The Civil War 1x1

1. Original production of "the civil war"

2. was made possible by generous contributions

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4. And by the corporation for public broadcasting and by

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6. thank you.

7. Corporate funding for this special 25th anniversary

8. presentation was provided by.

9. Before thousands fell on the battlefield,

10. before millions were freed and before a country

11. forged its identity... A nation declared a new

12. birth of freedom, rededicating itself to the

13. proposition that all men are created equal.

14. Bank of America is proud to sponsor "the civil war,"

15. a film by Ken Burns,

16. newly restored for it's 25th anniversary.

17. "We have shared the incommunicable experience of war.

18. "We have felt, we still feel,

19. the passion of life to its top."

20. "In our youths,

21. our hearts were touched with fire."

22. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

23. By the summer of 1861,

24. Wilmer McLean had had enough.

25. Two great armies were converging on his farm,

26. and what would be

27. the first major battle of the civil war—

28. bull run, or Manassas,

29. as the confederates called it—

30. would soon rage across the aging virginian's farm,

31. a union shell going so far

32. as to explode in the summer kitchen.

33. Now McLean moved his family away from Manassas,

34. far south and west of Richmond,

35. out of harm's way, he prayed,

36. to a dusty little crossroads

37. called Appomattox courthouse.

38. And it was there in his living room,

39. 31/2 years later,

40. that Lee surrendered to Grant...

41. And Wilmer McLean could rightfully say

42. that "the war began in my front yard

43. and ended in my front parlor."

44. The civil war was fought in 10,000 places

45. from Valverde, new Mexico,

46. and Tullahoma, Tennessee,

47. to St. Albans, Vermont,

48. and Fernandina on the Florida coast.

49. More than 3 million Americans fought in it,

50. and over 600,000 men, 2% of the population,

51. died in it.

52. American homes became headquarters.

53. American churches and schoolhouses

54. sheltered the dying...

55. And huge foraging armies swept across American farms

56. and burned American towns.

57. Americans slaughtered one another wholesale here,

58. in America, in their own corn fields

59. and peach orchards,

60. along familiar roads,

61. and by waters with old American names.

62. In two days at Shiloh,

63. on the banks of the Tennessee,

64. more American men fell

65. than in all previous American wars combined.

66. At cold harbor,

67. 7,000 Americans fell in 20 minutes.

68. Men who had never strayed 20 miles

69. from their own front doors

70. now found themselves soldiers in great armies,

71. fighting epic battles hundreds of miles from home.

72. They knew they were making history,

73. and it was the greatest adventure of their lives.

74. The war made some rich, ruined others,

75. and changed forever

76. the lives of all who lived through it...

77. A lackluster clerk from galena, Illinois,

78. a failure in everything except marriage and war,

79. who, in 3 years, would be head of the union army

80. and in 7, president of the United States;

81. An eccentric student of theology and military tactics,

82. a hypochondriac

83. who rode into battle with one hand raised

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

85. a college professor from Maine,

86. who, on a little hill in Pennsylvania,

87. ordered an unlikely textbook maneuver

88. that saved the union army

89. and possibly the union itself...

90. Two ordinary soldiers—

91. one from Providence, Rhode Island,

92. the other from Columbia, Tennessee,

93. who each served 4 years

94. and together seemed to have been everywhere

95. during the war and lived to tell the tale...

96. The courtly, unknowable aristocrat,

97. who disapproved of secession and slavery,

98. yet went on to defend them both

99. at the head of one of the greatest armies

100. of all time;

101. The runaway boy who "stole himself" from slavery,

102. recruited two regiments of black soldiers,

103. and helped transform the civil war

104. into a struggle for the freedom of all Americans.

105. And then there was the rough man from Illinois,

106. who would rise to be the greatest president

107. the country has ever seen.

108. Between 1861 and 1865,

109. Americans made war on each other

110. and killed each other in great numbers,

111. if only to become the kind of country

112. that could no longer conceive

113. how that was possible.

114. What began as a bitter dispute

115. over union and states' rights

116. ended as a struggle

117. over the meaning of freedom in America.

118. At Gettysburg in 1863,

119. Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew.

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

121. 1938—75th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg.

122. President Roosevelt

123. spoke to the remaining few civil war veterans.

124. Veterans of the blue and the gray...

125. On behalf of the people of the United States,

126. I accept this monument

127. in the spirit of brotherhood and peace.

128. Year after year, the nation remembered.

129. In 1930, veterans of the union army

130. marched in Cincinnati, Ohio,

131. 4 years later, in New York City.

132. They and the surviving veterans of the confederacy

133. were the last link

134. with a terrible conflict that tore America apart

135. from 1861 to 1865.

136. The last civil war veteran would die in 1959,

137. and no longer would there be living memories of long-ago battles,

138. only history and legends.

139. Any understanding of this nation

140. has to be based, and I mean really based,

141. on an understanding of the civil war.

142. I believe that firmly.

143. It defined us.

144. The revolution did what it did.

145. Our involvement in European wars,

146. beginning with the first world war,

147. did what it did,

148. but the civil war defined us as what we are,

149. and it opened us to being what we became,

150. uh, good and bad things.

151. And it— it is very necessary

152. if you're going to understand the American character

153. in the 20th century

154. to learn about this enormous catastrophe

155. of the mid-19th century.

156. It was the—the— the crossroads of our being,

157. and it was a hell of a crossroads.

158. For me, the picture of the civil war

159. as a historic phenomenon...

160. Is not on the battlefield.

161. It's not about weapons.

162. It's not about soldiers,

163. except to the extent

164. that weapons and soldiers

165. at that crucial moment

166. joined a discussion about something higher,

167. about humanity, about human dignity,

168. about human freedom.

169. "Whence shall we expect the approach of danger?

170. "Shall some transatlantic giant step the earth

171. "and crush us at a blow?

172. "Never.

173. "All the armies of Europe and Asia

174. "could not by force take a drink

175. "from the Ohio river

176. "or make a track on the blue Ridge

177. "in the trial of a thousand years.

178. "If destruction be our lot,

179. "we must ourselves be its author and finisher.

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

181. Or die by suicide."

182. Abraham Lincoln, 1837.

183. In 1861,

184. most of the nation's 31 million people

185. lived peaceably on farms and in small towns.

186. At Sharpsburg, Maryland,

187. a German pacifist sect, the Dunkards,

188. made their home in a sea of wheat and corn.

189. In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, population 2,400,

190. young men studied Latin and mathematics

191. at the small college there.

192. Steamboats filled with cotton

193. came and went at Vicksburg on the Mississippi.

194. In Washington, D.C.,

195. senator Jefferson Davis reviewed plans

196. for remodeling the capitol.

197. In Richmond, the 900 employees

198. of the Tredegar iron works

199. turned out gun carriages and Cannon

200. for the U.S. government.

201. At west point on the Hudson,

202. officers trained,

203. and friendships were formed

204. they thought would last a lifetime.

205. "In thinking of America,

206. "I sometimes find myself

207. "admiring her bright blue sky

208. "and her grand old woods,

209. "her fertile fields,

210. "her beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes

211. and star-crowned mountains..."

212. "But my rapture is soon checked.

213. "When I remember that all is cursed

214. "with the infernal spirit

215. "of slaveholding and wrong,

216. "when I remember

217. "that with the waters of her noblest rivers,

218. "the tears of my brethren

219. "are borne to the ocean,

220. "disregarded and forgotten,

221. "that her most fertile fields

222. "drink daily of the warm blood

223. "of my outraged sisters,

224. I am filled with unutterable loathing."

225. Frederick Douglass.

226. "no day ever dawns for the slave,"

227. a freed black man wrote,

228. "nor is it looked for.

229. "For the slave, it is all night.

230. All night forever."

231. One white mississippian was more blunt—

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

233. "than be a nigger

234. on one of these big plantations."

235. A slave entered the world

236. in a one-room, dirt-floored shack.

237. Drafty in winter, reeking in summer,

238. slave cabins bred pneumonia, typhus, cholera,

239. lockjaw, tuberculosis.

240. The child who survived to be sent to the fields at 12

241. was likely to have rotten teeth, worms,

242. dysentery, malaria.

