All language subtitles for The.Ultimate.Civil.War.Series.S01E01.Sins.of.the.Fathers.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

Fellow-citizens of the
United States: In compliance

with a custom as old as the
government itself,

I appear before you to address
you briefly,

and to take, in your presence,
the oath prescribed by the

Constitution of the United
States to be taken by the

president before he enters the
on the execution of his office.

Apprehension seems to exist
among the people of the Southern

States, that by the accession of
a Republican Administration,

their property, and their peace,
and personal security,

are to be endangered.

There has never been any
reasonable cause

for such apprehension.

Indeed, the most ample evidence
to the contrary has all the

while existed, and been open to
their inspection.

It is found in nearly all the
published speeches of him who

now addresses you.

I do but quote from one of those
speeches when I declare that

"I have no purpose, directly or
indirectly,

to interfere with the
institution of slavery in the

States where it exists."

I believe I have no lawful right
to do so,

and I have no inclination to do
so."

Those who nominated and elected
me did so with full knowledge

that I had made this, and many
similar declarations,

and had never recanted them... In
your hands,

my dissatisfied fellow
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.

You have no oath registered in
Heaven to destroy the

government, while I shall have
the most solemn one to

"preserve, protect, and defend
it."

How did it come to
this?

That a duly elected, American
president should plead with his

fellow citizens to not become
"the aggressors."

When did the American Experiment
go so far awry that half the

nation sat poised on the edge of
violent insurrection?

How far back can we trace this
schism in our own self-identity,

in which we were a beacon of
liberty to the world,

yet drove millions of slaves to
toil beneath the lash?

Slavery in America was older
than the nation itself,

born among the colonies of
European nations.

During the lead-up to the
revolution,

Jefferson and others criticized
Britain for creating slavery

in the colonies.

The new Constitution denigrated
slaves with its three-fifths

clause, by counting each as less
than a whole person.

But it also set an end date

for the international trade
in slaves.

And in the Northwest Ordinance
of 1787,

the congress had sectioned off
an enormous territory and

declared that this portion of
land should be forever free.

Things changed with the
invention of the cotton gin.

Eli Whitney's invention didn't
take all of the intense labor

out of cotton.

It removed the time-consuming
bottleneck of combing cotton,

which meant that now cotton
plantations could process

enormous amounts of cotton far
more quickly than ever before.

Which meant that those
plantations needed to get more

cotton out of the fields, faster.

And to do that cheaply, they
needed slaves.

The growth in slavery driven by
cotton changed slavery from a

British-created institution that
Thomas Jefferson could claim had

been forced upon the colonies,

into a truly American engine of
industry.

By 1850, about seventy-five
percent of American slaves were

in the service of King Cotton.

Paralleling the rise of cotton
was the growth

of the abolitionists.

Initially, the abolitionist
movement was limited to Quakers,

who persuaded members to give up
their slaves.

Following the American
Revolution,

the movement grew, with more and
more people

calling for the end of slavery.

In the years leading up to the
Civil War,

abolitionists such as William
Lloyd Garrison and Frderick

Douglass insisted that, over
time, former slaves

and their progeny would become
assimilated

into American society.

Against the flood
of abolitionists,

there stood a wall of southern
planters and their

representatives in the Congress
and the Senate.

South Carolina Senator James
Henry Hammond,

who crowned cotton king, and
before him,

South Carolina Senator John C.
Calhoun,

were among the most prominent
voices.

In the eighteen thirties and
forties,

Calhoun led the pro-slavery
faction in the Senate.

He directly opposed abolitionism
and was a major advocate of the

1850 Fugitive Slave Law.

Calhoun is perhaps most famous,
or infamous,

for his 1837 speech on the
senate floor,

in which he described slavery
not as a "necessary evil"

but as a "positive good."

Abolition and the Union
cannot coexist.

As the friend of the Union I
openly proclaim it,

and the sooner it is known the
better...

We of the South will not,
cannot,

surrender our institutions.

To maintain the existing
relations between the two races

inhabiting that section of the
Union is indispensable to the

peace and happiness of both.

The relation now existing in the
slaveholding states between the

two races is, instead of an
evil,

a good - a positive good.

In 1850, Calhoun was a
major supporter

of the Fugitive Slave Act.

This new law would serve to
galvanize opponents of slavery,

driving the wedge between North
and South even deeper.

The original Fugitive Slave Act
in 1793 had made it illegal to

give aide to runaway slaves.

However, that law left
responsibility for enforcement

to the states.

