would have given anything then
to be back in Illinois, where I kept ride on.

"When the valley below
was in full view, I halted.

"The enemy's troops were gone.

"My heart resumed its place
and it occurred to me at once

"that he had been
as much afraid of me as I of him.

"This was a view of the question
I had never taken before,

"but it was one I never forgot afterwards".

— General Ulysses S. Grant.

In September, Ulysses S. Grant

took Paducah, Kentucky, a strategic city
at the mouth of the Tennessee.

But two months later, his undisciplined
recruits were almost destroyed,

looting a captured rebel camp
instead of preparing for a counterattack.

Grant was returned to desk duty.

In November,
William Tecumseh Sherman was relieved

as Union commander in Kentucky

when he insisted that at least 200,000 men

would be needed to suppress
the rebellion in the West.

No one believed him.

He grew melancholic,
prone to fits of anxiety and rage.

"Sherman", McClellan said,
"is gone in the head".

December found him at home
in the care of his wife,

contemplating suicide.

No. No one thought it would last long.

No one on the either side
thought it would last long.

Those few individuals
who said that it would,

— Tecumseh Sherman, for instance —
were actually judged to be insane

for making predictions about casualties,

which were actually low.

In November, a Union warship
stopped a British steamer at gunpoint

in international waters and arrested
two Confederate diplomats found on board.

Britain's Prime Minister,
Lord Palmerston, was outraged,

demanded their immediate release

and dispatched 11,000 troops to Canada.

"One war at a time", Lincoln said,

and quietly let the two Confederates go.

By December, optimists on both sides
were disappointed.

The Confederacy showed no signs
of imminent collapse.

The North would not abandon its efforts
to reunite the nation by force.

By the end of the year, there were
700,000 men in the Union army.

No one knew how many
Confederates there were.

"December 31st.

"Poor old 1861 just going.

"It has been a gloomy year
of trouble and disaster.

"I should be glad of its departure,

"were it not that 1862
is likely to be no better".

— George Templeton Strong.

[Honorable Manhood]

A week before the battle of Bull Run,

Sullivan Ballou, a major in the
2nd Rhode Island Volunteers,

wrote home to his wife in Smithfield.

"July 14, 1861, Washington, D.C.

"Dear Sarah,
The indications are very strong

"that we shall move in a few days,
perhaps tomorrow.

"And lest I should not be able
to write you again,

"I feel impelled to write a few lines

"that may fall under your eye
when I'm no more.

"I have no misgivings about
or lack of confidence

"in the cause in which I am engaged,

"and my courage does not halt or falter.

"I know how American civilization now leans
upon the triumph of the government,

"and how great a debt we owe
to those who went before us

"through the blood
and suffering of the Revolution,

"and I am willing, perfectly willing,

"to lay down all my joys in this life

"to help maintain this government
and to pay that debt.

"Sarah, my love for you is deathless.

"It seems to bind me with mighty cables

"that nothing but Omnipotence can break

"and yet my love of country
comes over me like a strong wind

"and bears me irresistibly
with all those chains to the battlefield.

"The memory of all the blissful moments
I have enjoyed with you

"come crowding over me

"and I feel most deeply grateful to God
and you that I've enjoyed them for so long,

"and how hard it is for me to give them up

"and burn to ashes
the hopes of future years,

"when, God willing, we might still
have lived and loved together

"and see our boys grown up
to honorable manhood around us.

"If I do not return, my dear Sarah,

"never forget how much I loved you,

"nor that when my last breath
escapes me on the battlefield

"it will whisper your name.

"Forgive my many faults
and the many pains I have caused you.

"How thoughtless, how foolish
I have sometimes been.

"But, oh, Sarah, if the dead
can come back to this earth,

"and flit unseen around those they love,

"I shall always be with you
in the brightest day and the darkest night,

"always, always.

"And when the soft breeze fans your cheek,

"it shall be my breath.

"Or the cool air at your throbbing temple,

"it shall be my spirit passing by.

"Sarah, do not mourn me dead.

"Think I am gone and wait for me,
for we shall meet again".

Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later

at the first battle of Bull Run.