243. Fewer than 4 out of 100 lived to be 60.

244. Work began at sunrise

245. and continued as long as there was light—

246. 14 hours sometimes,

247. unless there was a full moon,

248. when it went on still longer.

249. On the auction block,

250. blacks were made to jump and dance

251. to demonstrate their sprightliness

252. and stripped to show how little whipping they needed.

253. Buyers poked and prodded them,

254. examined their feet, eyes, and teeth...

255. "Precisely," one ex-slave recalled,

256. "as a jockey examines a horse."

257. A slave could expect to be sold

258. at least once in his lifetime,

259. maybe two times,

260. maybe more.

261. Since slave marriages had no legal status,

262. preachers changed the wedding vows to read,

263. "until death or distance do you part."

264. You know what I'd rather do?"

265. If I thought...

266. That I'd ever be a slave again,

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

268. because you're nothing but a dog.

269. You're not a thing but a dog.

270. Some slaves refused to work.

271. Some ran away.

272. Still, blacks struggled

273. to hold their families together,

274. created their own culture

275. under the worst of conditions...

276. And yearned to be free.

277. If there was a single event that caused the war,

278. it was the establishment of the United States

279. in independence from Great Britain

280. with slavery still a part of its heritage.

281. It was because we failed to do the thing

282. we really have a genius for, which is compromise.

283. Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising.

284. Our true genius is for compromise.

285. Our whole government's founded on it,

286. and it failed.

287. "There was never a moment in our history

288. "when slavery was not a sleeping serpent.

289. "It lay coiled up under the table

290. "during the deliberations

291. "of the constitutional convention.

292. "Owing to the cotton gin,

293. "it was more than half awake.

294. "Thereafter, slavery was on everyone's mind,

295. though not always on his tongue."

296. John Jay Chapman.

297. By the time the nation was founded,

298. slavery was dying in the north.

299. There were doubts in the south, too,

300. but few could conceive of any alternative.

301. Thomas Jefferson of Virginia said maintaining slavery

302. was like holding a wolf by the ears.

303. You didn't like it,

304. but you didn't dare let it go.

305. Then in 1793, a northerner, Eli Whitney,

306. taught the south how to make slavery pay.

307. Whitney's engine, or gin,

308. made it easier to separate cotton from its seed.

309. Where before it had taken one slave 10 hours

310. to produce a single pound of lint,

311. the cotton gin could crank out a thousand pounds a day.

312. Production soared...

313. And with it, the demand for slaves.

314. By 1860, the last year of peace,

315. one out of every 7 Americans

316. belonged to another American.

317. 4 million men, women, and children were slaves.

318. In Boston in 1831,

319. claiming "that which is not just is not law,"

320. William Lloyd Garrison began publishing

321. a militant, antislavery newspaper, the liberator.

322. He called for complete and immediate abolition.

323. "I am in earnest.

324. "I will not equivocate.

325. "I will not excuse.

326. "I will not retreat a single inch,

327. and I will be heard."

328. He was heard,

329. and his message was clear—

330. slavery was sin...

331. And those who maintained it, criminals.

332. The abolition movement grew,

333. inspired by passionate leaders—

334. Harriet Tubman, called "Moses" by the slaves

335. who followed her north to freedom;

336. Wendell Phillips,

337. named "the golden trumpet" of abolitionism for his oratory;

338. And Frederick Douglass,

339. the son of a slave and a white man.

340. "I appear this evening

341. "as a thief and robber.

342. "I stole this head, these limbs,

343. "this body from my master

344. and ran off with them."

345. Douglass was so eloquent that skeptics charged

346. he could never have been a slave.

347. In part to prove them wrong,

348. he wrote an autobiography,

349. purchased his freedom with $600 obtained from English admirers,

350. and returned to the struggle.

351. "The abolitionists would raise the negroes

352. "to a social and political equality with the whites.

353. "And, that being effected, we would soon see

354. "the present condition of the two races reversed.

355. "They and their northern allies would be the masters

356. and we the slaves."

357. John C. Calhoun.

358. More and more,

359. southerners worried about the growing political

360. as well as economic power of the north.

361. Northerners were increasingly hostile to slavery.

362. Still, most southerners refused to acknowledge

363. even the possibility of changing their way of life.

364. "On the north bank of the Ohio,

365. "everything is activity, industry.

366. "Labor is honored. There are no slaves.

367. "Pass to the south bank

368. "and the scene changes so suddenly

369. "that you think yourself

370. "on the other side of the world.

371. The enterprising spirit is gone."

372. Alexis de Tocqueville.

373. "We are separated because of incompatibility of temper.

374. "We are divorced north from south

375. because we hated each other so."

376. Mary Chesnut.

377. On the clear, moonlit night of November 7, 1837,

378. a mob surrounded a warehouse at Alton, Illinois,

379. intent on destroying an antislavery newspaper

380. run by the reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy.

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

382. lovejoy, armed with a pistol,

383. came out to stop him.

384. The slavery men shot him dead

385. and dumped his printing press into the Mississippi.

386. The news stunned the nation—

387. a white man had been killed over black slavery.

388. Protest meetings were held throughout the north.

389. One abolitionist wrote that

390. "thousands of our citizens

391. "who lately believed that they had nothing to do with slavery

392. now begin to discover their error."

393. In Hudson, Ohio,

394. a clergyman told a church gathering,

395. "the question now before us

396. "is no longer, can slaves be made free,

397. "but, are we free,

398. or are we slaves under mob law?"

399. In the back of the church, a strange, gaunt man

400. Rose to his feet and raised his right hand.

401. "Here, before god, in the presence of these witnesses,

402. "I consecrate my life

403. to the destruction of slavery."

404. John brown.

405. In 1846, a lawyer from Springfield, Illinois,

406. was elected to congress.

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

408. who could barely sign his name.

409. He became a legislator at 24, a prosperous attorney,

410. and after a turbulent courtship,

411. the husband of miss Mary Todd,

412. the daughter of a slave-holding Kentucky banker.

413. For Abraham Lincoln,

414. the declaration of independence

415. was to be taken literally—

416. all men had the right to rise

417. as far as talent would take them,

418. just as he had.

419. He detested slavery,

420. but he called for its restriction,

421. not immediate abolition.

422. By mid-century, the country was deeply divided.

423. Southerners feared the north might forbid slavery.

424. Northerners feared slavery might move west.

425. As each new state was added to the union,

426. it threatened to upset

427. the delicate equilibrium of power.

428. "There are grave doubts

429. "at the hugeness of the land,

430. "and whether one government

431. can comprehend the whole."

432. Henry Adams.

433. Now events accelerated.

434. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe

435. published uncle Tom's cabin.

436. Its portrayal of slavery's cruelty

437. moved readers as nothing else had.

438. Queen Victoria wept over it.

439. And within a year,

440. more than 1.5 million copies

441. were in print worldwide.

442. In 1854, congress allowed settlers

443. in the Kansas and Nebraska territories

444. to decide for themselves

445. whether or not to permit slavery.

446. Kansas exploded.

447. 5,000 pro slavery men invaded the territory.

448. In the next 3 months,

449. 200 men died in "bleeding Kansas."

450. The killing would not stop for 10 years.

451. In 1857, the supreme court

452. refused to free a slave, Dred Scott,

453. even though he had lived for many years

454. on free soil.

455. Chief justice Roger B. Taney said

456. a black man had no rights

457. a white man was bound to respect.

458. "As a nation, we began by declaring

459. "that all men are created equal.

460. "We now practically read it—

461. "all men are created equal, except negroes.

462. "Soon it will read—

463. "all men are created equal,

464. "except negroes and foreigners

465. "and Catholics.

466. "When it comes to this,

467. "I should prefer emigrating

468. "to some country

469. "where they make no pretense of loving Liberty—

470. "to Russia, for instance,

471. "where despotism can be taken pure

472. "and without the base alloy

473. of hypocrisy."

474. Abraham Lincoln.

475. Violence reached the floor

476. of the United States senate,

477. where congressman Preston Brooks

478. of south Carolina

479. savagely beat abolitionist senator Charles Sumner

480. with his cane.