Under the new law, however, all
fugitive slave cases would be

handled by federal officials.

Not surprisingly, it is believed
that many free blacks were

caught up in this Act, captured
by agents working for southern

planters and unable to offer a
word in their own defense.

Also unsurprisingly, this law
outraged abolitionists

such as Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Stowe was infuriated, believing
the law sought to make

her complicit in an immoral
system.

Her sister-in-law, Isabella
Porter Beecher,

wrote to Stowe, "if I could use
a pen like you Hatty,

I would write something that
would show the entire world what

an accursed thing slavery is."

Stowe, already a writer,
resolved to do just that.

The result was successful beyond
anyone's expectations.

Written in 1851 as a serial
story published in the

anti-slavery newspaper "The
National Era,"

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" was
collected

and sold as a book in 1852.

It sold three hundred thousand
copies within a year,

and two million in two years.

Telling the story of slaves
suffering under,

escaping from, and dying in
slavery,

Stowe's book spread her own
outrage into the hearts and

minds of millions of readers.

The dividing line between north
and south grew ever sharper,

and it was drawn on the issue of
slavery.

As the U.S. gained more and more
territory,

expanding westward according to

its Manifest Destiny,
disagreements became arguments,

arguments became fights, fights
became battles,

and eventually, battles became
war.

Introduced by Democratic Senator
Stephen Douglas of Illinois,

the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
changed the rules for

determining whether a territory
would be slave or free.

Under the concept known as
"popular sovereignty,"

the residents of each territory
would get to vote to decide

whether slavery would be
permitted.

That is, the white, male
residents would get to vote on

whether peoples other than
themselves could be enslaved.

The act specifically repealed
that part of the Missouri

Compromise that outlawed slavery
north of the line drawn in 1820.

Stephen Douglas hoped this would
win him the support of

southerners, his eye was on an
eventual bid for the presidency.

But he did not consider the
degree of opposition the bill

would face in the north.

In particular, he had no inkling
of the future of one man in

particular who would be
energized by this Act.

Araham Lincoln.

I was losing interest
in politics when the repeal of

the Missouri Compromise aroused
me again.

The Kansas-Nebraska
Act was the impetus for the

first round of the
Lincoln-Douglas debates that

launched Lincoln's national
political career,

and carved out his views on
slavery.

I think, and shall try
to show,

that it is wrong; wrong in its
direct effect,

letting slavery into Kansas and
Nebraska - and wrong in its

prospective principle, allowing
it to spread to every other part

of the wide world, where men can
be found inclined to take it.

This declared indifference for
the spread of slavery,

I cannot but hate.

I hate it because of the
monstrous injustice

of slavery itself.

I hate it because it deprives
our republican example of its

just influence in the world -
enables the enemies of free

institutions, with plausibility,
to taunt us as hypocrites -

causes the real friends of
freedom to doubt our sincerity,

and especially because it
forces so many really good men

amongst ourselves into an open
war with the very fundamental

principles of civil liberty -
criticizing the Declaration of

Independence, and insisting that
there is no right principle of

action but self-interest.

Despite the opposition
of Lincoln and many others,

the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed,

signed into law on May 30, 1854.

The question of slavery in each
territory would be determined by

the vote of the people living
there.

And so the stage was set for the
most strident,

short-tempered, zealous, and
potentially violent proponents

of both slavery and abolition to
marshal their forces and run to

Kansas, to swell the ranks of
voters for their side in hopes

of winning the state.

Pro-slavery settlers moved in
from Missouri,

with some showing up just long
enough to vote.

Meanwhile, abolitionist
societies back east were funding

settlers to add their
anti-slavery votes.

Thousands of pro- and
anti-slavery men and families

moved to Kansas, planning to
wage war at the ballot box,

but also armed for a more
physical confrontation.

Tensions rose, and political
chicanery became open violence.

On May 21, 1856, a group of
about eight hundred Border

Ruffians entered the town of
Lawrence,

Kansas, which was under the
control of Free-State settlers.

They blocked off all roads out
of town,

preventing escape.

Under a flag inscribed "Southern
Rights",

they smashed the printing
presses in the town's two

printing offices, and threw the
type into the river.

They then set fire to the Free
State Hotel.

Hundreds more would be killed in
the war of

bushwhackers in Kansas.

But in 1859, Free-Soilers were
able to elect a majority of the

delegates to the territory's
constitutional convention,

and in January 1861, Kansas was
admitted as a free state.

Less than a year after these
incidents in Kansas,

the issue of congress setting
aside territories as being slave

or free rose again.

The case was Dred Scott v
Sanford,

in which the court further
declared that persons of African

descent, slave or free, were not
citizens of the United States.

Scott sued for his freedom in
1846.

The case wound its way through
courts over the years,

finally landing in the
U.S. Supreme Court in 1856,

whose members included five
slaveholders.

Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote
the majority opinion,

declaring that Dred Scott, and
all persons of African descent,

could not be citizens of the
United States,

even if they were recognized as
citizens of an individual state.

Therefore, Scott could not sue
in federal court,

and the Supreme Court had no
jurisdiction over the case.

The immediate consequence of the
decision was that Dred Scott and

his family failed to secure
their freedom in court.

As Lincoln said in his House
Divided speech in 1858:

Such a decision is all
that slavery now lacks

of being alike lawful in all the
States...

Such decision is probably
coming,

and will soon be upon us, unless
the power of the present

political dynasty shall be met
and overthrown.

In that same speech,
Lincoln foresaw

the coming Civil War.

"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.

Either the opponents of slavery
will arrest the further spread

of it, and place it where the
public mind shall rest in the

belief that it is in the course
of ultimate extinction;

or its advocates will push it
forward,

till it shall become alike
lawful in all the States,

old as well as new - North as
well as South.

A veteran of the
fighting in Bloody Kansas would

help divide the house further
with his next and final militant

effort against pro-slavery
forces.

In Kansas, in 1856, John Brown
and his sons had led the

Pottawatomie Massacre, in which
supporters of slavery were

dragged from their homes and
slaughtered with a broadsword.

In 1859 John Brown focused his
attention on a new target:

the government armory and
arsenal at Harper's Ferry.

He planned to use those weapons
to arm what he expected to be an

army of fugitive slaves that
would join him.

But he failed to convince one
important escaped slave.

John Brown had long been a
friend of Frederick Douglass.

Douglass had preached pacifism
prior to 1850,

but in the wake of the Fugitive
Slave Law,

he believed that "who would be
free must himself

strike the first blow."

Brown appealed to Douglass to
join him in the raid.

Douglass tried to talk Brown out
of the mission, but failed.

He later said:

I told him,
finally, that he was going into

a steel trap from which there
was no escape, and that I did

not see it as my duty to follow
him.

Douglass' prediction
was correct.

John Brown's mission was a
failure.

Half his men were killed during
the raid,

including one of Brown's sons.

Most of the others, including
John Brown himself,

were captured and hanged.

Four men escaped, including
another of Brown's sons.

John Brown died by hanging on
December 2, 1859.

This was one more event to shock
the consciences of the American

people and to put them into
opposing camps on the rightness

of Brown's cause, if not his
methods.

The raid on Harper's Ferry would
be seen by many as the first

shots fired in the Civil War.

Decades later, Frederick
Douglass would ask an audience

about the success of John
Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry:

If John
Brown did not end the war that

ended slavery, he did at least
begin the war

that ended slavery...

Until this blow was struck, the
prospect for freedom was dim,

shadowy and uncertain.

The irrepressible conflict was
one of words,

votes and compromises.

When John Brown stretched forth
his arm the sky was cleared.

The time for compromises was
gone - the armed hosts of

freedom stood face to face over
the chasm of a broken Union -

and the clash of arms was at
hand.

The South staked all upon
getting possession of the

Federal Government, and failing
to do that,

drew the sword of rebellion and
thus made her own,

and not Brown's, the lost cause
of the century.

In the election of
1860, the south made that bid

for control of the
federal government.

All of the conflicts of the past
decades came to a head

in the presidential election.

In the turmoil of the 1850s, the
major American political parties

were falling apart.

The Whigs were essentially gone.

Northern, anti-slavery Whigs
joined the new Republican Party,

which was entirely sectional.

The Republican Party's
anti-slavery stance - which

varied in degree among its
members - meant that it had no

place in the south.

Most Southern Whigs joined the
new Constitutional Union Party.

Meanwhile, the Democrats were
torn across the Mason-Dixon

line, into Northern Democrats
and Southern Democrats.

Abraham Lincoln, a former U.S.
Representative,

was nominated by the
Republicans.

John Bell, former Senator from
Tennessee received the

Constitutional Party nomination.

The Southern Democrats nominated
the sitting Vice President,

John Breckenridge, and the
Northern Democrats nominated

Lincoln's old adversary, Senator
Stephen Douglas of Illinois.

Lincoln was, in the eyes of many
Republicans,

a moderate on the slavery
question.