481. Southern sympathizers sent Brooks new canes.

482. Members began carrying knives and pistols

483. into the chamber.

484. Meanwhile, the nation's chief executive,

485. James Buchanan, did nothing.

486. "A house divided against itself cannot stand.

487. "I believe this government cannot endure,

488. "permanently half slave and half free.

489. "I do not expect the union to be dissolved.

490. "I do not expect the house to fall.

491. "But I do expect it will cease to be divided.

492. "It will become all one thing

493. or all the other."

494. On Sunday evening, October 16, 1859,

495. the radical abolitionist John brown

496. led 5 blacks and 13 whites

497. into Harpers ferry, Virginia.

498. He brought along a wagonload of guns

499. to arm the slaves

500. he was sure would rally to him.

501. Once they had, he planned to lead them southward

502. along the crest of the Appalachians

503. and destroy slavery.

504. Brown was an inept businessman

505. who had failed 20 times in 6 states

506. and defaulted on his debts,

507. yet he believed himself god's agent on earth.

508. In 1856, at Pottawatomie creek

509. in Kansas,

510. he and his sons

511. had hacked 5 pro slavery men to death

512. with broadswords,

513. all in the name

514. of defeating Satan and his legions.

515. Brown and his men

516. quietly seized the armory, arsenal, and engine house,

517. and took up hostages,

518. including George Washington's great-grandnephew.

519. After that, nothing went right.

520. The first person killed

521. was the town baggage master,

522. a free black.

523. The slaves did not rise up;

524. Angry townspeople did.

525. The first of brown's followers to fall

526. was Dangerfield Newby, a former slave.

527. Someone in the crowd

528. cut off his ears as souvenirs.

529. On Tuesday morning,

530. federal troops arrived from Washington,

531. led by a U.S. army colonel,

532. Robert E. Lee.

533. Lee's men stormed the engine house,

534. and 9 more of brown's men were killed,

535. including two of his sons.

536. Brown, severely wounded,

537. was turned over to Virginia

538. to be tried for treason.

539. "In firing his gun,

540. "John brown has merely told

541. "what time of day it is.

542. It is high noon, thank god."

543. William Lloyd Garrison.

544. "An undivided south says, let him hang."

545. Albany, Georgia patriot.

546. Virginia found brown guilty

547. and sentenced him to death.

548. Among the troops at the scene of his hanging

549. were cadets from the Virginia military institute

550. led by an eccentric professor,

551. Thomas J. Jackson.

552. Also there was a private in the Richmond grays,

553. a young actor named John Wilkes booth.

554. "December 2, 1859...

555. "Old John brown has been executed for treason

556. "against a state.

557. "We cannot object,

558. "even though he agreed with us

559. "in thinking slavery wrong.

560. "That cannot excuse violence, bloodshed, and treason.

561. "It could avail him nothing

562. that he might think himself right."

563. Abraham Lincoln.

564. Ralph Waldo Emerson likened brown to Christ.

565. Nathaniel Hawthorne declared,

566. "no man ever more justly hanged."

567. And Herman Melville called him,

568. "the meteor of the war."

569. Brown had said nothing from the gallows,

570. but he did hand one of his guards a note.

571. "I, John brown, am now quite certain

572. "that the crimes of this guilty land

573. will never be purged away but with blood."

574. "His zeal in the cause of freedom

575. "was infinitely superior to mine.

576. "Mine was as the taper light;

577. "His was as the burning sun.

578. "I could live for the slave.

579. John brown could die for him."

580. John brown, John brown...

581. Very important person in history—

582. important, though, for only one episode.

583. Failure in everything in life,

584. except he becomes the single most important factor,

585. in my opinion, in bringing on the war.

586. The militia system in the south,

587. which had been a joke before this, before then,

588. becomes a viable instrument,

589. as the Southern militias begin to take a true form

590. and the south begins to worry about northerners

591. agitating the blacks to murder them in their beds.

592. It was the beginning of the confederate army.

593. "The feeling among the Southern members

594. "for dissolution of the union

595. "is becoming more general.

596. "Men are now beginning to talk of it seriously

597. "who 12 months ago

598. "hardly permitted themselves to think of it.

599. The crisis is not far ahead."

600. Alexander Stephens.

601. The country was coming apart.

602. In the presidential election of 1860,

603. Buchanan happily stepped aside,

604. but not before his ruling Democratic party

605. was fatally split over the issue of slavery.

606. The Republicans, a new party,

607. saw their chance

608. and nominated Abraham Lincoln,

609. a moderate.

610. His platform pledged only

611. to halt slavery's further spread.

612. "On that point, hold firm

613. "as with a chain of steel.

614. "Those who deny freedom to others

615. "deserve it not for themselves,

616. "and under a just god

617. cannot long retain it."

618. Radical abolitionists in the north complained

619. that Lincoln's opposition to slavery

620. did not go far enough.

621. But to most people in the south,

622. the prospect of Lincoln's election

623. posed a lethal threat.

624. The 1860 campaign had become a referendum

625. on the Southern way of life.

626. On November 6, 1860,

627. Abraham Lincoln won the presidency

628. with only 40% of the vote.

629. He did not even appear on the ballot

630. in 10 Southern states.

631. "The election of Mr. Lincoln

632. "is undoubtedly the greatest evil

633. "that has ever befallen this country.

634. "But the mischief is done.

635. "And the only relief for the American people

636. "is to shorten sail,

637. "send down the top masts,

638. and prepare for a hurricane."

639. Richmond Whig.

640. In the south,

641. Lincoln was burned in effigy,

642. and now the south Carolina legislature

643. called for a convention

644. to consider seceding from the union.

645. Southerners would have told you

646. they were fighting for self-government.

647. They believed the gathering of power in Washington

648. was against them.

649. When they entered into that federation,

650. they certainly would never have entered into it

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

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

653. they thought they had every right.

654. The southerners saw the election of Lincoln

655. as a sign that the union

656. was about to be radicalized

657. and that they were about to be taken in directions

658. they did not care to go.

659. The abolitionist aspect of it was very strong,

660. and, uh, they figured they were about to lose

661. what they called their property

662. and faced ruin.

663. Yet many southerners

664. thought secession was madness.

665. "South Carolina,"

666. one Southern politician wrote,

667. "is too small for a Republic

668. and too large for an insane asylum."

669. "November 19, 1860.

670. "A most gloomy day in wall street.

671. "Everything at a deadlock.

672. "First-class paper not negotiable.

673. Stocks falling."

674. George Templeton strong.

675. In New York, emotions were no less explosive,

676. and George Templeton strong,

677. a conservative lawyer who distrusted Lincoln,

678. began to keep track of events in his diary.

679. "The bird of our country is a debilitated chicken,

680. "disguised in eagle feathers.

681. "We have never been a nation.

682. "We are only an aggregate of communities,

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

684. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president,

685. there were 33 states in the union,

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

687. By the time of his inauguration 5 months later,

688. just 27 states would remain.

689. The suddenness of secession

690. took everyone by surprise.

691. South Carolina led the way on December 20.

692. A bell in Charleston

693. tolled the succession of departing states—

694. Mississippi on January 9...

695. Florida on the 10th...

696. Then Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana.

697. In Texas, governor Sam Houston

698. was deposed when he tried to stop his state

699. from joining the confederacy.

700. "Let me tell you what is coming.

701. "After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure

702. "and hundreds of thousands of lives,

703. "you may win Southern independence,

704. "but I doubt it.

705. "The north is determined to preserve this union.

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

707. "for they live in colder climates.

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

709. "they move with the steady momentum

710. and perseverance of a mighty avalanche."

711. Texas left anyway.

712. Even Virginia,

713. the most populous Southern state,

714. birthplace of 7 presidents,

715. seemed sure to follow.

716. "All the indications are

717. "that this treasonable inflammation,

718. "secessionitis,

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

720. "If disunion becomes an established fact,

721. "we have one consolation—

722. "the self-amputated members

723. "were diseased beyond immediate cure,

724. and their virus will infect our system no longer."

725. George Templeton strong.

726. The Charleston Mercury.

727. "The tea has been thrown overboard.

728. The revolution of 1860 has been initiated."

729. After south Carolina seceded,

730. the handful of federal troops

731. still stationed in Charleston

732. withdrew to fort Sumter, far out in the harbor.