He was strongly opposed to its
expansion into the territories,

which he believed was in direct
contrast with the intentions of

the founding fathers.

But he did not seek to eliminate
slavery in those states where it

was already permitted.

Lincoln and Douglas battled in
the north,

while Bell and Breckenridge
faced off in the south,

though Douglas - unlike Lincoln
- had some support

in the south as well.

Lincoln, as we all know today,
was the final winner of the

election, but it was no sure
thing.

He was not even on the ballot in
most of the slave states.

Of almost a thousand counties in
the fifteen slaveholding states

in 1860, Lincoln won only two.

Nationally he had only forty
percent of the popular vote,

but that was considerably higher
than his nearest opponent,

Stephen Douglas, with
twenty-nine percent.

Lincoln won 180 out of 303
electoral college votes,

making him the clear winner.

To do that, he had to sweep the
free states of the north.

The southern states were
outraged.

Not a single ballot had been
cast for Abraham Lincoln in ten

southern states - because he was
not on the ballot -

and yet now he was president.

South Carolina moved first,
seceding from the Union

on December 20, 1860.

They cited Lincoln's election as
an "overt act of aggression"

by the North.

That is, they did not claim to
be seceding because they had

been attacked, or because the
federal government was

attempting to divest them of
their slaves,

but because the result of the
presidential election

was itself an offense.

Within a few months, Florida,
Mississippi,

Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and
Texas had joined them.

These states adopted a new
constitution in February 1861,

and declared themselves the
Confederate States of America.

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi
was appointed President by the

delegates, and Alexander
Stephens of Georgia

was appointed Vice President.

Alexander Stephens gave a speech
the following month,

in which he outlined how this
new constitution was superior to

the original, on the subject of
slavery.

The new
Constitution has put at rest

forever all the agitating
questions relating to our

peculiar institutions - African
slavery as it exists among us -

the proper status of the negro
in our form of civilization.

This was the immediate cause of
the late rupture

and present revolution.

Jefferson, in his forecast, had
anticipated this,

as the "rock upon which the old
Union would split."

He was right.

What was conjecture with him, is
now a realized fact...

The prevailing ideas entertained
by him and most of the leading

statesmen at the time of the
formation of the old

Constitution, were that the
enslavement of the African was

in violation of the laws of
nature;

that it was wrong in principle,
socially,

morally and politically.

It was an evil they knew not
well how to deal with;

but the general opinion of the
men of that day was,

that, somehow or other, in the
order of Providence,

the institution would be
evanescent and pass away...

Those ideas, however, were
fundamentally wrong.

They rested upon the assumption
of the equality of races.

This was an error...

Our new government is founded
upon exactly the opposite idea;

its foundations are laid, its
cornerstone rests,

upon the great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white

man; that slavery subordination
to the superior race is his

natural and normal condition.

This, our new government, is the
first,

in the history of the world,
based upon this great physical,

philosophical, and moral truth.

If anyone had any
lingering doubts about the role

of slavery in causing the
southern states to secede from

the Union in 1861, Vice
President Alexander Stephens'

speech should have abolished
those doubts.

As he said, the "cornerstone" of
the "new government" was the

assertion that slavery was the
natural condition

of African Americans.

Most still hoped that this
secession crisis

would not lead to war.

A Peace Conference was held in
Washington in February 1861.

But the conference was unable to
resolve the central issue of

slavery, which had brought the
crisis to a head.

The conference failed to bring
peace,

but the eight states, which had
not yet seceded,

still remained with the Union.

The federal government did not
immediately react

to the secessions.

Lincoln had not even taken
office before the seceded states

had written their new
constitution,

and begun capturing federal
forts within their boundaries.

But soon came an action they
could not ignore.

Six days after South Carolina
seceded,

and under the cover of darkness,
Major Robert Anderson had moved

his regiment out of the
indefensible federal Fort

Moultrie and into Fort Sumter.

Both forts were in South
Carolina's Charleston Harbor,

but Sumter, still under
construction and previously

unoccupied, controlled the
entrance to the Harbor.

Anderson was in a better
position,

but he and his eighty-odd men
needed supplies,

arms, and reinforcements.

President Buchanan ordered a
civilian merchant vessel,

the Star of the West, to be used
to make the delivery,

hoping it would be seen as less
antagonistic

to the Confederates.

But as the Star of the West
approached Sumter,

on January 9, 1861, cadets from
the Citadel,

who were manning the artillery
battery on Morris Island,

opened fire.

Batteries from the
now-Confederate-held Fort

Moultrie joined in, and the ship
was forced to withdraw.

When Lincoln took office in the
first week of March,

he was dismayed to learn that
Anderson,

now becoming a hero in the
Union,

only had enough rations to last
six weeks.

By now, Confederate Brigadier
General P.G.T. Beauregard

had built up a powerful force
within the other

harbor forts, to challenge
Anderson.

Negotiations over the next month
failed to improve the situation.

Lincoln insisted that the
southern states had no right

under the constitution to
secede,

and that, in fact, they simply
could not leave the Union.

Therefore any discussion of
turning over or selling U.S.

forts to what he considered a
false government

could not take place.

The situation at Sumter was
becoming dire.

Rations were running out.

Lincoln's position was delicate.

On the one hand, he did not want
to take aggressive actions that

might push Virginia and the
other states of the upper South

out of the Union and into the
Confederacy.

He still hoped that this crisis
of secession

would not turn into a war.

On the other hand, if he
surrendered Sumter in the face

of military threat from the
new-born Confederacy,

that might give the
insurrectionist government too

much legitimacy, so that he
would never be able to bring its

states back into the Union fold.

Lincoln informed the South
Carolina Governor on April 6,

that the federal government
would attempt to resupply

Sumter, but no men, arms, or
ammunition would be included

except in case of attack.

Confederate President Jefferson
Davis ordered General Beauregard

to demand Anderson to surrender
Fort Sumter.

If Anderson refused, Beauregard
was to order

an artillery strike.

On April 12, Anderson informed
Confederate Colonel James

Chestnut that, unless he
received new orders or supplies,

he would surrender the fort at
noon on April 15.

This was not the unwavering
promise

that Beauregard was looking for.

Anderson was told that
Beauregard would open up with

artillery within the hour.

Abner Doubleday, a Captain
serving under Major Anderson,

later wrote about the incident.

Nineteen batteries
were now hammering at us,

and the balls and shells from
the ten-inch columbiads,

accompanied by shells from the
thirteen-inch mortars which

constantly bombarded us, made us
feel as if the war

had commenced in earnest...

Our fort had been built with
reference to the penetration of

shot when the old system of
smooth-bore guns prevailed.

The balls from a new Blakely gun
on Cummings Point,

however, had force enough to go
entirely through the wall which

sheltered us, and some of the
fragments of brick which were

knocked out wounded several of
my detachment...

The firing continued all day...

They had a great advantage over
us,

as their fire was concentrated
on the fort,

which was in the center of the
circle,

while ours was diffused over the
circumference...

The night was an anxious one for
us...

The batteries fired upon us at
stated intervals all night long.

We did not return the fire,
having no ammunition to waste.

By 11 a.m. the next day,

the conflagration was terrible
and disastrous.

One-fifth of the fort was on
fire,

and the wind drove the smoke in
dense masses into the angle

where we had all taken refuge.

It seemed impossible to escape
suffocation.

On the afternoon of
April 13th,

Major Anderson agreed to a
truce,

and he evacuated Fort Sumter the
next day.

Despite the artillery
bombardment and the fire,

there was no loss of life on
either side of the conflict.

But by another reckoning, over
six hundred thousand would die

as a result of the firing on
Fort Sumter.

Because the war had well and
truly begun,

and there would be no looking
back.

Citing the presidential powers
given in the

Militia Acts of 1792, Lincoln
called for the remaining states

of the Union to send troops to
recapture the forts and preserve

the Union against insurrection.

Initially, Lincoln called for
seventy-five thousand

volunteers, who would serve for
ninety days.

In the face of this call, four
more states - Tennessee,

Arkansas, North Carolina, and
Virginia - seceded.

Though they had resisted calls
to join the Confederacy for

months, they refused to support
a military response against

their fellow southern states.

To reward Virginia - birthplace
of Washington,

Jefferson, Madison, and many
other founding fathers -

Richmond, Virginia became the
capitol of the Confederacy.

Abraham Lincoln reached out to
one prominent Virginian,

a twenty-five year veteran,

and offered him command of the
Union Army.

Robert E. Lee, son of
Revolutionary war hero

"Light Horse Harry" Lee,
declined the offer.

On April 20, he resigned his
commission in the U.S. Army.

On the 23rd, he took command of
Virginia's forces.

In the early days of the war,
both the Union and Confederacy

had an easy time
raising volunteers.

As far south as Tallulah,
Louisiana,

a young woman named Kate Stone
wrote of her brother's desire to

fight for the Confederacy.