733. Their commander, major Robert Anderson,

734. said he had moved his men

735. in order to prevent the effusion of blood.

736. They were quickly surrounded by rebel batteries.

737. "Thank god we have a country at last,

738. "to live for, to pray for,

739. and, if need be, to die for."

740. Lucius Quintus Lamar.

741. On February 18, a few minutes after noon,

742. Jefferson Davis stood on the steps

743. of the Alabama statehouse at Montgomery

744. and took the oath of office as president

745. of the provisional confederate states of America.

746. The crowds cheered, wept,

747. sang farewell to the star-spangled banner

748. and Dixie,

749. a minstrel tune written by a northerner.

750. He was brittle, nervous,

751. often unable to sleep,

752. and partly blind in one eye.

753. Accustomed to being obeyed,

754. he scorned the bargaining

755. that made Democratic government work.

756. Sam Houston said he was as cold as a lizard

757. and ambitious as Lucifer.

758. Like Lincoln, he was a Kentuckian,

759. the son of an itinerant farmer.

760. But he had been educated at west point,

761. fought in Mexico,

762. and served as secretary of war.

763. As senator from Mississippi,

764. he resisted secession as long as he could.

765. But when his state withdrew from the union,

766. he headed home to his plantation, Brierfield,

767. south of Vicksburg.

768. He and his wife Varina were there,

769. clipping roses in the garden,

770. when word came that he had been elected president.

771. "Reading that telegram, he looked so grieved

772. "that I feared some evil had befallen our family.

773. "After a few minutes, he told me,

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

775. "Upon my head were showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers,

776. but beyond them, I saw troubles innumerable."

777. Jefferson Davis.

778. The confederate constitution was almost identical

779. to the United States constitution,

780. but it gave the president a line-item veto,

781. a 6-year term,

782. and it outlawed international slave trading.

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

784. A sheet of stationery pinned to the door

785. marked the president's office.

786. "Where will I find the state department?"

787. A visitor asked Robert Toombs, secretary of state.

788. "In my hat, sir,

789. and the archives in my coat pocket."

790. "Our new government is founded upon the great truth

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

792. Vice president Alexander Stephens.

793. "God forgive us,

794. "but ours is a monstrous system.

795. "Like the patriarchs of old,

796. "our men live all in one house

797. "with their wives and their concubines,

798. "and the mulattoes one sees in every family

799. "exactly resemble the white children.

800. "All the time,

801. "they seem to think themselves patterns,

802. models of husbands and fathers."

803. Mary Chesnut.

804. Mary Chesnut and her husband James,

805. a former United States senator from south Carolina,

806. moved among the highest circles

807. of the confederacy

808. and were close to Jefferson Davis

809. and his wife.

810. Mary was subject to depressions and nightmares,

811. for which she sometimes took opium.

812. Now she, too, began to keep a diary.

813. "This journal

814. "is intended to be entirely objective.

815. My subjective days are over."

816. "The impression produced by the size of his extremities

817. "and by his flapping and wide-projecting ears

818. "may be removed by the appearance

819. "of kindliness, sagacity.

820. "The nose itself, a prominent organ,

821. "stands out from the face

822. "with an inquiring, anxious air,

823. "as though it were sniffing

824. "for some good thing in the wind.

825. "The eyes—dark, full, and deeply set— are penetrating,

826. "but full of an expression

827. which almost amounts to tenderness."

828. William Russell, the London times.

829. Two days after Jefferson Davis left home,

830. Abraham Lincoln set out from Springfield, Illinois,

831. for his capital.

832. "Here I have lived a quarter of a century

833. "and passed from a young to an old man.

834. "Here my children have been born

835. "and one is buried.

836. "I now leave, not knowing when

837. "or whether ever I may return,

838. "with the task before me greater than that

839. "which rested upon Washington.

840. "Without the assistance of that divine being

841. "who ever attended him, I cannot succeed.

842. "With that assistance, I cannot fail.

843. "To his care commending you,

844. "as I hope in your prayers

845. "you will commend me,

846. I bid you an affectionate farewell."

847. En route to Washington,

848. the president's train stopped at Cleveland,

849. buffalo, Albany, and New York.

850. In Philadelphia, warned of plots to kill him,

851. Lincoln declared he would rather be assassinated

852. than see a single star removed from the American flag.

853. Two days later,

854. he reluctantly canceled plans

855. for a grand arrival in Washington

856. and slipped into the capital by train at dawn,

857. wrapped in a shawl

858. and protected by two armed guards.

859. Inauguration day in Washington

860. was cloudy and cold.

861. A large, tense crowd gathered

862. beneath the unfinished dome.

863. Cannon guarded the capitol grounds.

864. Sharpshooters lined the roof.

865. Lincoln promised not to interfere with slavery,

866. but he denied the right of any state to secede,

867. vowed to defend federal installations,

868. and spoke directly to the south.

869. "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen,

870. "and not in mine,

871. "is the momentous issue of civil war.

872. "The government will not assail you.

873. "You can have no conflict

874. "without being yourselves the aggressors.

875. "We are not enemies, but friends.

876. "We must not be enemies.

877. "Though passion may have strained,

878. "it must not break our bonds of affection.

879. "The mystic chords of memory,

880. "stretching from every battlefield

881. "and patriot grave

882. "to every living heart and hearthstone

883. "all over this broad land,

884. "will yet swell the chorus of the union,

885. "when again touched, as surely they will be,

886. by the better angels of our nature."

887. "I do not pretend to go to sleep.

888. "How can I?

889. "If Anderson does not accept terms at 4:00,

890. "the orders are he shall be fired upon.

891. "I count 4— St. Michael chimes.

892. I begin to hope."

893. "The heavy booming of a Cannon—

894. "I sprang out of bed and on my knees, prostrate,

895. I prayed as I have never prayed before."

896. The civil war began at 4:30 A.M.

897. On the 12th of April, 1861.

898. General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

899. ordered his confederate gunners

900. to open fire on fort Sumter,

901. at that hour, only a dark shape

902. out in Charleston harbor.

903. Confederate commander Beauregard was a gunner,

904. so skilled as an artillery student at west point

905. that his instructor kept him on

906. as an assistant for another year.

907. That instructor was major Robert Anderson,

908. union commander inside fort Sumter.

909. "all the pent-up hatred of the past months

910. "and years is voiced in the thunder

911. "of these Cannon.

912. "And the people seem almost beside themselves

913. "in the exultation of a freedom

914. they deem already won."

915. The signal to fire the first shot

916. was given by a civilian, Edmund Ruffin,

917. a virginia farmer and editor

918. who had preached secession for 20 years.

919. "Of course," he said,

920. "I was delighted to perform the service."

921. 34 hours later, a white flag over the fort

922. ended the bombardment.

923. The only casualty had been a confederate horse.

924. It was a bloodless opening

925. to the bloodiest war in American history.

926. "the first gun that was fired at fort Sumter

927. "sounded the death knell of slavery.

928. "They who fired it

929. "were the greatest practical abolitionists

930. this nation has produced."

931. "April 13.

932. "So civil war is inaugurated at last.

933. God defend the right."

934. 14 April. Montgomery daily advertiser.

935. "The intelligence that fort Sumter

936. "has surrendered to the confederate forces yesterday

937. "sent a thrill of joy to the heart

938. "of every true friend of the south.

939. "The face of every Southern man was brighter,

940. "his step lighter, and his bearing prouder

941. than it had been before."

942. In Boston,

943. jubilant volunteers marched past Faneuil hall,

944. eager to avenge fort Sumter.

945. In Baltimore,

946. anti-Lincoln men rampaged through the streets.

947. In Richmond, a mob marched on the statehouse,

948. tore down the stars and stripes,

949. and raised the stars and bars.

950. There was no longer any doubt that Virginia would secede.

951. And in New York,

952. 100,000 people crowded union square,

953. where the Sumter flag now flew.

954. Walt Whitman,

955. sometime poet and journalist for the Brooklyn standard,

956. was stunned by the news.

957. "All the past

958. we leave behind with Sumter," he said.

959. "Woe to those who began this war

960. if they were not in bitter earnest."

961. Mary Chesnut.

962. "Father and I were husking out corn

963. "when William Corry came across the field.

964. "He was excited and said,

965. "Jonathan, the rebels have fired

966. "upon fort Sumter.

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

968. Theodore F. Upson.

969. "April 15. Events multiply.

970. "The president is out with a proclamation

971. "calling for 75,000 volunteers.

972. "It is said 200,000 more will be called

973. within a few days."

974. On the day Sumter fell,

975. the regular army of the United States

976. consisted of fewer than 17,000 men,

977. most of whom were stationed in the far west.

978. Only two of its generals

979. had ever commanded an army in the field,

980. and both were long past their prime.

981. Winfield Scott, the hero of the Mexican war,

982. "old fuss and feathers,"

983. was too fat even to mount a horse.

984. "We was treated as good as company could be

985. "at every station.

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

987. and we returned the same to them."

988. Hercules Stanard.

989. "I've got the best suit of clothes

990. I ever had in my life."

991. In the north, they came by hundreds

992. and by thousands...

993. From Boston, Massachusetts...

994. From Detroit and Ann arbor, Michigan...

995. And Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the rain.

996. Whole towns signed up.

997. The 10th Michigan volunteer infantry

998. was made up of flint boys.

999. Their commander was the mayor,

1000. their regimental doctor,

1001. the man who had been taking care of them

1002. since they were young.

1003. The 6th New York contained so many bowery toughs,

1004. it was said a man had to have done time in prison

1005. just to get into the regiment.

1006. The elite 7th, on the other hand,

1007. set out for Washington

1008. with sandwiches from Delmonico's

1009. and 1,000 velvet-covered camp stools

1010. on which to sit and eat them.

1011. On his way to war, lieutenant George Armstrong Custer,

1012. just 22 and less than a month out of west point,

1013. where he graduated at the bottom of his class,

1014. stopped in New York to have himself fitted out

1015. with a splendid new uniform...

1016. Then went to a photographer.

1017. In Pawtuxet, Rhode Island,

1018. 19-year-old Elisha hunt Rhodes

1019. left his job as a harness maker's clerk

1020. and signed on as a private

1021. in the 2nd Rhode Island volunteers.

1022. He would have joined earlier,

1023. but his widowed mother begged him to stay home.

1024. "We drilled all day and night.

1025. "Standing before a long mirror,

1026. "I put many hours of weary work

1027. "and soon thought myself quite a soldier.

1028. "I was elected first sergeant,

1029. "much to my surprise.

1030. "Just what a first sergeant's duties might be,

1031. I had no idea."

1032. After two weeks of drilling,

1033. the 2nd Rhode Island moved out.

1034. "Today we have orders to pack up

1035. "and be ready to leave for Washington.

1036. "My knapsack was so heavy

1037. "that I could scarcely stagger under the load.

1038. "At the wharf, an immense crowd had gathered,

1039. "and we went on board our steamer

1040. with mingled feelings of joy and sorrow."

1041. In Baton Rouge,

1042. William Tecumseh Sherman resigned as superintendent

1043. of the Louisiana military academy

1044. and headed north.

1045. "You politicians,"

1046. he told his brother, senator John Sherman of Ohio,

1047. "have got things in a hell of a fix,

1048. "and you may get them out as best you can.

1049. I will have no more to do with it."

1050. But when Sumter fell, he put his uniform back on

1051. and reluctantly went to war.

1052. "You might as well attempt to put out

1053. "the flames of a burning house with a squirt gun.

1054. "I think this is to be a long war,

1055. "very long,

1056. much longer than any politician thinks."

1057. "There are but two parties now—

1058. "traitors and patriots—

1059. and I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter."

1060. Ulysses S. Grant.

1061. In galena, Illinois,

1062. 39-year-old Ulysses S. Grant

1063. was working in his father's harness shop,

1064. having failed as a peacetime soldier

1065. and considered by some a drunk.

1066. Now he signed on as a mustering officer,

1067. handling the flood of volunteers

1068. at $4.20 a day.

1069. "new Orleans, 1861.

1070. "I feel that I would like to shoot a yankee,

1071. "and yet I know that this would not be in Harmony

1072. with the spirit of Christianity."

1073. William Nugent.

1074. "so impatient did I become for starting

1075. "that I felt like 1,000 pins were pricking me

1076. "in every part of my body,

1077. "and I started off

1078. a week in advance of my brothers."

1079. "I found mobile boiling over with enthusiasm.

1080. "The young merchants had dropped their ledgers

1081. and were forming and drilling companies by night and day."

1082. "every day, regiments marched by.

1083. "Charleston is crowded with soldiers.

1084. "These new ones are running in fairly.

1085. "They fear the war will be over

1086. "before they get sight of the fun.

1087. "Every man from every little country precinct

1088. wants a place in the picture."

1089. The confederate government,

1090. its capital now in Richmond,

1091. called for 100,000 volunteers.

1092. So many southerners volunteered

1093. that a third of them had to be sent home.

1094. They came from Catahoula

1095. and Baton Rouge, Louisiana...

1096. Greenville, Mississippi,

1097. Moonsville, Alabama,

1098. and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

1099. Tennessee joined the confederacy.

1100. So did Arkansas and north Carolina.

1101. In Memphis, Nathan Bedford Forrest,

1102. a blacksmith's son who had made himself a millionaire

1103. selling land, cotton, and slaves,

1104. put up posters

1105. calling on anyone who wanted to kill Yankees

1106. to come and ride with him.

1107. The clinch rifles from Augusta, Georgia,

1108. started out in may 1861.

1109. Only the drummer boy would survive.

1110. The odds against a Southern victory were long.

1111. There were nearly 21 million people

1112. in the north,

1113. just 9 million in the confederacy,

1114. and 4 million of them were slaves,

1115. whom their masters did not dare arm.

1116. The value of all the manufactured goods

1117. produced in all the confederate states

1118. added up to less than 1/4

1119. of those produced in New York state alone.

1120. But none of this mattered

1121. to the men who joined the Tallapoosa thrashers

1122. and Chickasaw Desperados

1123. and Cherokee Lincoln killers.

1124. "The histories of the lost cause

1125. "are all written out by big bugs—

1126. "generals and renowned historians.

1127. "Well, I have as much right as any man

1128. to write a history."

1129. Sam Watkins.

1130. One of the first to answer the Southern call

1131. was 21-year-old Sam Watkins of Columbia, Tennessee.

1132. He joined company "H"

1133. of the 1st Tennessee at Nashville.

1134. Like most rebel soldiers, he owned no slaves.

1135. "The bugle sounded to strike tents

1136. "and place everything aboard the cars.

1137. "We went bowling along at 30 miles an hour

1138. "as fast as steam could carry us.

1139. "At every town and station,

1140. "citizens and ladies were waving their handkerchiefs

1141. "and Hurrahing for Jeff Davis

1142. "and the Southern confederacy.

1143. "It's worth soldiering

1144. to receive such a welcome as this."

1145. "If the president of the United States would tell me

1146. "that a great battle was to be fought

1147. "for the Liberty or slavery of the country

1148. "and asked my judgment

1149. "as to the ability of a commander,

1150. "I would say with my dying breath,

1151. let it be Robert E. Lee."

1152. General winfield Scott.

1153. "I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country

1154. "than a dissolution of the union.

1155. "It would be an accumulation

1156. "of all the evils we complain of.

1157. "And I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor

1158. for its preservation."

1159. Robert E. Lee.

1160. The most promising officer in the regular army

1161. was Robert E. Lee of Virginia.

1162. On April 18, 4 days after Sumter,

1163. Lee was summoned to Blair house

1164. at Lincoln's behest

1165. and offered field command of the entire union army.

1166. Lee said he would think about it.

1167. Virginia had voted to secede the day before.

1168. That night, he paced anxiously

1169. in the gardens around his Arlington mansion

1170. across the Potomac.

1171. At midnight, Saturday the 20th,

1172. Lee wrote his letter

1173. of resignation from the United States army.

1174. On the 21st, the governor of Virginia

1175. asked Lee to take command of the state militia.

1176. When Lee had to choose between the nation and Virginia,

1177. there was never any doubt about what his choice would be.

1178. He went with his state, and he said,

1179. "I can't draw my sword against my native state,"

1180. or, as he often said, "my country."

1181. Lincoln had lost his best soldier.

1182. "Not by one word or look

1183. "can we detect any change

1184. "in the demeanor of the negro servants.

1185. "They make no sign.

1186. "Are they stupid?

1187. "Or wiser than we are,

1188. silent and strong, biding their time?"

1189. Mary Chesnut.

1190. Both sides thought it would be a 90-day war,

1191. and both sides

1192. agreed it was to be a white man's fight.

1193. Blacks who tried to sign up were turned away.

1194. "April 19.

1195. "There has been a serious disturbance in Baltimore.

1196. "Regiments from Massachusetts

1197. assailed by a mob that was repulsed by shot and steel."

1198. "It's a notable coincidence

1199. "that the first blood in this great struggle

1200. "is drawn by Massachusetts men

1201. on the anniversary of Lexington."

1202. "We are in Washington, and what a city.

1203. "Mud, pigs, negroes, palaces, shanties everywhere.

1204. "As we passed the white house,

1205. "I had my first view of Abraham Lincoln.

1206. "He looks like a good, honest man.

1207. "And I trust that, with god's help,

1208. "he can bring our country

1209. safely out of its peril."

1210. Elisha hunt Rhodes.

1211. The Rhode islanders set up their bunks

1212. at the patent office.

1213. New yorkers slept on the carpeted floor of the house chamber.

1214. Massachusetts men camped in the rotunda

1215. and cooked their bacon

1216. on furnaces in the basement.

1217. Overhead, the capitol dome remained incomplete.

1218. Despite the war,

1219. Lincoln insisted that the work go on.

1220. "I take it as a sign," he said,

1221. "that the union will continue."

1222. "the first thing in the morning is drill.

1223. "Then drill, then drill again.

1224. "Then drill, drill, a little more drill, then drill.

1225. "Then lastly, drill.

1226. "Between drills, we drill

1227. "and sometimes stop to eat a little

1228. and have a roll call."

1229. "Outskirts of Baltimore. My dear William,

1230. "I can now march 20 and 25 miles a day,

1231. "live on short rations

1232. "of hardtack, raw, rancid bacon,

1233. "green roasting ears and cold water,

1234. "sleep out in the rain and heavy dew

1235. "with nothing but an army coat over me,

1236. and enjoy myself capitally."

1237. Edward Hastings Ripley.

1238. Early in the war,

1239. there was a confederate veteran,

1240. a—a young country boy, on guard duty.

1241. He's walking his post in the woods.

1242. And there was an owl, uh, unknown to him, in a tree nearby,

1243. and the owl said, "hooo."

1244. And the boy, trembling with fear, said,

1245. "it's me, sir, John Albert, a friend of yours."

1246. In may, union troops crossed the Potomac by torchlight

1247. and took the heights of Arlington.

1248. Robert E. Lee's house would be occupied

1249. by union troops for the rest of the war.

1250. In late June, the new general

1251. in charge of the union army, Irvin McDowell,

1252. outlined plans for attacking

1253. the confederates in Virginia,

1254. but he did not yet want to fight.

1255. "This is not an army," he warned the president.

1256. "You are green, it is true," Lincoln answered,

1257. "but they are green also.

1258. You are all green alike."

1259. To preserve the constitution,

1260. Lincoln had for 3 months gone beyond it—

1261. waging war without congressional consent,

1262. seizing northern telegraph offices,

1263. suspending habeas corpus.

1264. To keep the border states from seceding,

1265. Lincoln sent troops to occupy Baltimore

1266. and clapped the mayor and 19 secessionist legislators

1267. in jail without trial.

1268. Chief justice Taney ruled that the president

1269. had exceeded his power.

1270. Lincoln simply ignored him.

1271. "More rogues than honest men

1272. find shelter under habeas corpus," he said

1273. and even contemplated arresting the chief justice.

1274. A very mysterious man,

1275. he's got so many sides to him.

1276. The curious thing about Lincoln to me,

1277. uh, is that he could remove himself from himself

1278. as if he were looking at himself.

1279. It's a very strange, very eerie thing,

1280. uh, and highly intelligent.

1281. Such a simple thing to say,

1282. but, uh, Lincoln's been so smothered with stories of his compassion,

1283. that people forget what a highly intelligent man he was,

1284. and almost everything he did—

1285. almost everything he did was calculated for effect.

1286. "Teach the rebels and traitors

1287. "that the price they are to pay

1288. "for the attempt to abolish this government

1289. must be the abolition of slavery."

1290. Frederick Douglass.

1291. From the start of the war,

1292. slaves fled their plantations

1293. for the union lines,

1294. but Lincoln's policy was clear.

1295. Despite pressure from the abolitionists,

1296. he insisted he was making war on secession,

1297. not slavery,

1298. and ordered the army

1299. to return fugitives to their owners.

1300. But now, an unlikely figure helped to change men's minds.

1301. General Benjamin Butler was a Massachusetts politician

1302. with crossed eyes and mixed motives

1303. who had once backed Jefferson Davis

1304. for president of the United States.

1305. "Returning slaves only aided the enemy,"

1306. Butler argued,

1307. and he got permission to hold fugitive slaves

1308. as contraband of war

1309. and employ them as laborers in the union army.

1310. "Major Cary of Virginia

1311. "asked if I did not feel myself bound

1312. "by my constitutional obligations

1313. "to deliver up fugitives under the fugitive slave act.

1314. "To this I replied that the fugitive slave act

1315. "did not affect a foreign country,

1316. "which Virginia claimed to be,

1317. "and she must reckon it one of the infelicities of her position

1318. that insofar, at least, she was taken at her word."

1319. General Benjamin Butler.

1320. The trickle of runaways coming into northern lines

1321. now swelled to a flood.

1322. One ex-slave who had recently bought his freedom

1323. told a union soldier,

1324. "if I had known you gun men was a-comin',

1325. I'd have saved my money."

1326. War was breaking out all across the country.

1327. There were engagements at big Bethel, Virginia,

1328. and Booneville, Missouri;

1329. Skirmishes from Maryland to new Mexico territory.

1330. At Phillipi, in western Virginia,

1331. a young union general George McClellan

1332. won a small, highly publicized victory

1333. over a tiny confederate force.

1334. But still, there had been no decisive battle.

1335. "July 9. Our battle summer.

1336. "May it be our first and our last so called.

1337. After all, we've not had any of the horrors of war."

1338. Mary Chesnut.

1339. "July 16. It begins to look warlike,

1340. "and we shall probably have a chance

1341. "to pay our Southern brethren

1342. "a visit upon the sacred soil

1343. "of Virginia very soon.

1344. "I hope we shall be successful

1345. and give the rebels a good pounding."

1346. Elisha hunt Rhodes.

1347. On July 16th, the volunteer union army

1348. of 37,000 men marched into Virginia.

1349. Their aim—to cut the railroad at Manassas,

1350. then move on at last to Richmond.

1351. Washington star.

1352. "The scene from the hills was grand.

1353. "Regiment after regiment was seen coming along the road

1354. "and across the long bridge,

1355. "their arms gleaming in the sun.

1356. "Cheer after cheer was heard as regiment greeted regiment.

1357. "And with the martial music and sharp, clear orders of commanding officers,

1358. "it made a combination of sounds very pleasant

1359. to the ear of a union man."

1360. To stop the union invasion,

1361. 22,000 confederate troops

1362. had moved north from Richmond

1363. commanded by general Beauregard,

1364. who knew in advance the federals were coming.

1365. Rose Greenhow,

1366. a prominent socialite in Washington

1367. and a confederate spy, had alerted him.

1368. Now Beauregard made his headquarters

1369. in Wilmer McLean's farmhouse.

1370. The confederates formed a meandering 8-mile line

1371. along one side of bull run creek.

1372. They were less than 25 miles from Washington,

1373. and there they waited.

1374. Hundreds of Washingtonians in holiday mood

1375. rode out to Manassas

1376. hoping to see a real battle.

1377. Some brought field glasses,

1378. picnic baskets, bottles of champagne.

1379. "We saw carriages which contained civilians

1380. "who'd driven out from Washington to witness the operations.

1381. "A Connecticut boy said, there's our senator,

1382. "and some of our men recognized other members of congress.

1383. "We thought it wasn't a bad idea

1384. "to have the great men from Washington

1385. come out to see us thrash the rebs."

1386. Private James Tinkham.

1387. On the morning of the 21st,

1388. McDowell sent his men across bull run.

1389. They smashed into the left side of the confederate line,

1390. driving the rebels from one position after another.

1391. The civilian onlookers

1392. waved hats and fluttered handkerchiefs.

1393. It was not yet noon,

1394. and all was going just as they wanted.

1395. "on reaching a clearing

1396. "separated from our left flank by a rail fence,

1397. "we were saluted by a volley of musketry

1398. "which was fired so high

1399. "that all the bullets went over our heads.

1400. "My first sensation was astonishment

1401. "at the peculiar whir of the bullets,

1402. "and that the regiment immediately laid down

1403. without waiting for orders."

1404. "We fired a volley and saw the rebels running.

1405. "The boys were saying constantly in great glee,

1406. "we've whipped them.

1407. "We'll hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree.

1408. They're running. The war's over."

1409. An onlooker remembered that the advancing union army

1410. looked like a bristling monster

1411. lifting himself by a slow, wavy motion

1412. up the laborious ascent.

1413. Union victory seemed so sure

1414. that on one part of the battlefield

1415. men stopped to gather souvenirs.

1416. But holding a hill

1417. at the center of the Southern line

1418. was a Virginia brigade led by general Thomas Jackson.

1419. While other Southern commands wavered,

1420. Jackson's held firm.

1421. One confederate officer,

1422. trying to rally his own frightened men,

1423. shouted, "look! There's Jackson with his Virginians,

1424. standing like a stone wall."

1425. The name stuck.

1426. He had the strange combination

1427. of religious fanaticism and a glory in battle.

1428. He—he loved battle.

1429. His eyes would light up.

1430. They called him old blue light

1431. because of the way his eyes would light up in battle.

1432. He was totally fearless,

1433. had no thought whatsoever of—of danger

1434. at any time when the battle was on,

1435. and he could define what he wanted to do.

1436. He said, "once you get them running,

1437. "you stay right on top of them.

1438. "And that way a small force

1439. can defeat a large one every time."

1440. He knew perfectly well that a reputation for victory

1441. would roll and build.

1442. It was the turning point.

1443. At 4:00, Beauregard ordered a counterattack.

1444. Jackson urged his men to yell like furies.

1445. The rebel yell first heard that day

1446. would echo from 1,000 battlefields.

1447. Confederate reinforcements began to arrive.

1448. The first came on horseback.

1449. More arrived by train, something new in war.

1450. The northern army fell apart.

1451. The retreat soon became a rout,

1452. as union guns became entangled

1453. with the carriages of fleeing spectators.

1454. "we tried to tell them that there was no danger,

1455. "called on them to stop, implored them to stand.

1456. "We called them cowards,

1457. "put out our heavy revolvers and threatened to shoot,

1458. but all in vain."

1459. "Along the shady little valley

1460. "through which our road lay,

1461. "the surgeons had been plying

1462. "their vocation all the morning upon the wounded.

1463. "Tables about breast-high had been erected,

1464. "upon which screaming victims

1465. "were having legs and arms cut off.

1466. "The surgeons and their assistants,

1467. "stripped to the waist

1468. "and all bespattered with blood,

1469. "stood around, some holding the poor fellas,

1470. "while others, armed with long, bloody knives and saws,

1471. "cut and sawed away

1472. "with frightful rapidity,

1473. "throwing the mangled limbs on a pile nearby

1474. as soon as removed."

1475. Lieutenant colonel W.W. Blackford,

1476. the 1st cavalry, Virginia.

1477. "What a horrible sight it was—

1478. "here a man,

1479. "grasping his gun firmly in his hands, stone dead,

1480. "several with distorted features, all horribly dirty.

1481. "Many were terribly wounded, some with legs shot off,

1482. "others with arms gone.

1483. "Some so badly wounded

1484. "they could not drag themselves away, slowly bleeding to death.

1485. "We stopped many times to give some a drink,

1486. "and soon saw enough to satisfy us

1487. with the horrors of war."

1488. Lieutenant Josiah Favill.

1489. "I struggled on, clinging to my gun and cartridge box.

1490. "Many times, I sat down in the mud,

1491. "determined to go no further

1492. "and willing to die and end my misery,

1493. "but soon a friend would pass

1494. "and urge me to make another effort,

1495. "and I would stagger a mile further.

1496. "At daylight, we could see

1497. "the spires of Washington,

1498. "and a welcome sight it was.

1499. "The loss of the regiment in this disastrous affair

1500. was 93 killed, wounded, or missing."

1501. There is a—a—a congressman, I believe from Alabama—

1502. I've forgotten where from—

1503. who said there would be no war,

1504. and he offered to wipe up all the blood that would be shed,

1505. uh, with a pocket handkerchief.

1506. Uh, that—that was his prediction.

1507. I've always said, someone could get a Ph.D.

1508. By calculating how many pocket handkerchiefs it would take

1509. to wipe up all the blood that was shed.

1510. It would be a lot of handkerchiefs.

1511. From the confederate white house in Richmond,

1512. Jefferson Davis rejoiced.

1513. "My fellow citizens,

1514. "your little army,

1515. "derided for its want of arms,

1516. "derided for its lack

1517. "of all the essential material of war,

1518. "has met the grand army of the enemy,

1519. "routed it at every point,

1520. "and it now flies inglorious in retreat

1521. "before our victorious columns.

1522. "We have taught them a lesson

1523. in their invasion of the sacred soil of Virginia."

1524. "Today will be known as black Monday.

1525. "We are utterly and disgracefully

1526. routed, beaten, whipped by secessionists."

1527. George Templeton strong.

1528. London times.

1529. "The inmates of the white house

1530. "are in a state of utmost trepidation

1531. "and Mr. Lincoln in despair.

1532. "Why Beauregard does not attack Washington,

1533. I know not, nor can I well guess."

1534. It was remembered as the great skedaddle.

1535. For days, discouraged troops

1536. straggled back into Washington.

1537. "I saw a steady stream of men,

1538. "covered with mud, soaked through with rain,

1539. "who were pouring irregularly up pennsylvania avenue toward the capitol.

1540. "A dense stream of vapor Rose from the multitude.

1541. "I asked a pale young man

1542. "who looked exhausted to death

1543. "whether the whole army had been defeated.

1544. "That's more than I know, he said.

1545. "I know I'm going home.

1546. I've had enough of fighting to last my lifetime."

1547. The north was appalled at the 5,000 casualties.

1548. Both sides now knew

1549. it would be no 90 days' war.

1550. Two days later, canny real estate speculators

1551. bought up the battlefield

1552. to make a second kind of killing—

1553. as a tourist attraction.

1554. "What upon earth is the matter with the American people?

1555. "Do they really covet the world's ridicule

1556. "as well as their own social and political ruin?

1557. "The national edifice is on fire.

1558. "Every man who can carry a bucket of water

1559. "or remove a brick is wanted.

1560. "Yet government leaders persistently refuse

1561. "to receive as soldiers the slaves,

1562. "the very class of men which has a deeper interest

1563. "in the defeat and humiliation

1564. "of the rebels than all others.

1565. "Such is the pride,

1566. the stupid prejudice, and folly that rules the hour."

1567. Frederick Douglass.

1568. "Little did I conceive

1569. "of the greatness of the defeat,

1570. "the magnitude of the disaster

1571. "which had entailed upon the United States.

1572. "So short-lived has been the American union

1573. "that men who saw it rise

1574. may live to see it fall."

1575. William Russell, London times.

1576. "Washington. August.

1577. "I found no preparations whatever for defense.

1578. "Not a regiment was properly encamped,

1579. "not a single Avenue or approach guarded.

1580. "All was chaos, and the streets, hotels, and barrooms

1581. "were filled with drunken officers

1582. "and men absent from their regiments without leave.

1583. Perfect pandemonium."

1584. George McClellan.

1585. 5 days after the disaster at bull run,

1586. a new general took over what was now called the army of the Potomac.

1587. George Brinton McClellan, only 34,

1588. seemed just what the north needed.

1589. He brought with him to the demoralized capital

1590. what one aide called

1591. "an indescribable air of success."

1592. He replaced inept officers with regulars.

1593. He laid out tidy camps around Washington

1594. to accommodate the 10,000 new volunteers

1595. arriving each week,

1596. drilled them 8 hours a day,

1597. and staged grand reviews to boost morale.

1598. "All the attention was upon the young general

1599. "with the calm eye, with the satisfied air,

1600. "who moved around followed by an immense staff

1601. "to the clanking of sabers

1602. and the acclamation of the spectators."

1603. Regis de Trobiand.

1604. "I find myself in a new and strange position here—

1605. "president, cabinet, general Scott,

1606. "and all deferring to me.

1607. "By some strange piece of magic,

1608. "I seem to have become the power of the land.

1609. "I almost think that were I to win

1610. "some small success now,

1611. "I could become dictator,

1612. "or anything else that might please me.

1613. "But nothing of that kind would please me.

1614. "Therefore, I won't be a dictator.

1615. Admirable self-denial."

1616. The newspapers called him young Napoleon,

1617. and he could not help seeing the resemblance himself.

1618. But 100,000 untrained volunteers

1619. had become an army,

1620. McClellan's army.

1621. His men, who loved him

1622. for having made them proud of themselves,

1623. called him little Mac.

1624. His specialty is preparing troops to fight,

1625. and he did that superbly.

1626. McClellan trained that army.

1627. Whatever the army of the Potomac did in the after years,

1628. it is largely due to the training McClellan gave them

1629. in that first year.

1630. With Lincoln, McClellan and his staff

1631. devised a 3-pronged attack on the confederacy.

1632. One army would drive into Virginia

1633. and take Richmond.

1634. Another would secure Kentucky and Tennessee,

1635. then push into the heartland of the confederacy

1636. and occupy Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia.

1637. Meanwhile, the Navy would clear the Mississippi,

1638. surround the confederacy by sea,

1639. and choke off supplies.

1640. The war would be fought along a 1,000-mile front.

1641. That fall, Lincoln elevated McClellan

1642. to general in chief,

1643. replacing the aging winfield Scott.

1644. "I can do it all," McClellan said.

1645. But he did nothing.

1646. As summer turned to Autumn,

1647. it became increasingly clear

1648. that having made a magnificent army,

1649. George McClellan had no immediate plans

1650. to lead it anywhere.

1651. "As we approached the brow of the hill,

1652. "my heart kept getting higher and higher,

1653. "until it felt to me it was in my throat.

1654. "I would have given anything then

1655. "to have been back in Illinois,

1656. "but I kept right on.

1657. "When the valley below was in full view, I halted.

1658. "The enemy's troops were gone.

1659. "My heart resumed its place,

1660. "and it occurred to me at once

1661. "that he had been as much afraid of me

1662. "as I of him.

1663. "This was a view of the question I had never taken before,

1664. but it was one I never forgot afterwards."

1665. General Ulysses S. Grant.

1666. In September, Ulysses S. Grant

1667. took Paducah, Kentucky,

1668. a strategic city at the mouth of the Tennessee,

1669. but two months later, his undisciplined recruits

1670. were almost destroyed

1671. looting a captured rebel camp

1672. instead of preparing for a counterattack.

1673. Grant was returned to desk duty.

1674. In November, William Tecumseh Sherman

1675. was relieved as union commander in Kentucky

1676. when he insisted that at least 200,000 men would be needed

1677. to suppress the rebellion in the west.

1678. No one believed him.

1679. He grew melancholic,

1680. prone to fits of anxiety and rage.

1681. "Sherman," McClellan said, "is gone in the head."

1682. December found him at home in the care of his wife,

1683. contemplating suicide.

1684. No. no one thought it would last long.

1685. No one on either side thought it would last long.

1686. Those few individuals who said that it would,

1687. Tecumseh Sherman, for instance,

1688. were actually judged to be insane

1689. for making predictions about casualties, which were actually low.

1690. In November, a union warship

1691. stopped a British steamer at gunpoint

1692. in international waters

1693. and arrested two confederate diplomats found on board.

1694. Britain's prime minister, lord Palmerston,

1695. was outraged, demanded their immediate release,

1696. and dispatched 11,000 troops to Canada.

1697. "One war at a time," Lincoln said,

1698. and quietly let the two confederates go.

1699. By December,

1700. optimists on both sides were disappointed.

1701. The confederacy showed no signs of imminent collapse.

1702. The north would not abandon its efforts

1703. to reunite the nation by force.

1704. By the end of the year,

1705. there were 700,000 men in the union army.

1706. No one knew how many confederates there were.

1707. "December 31st.

1708. "Poor old 1861 just going.

1709. "It has been a gloomy year of trouble and disaster.

1710. "I should be glad of its departure

1711. were it not that 1862 is likely to be no better."

1712. George Templeton strong.

1713. A week before the battle of bull run,

1714. Sullivan Ballou,

1715. a major in the 2nd Rhode Island volunteers,

1716. wrote home to his wife in Smithfield.

1717. "July 14, 1861. Washington, D.C.

1718. "Dear Sarah,

1719. "the indications are very strong

1720. "that we shall move in a few days, perhaps tomorrow,

1721. "and lest I should not be able to write you again,

1722. "I feel impelled to write a few lines

1723. "that may fall under your eye when I'm no more.

1724. "I have no misgivings about or lack of confidence

1725. "in the cause in which I am engaged,

1726. "and my courage does not halt or falter.

1727. "I know how American civilization

1728. "now leans upon the triumph of the government,

1729. "and how great a debt we owe

1730. "to those who went before us

1731. "through the blood and suffering of the revolution,

1732. "and I am willing, perfectly willing,

1733. "to lay down all my joys in this life

1734. "to help maintain this government

1735. "and to pay that debt.

1736. "Sarah, my love for you is deathless.

1737. "It seems to bind me with mighty cables

1738. "that nothing but omnipotence can break,

1739. "and yet my love of country

1740. "comes over me like a strong wind

1741. "and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefield.

1742. "The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you

1743. "come crowding over me,

1744. "and I feel most deeply grateful to god and you

1745. "that I've enjoyed them for so long.

1746. "And how hard it is for me to give them up

1747. "and burn to ashes the hopes of future years,

1748. "when, god willing, we might still have lived and loved together,

1749. "and see our boys grown up to honorable manhood around us.

1750. "If I do not return, my dear Sarah,

1751. "never forget how much I loved you,

1752. "nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield,

1753. "it will whisper your name.

1754. "Forgive my many faults

1755. "and the many pains I have caused you,

1756. how thoughtless, how foolish I have sometimes been."

1757. "But, oh, Sarah,

1758. "if the dead can come back to this earth

1759. "and flit unseen around those they love,

1760. "I shall always be with you

1761. "in the brightest day and the darkest night.

1762. "Always.

1763. Always."

1764. "And when the soft breeze fans your cheek,

1765. "it shall be my breath.

1766. "Or the cool air at your throbbing temple,

1767. it shall be my spirit passing by."

1768. "Sarah, do not mourn me dead.

1769. "Think I am gone

1770. "and wait for me,

1771. for we shall meet again."

1772. Sullivan Ballou was killed a week later

1773. at the first battle of bull run.

1774. Corporate funding for this special 25th

1775. anniversary presentation of the civil war was provided by.

1776. Before thousands fell on the battlefield,

1777. before millions were freed and before a country

1778. forged its identity... A nation declared a new

1779. birth of freedom, rededicating itself to the

1780. proposition that all men are created equal.

1781. Bank of America is proud to sponsor "the civil war,"

1782. a film by Ken burns,

1783. newly restored for it's 25th anniversary.

1784. Original production of "the civil war"

1785. was made possible by generous contributions

1786. from these funders.

1787. And by the corporation for public broadcasting.

1788. And by contributions to your PBS station from

1789. viewers like you, thank you.