May 15: My Brother
started at daybreak this morning

for New Orleans.

He goes as far as Vicksburg on
horseback.

He is wild to be off to
Virginia.

He so fears that the fighting
will be over before he can get

there that he has decided to
give up the plan of raising a

company and going out as a
Captain.

He has about fifty men on his
rolls and they and Uncle Bo have

empowered him to sign their
names as members of any company

he may select.

Mamma regrets so that My Brother
would not wait and

complete his commission.

He could get his complement of
men in two weeks,

and having been educated at a
military school gives him a

great advantage at this time.

And we think there will be
fighting for many days yet.

Indeed, there would
be.

Kate Stone's brother returned
ten days later,

having missed the company he
hoped to join.

...he joined the
Jeff Davis Guards at Vicksburg,

and was elected third
lieutenant.

It is an Irish company officered
by Americans...

They leave for Richmond on
Monday,

and so My Brother and Uncle Bo
get off in the morning

as early as possible.

The parting will be dreadful for
Mamma.

She so depends on My Brother,
her oldest and best beloved.

The boys are disgruntled because
they cannot go too.

The North was also
able to attract a large number

of volunteers.

Jacob Dolson Cox was a
Republican Senator of Ohio,

who was later commissioned a
brigadier general

in the Ohio militia.

He described the response to
Lincoln's call for volunteers.

...the great mass of
the people of the North,

forgetting all party
distinctions,

answered with an enthusiastic
patriotism that swept

politicians off their feet.

But although some
states,

such as Ohio, were enthusiastic,
they had much to do

to be prepared for war.

When Mr. Lincoln
issued his first call for

troops, the existing laws made
it necessary that these should

be fully organized and officered
by the several States.

Then, the treasury was in no
condition to bear the burden of

war expenditures, and till
Congress could assemble,

the President was forced to rely
on the States to furnish the

means necessary for the
equipment and transportation of

their own troops.

The governor spoke of the
embarrassment he felt at every

step from the lack of practical
military experience in his

staff, and of his desire to have
some one on whom he could

properly throw the details of
military work.

That "some one" to
whom the Ohio governor turned

would later be responsible for
organizing

the Union's Army of the Potomac.

George B. McClellan.

At the time
McClellan's name was a good deal

associated with that of
Beauregard;

they were spoken of as young men
of similar standing in the

Engineer Corps of the Army, and
great things were expected of

them both because of their
scientific knowledge of their

profession, though McClellan had
been in

civil life for some years.

His report on the Crimean War
was one of the few important

memoirs our old army had
produced,

and was valuable enough to give
a just reputation for

comprehensive understanding of
military organization,

and the promise of ability to
conduct

the operations of an army...

Nonetheless, men were
flocking to enlist.

These ill-equipped, ill-prepared
"soldiers" would

discover the reality of war not
long after reaching Washington.

With the Confederacy's capital
now in Richmond,

the seats of the Union and
Confederate governments were now

just a hundred miles apart.

Over the next four years,
hundreds of thousands of

Americans would fight, bleed,
and die in this short span.

It began poorly for the Union,
with the First Battle of Bull

Run, or First Battle of
Manassas,

as the victorious Confederates
named it.

In mid-July, the 90-day
enlistments that Lincoln called

for after Fort Sumter were about
to expire.

Lincoln felt pressure from the
public to act.

Editorials in northern papers
clamored for General in Chief

Winfield Scott to strike for the
capital of the Confederacy.

"On to Richmond!" they cried.

Lincoln hoped a more limited
attack,

at the Confederate forces
gathering just across the

Potomac, in Manassas, Virginia,
would be able to accomplish what

he wanted most - a quick end to
the insurrection,

without doing irreparable harm
to the South.

And so, Brigadier General Irvin
MacDowell was sent to lead his

unseasoned troops into battle
with P.G.T. Beauregard's equally

unseasoned Confederate troops

near the vital rail junction in
Manassas.

"You are green, it is true,"
Lincoln told McDowell,

"but they are green also..."

McDowell moved his army of
thirty-four thousand out of

Washington on July 16.

Beauregard's twenty-five
thousand Confederate troops

awaited him about twenty-five
miles southwest of Washington,

at Manassas Junction.

After a slow, disorganized
march,

the Union forces neared their
destination.

A minor skirmish on July 18,
accomplished nothing,

and McDowell resolved to assault
the Confederate's left flank,

while sending diversionary
strikes at the Confederate

center and right flank.

But it was another two days
before his troops

moved into position.

During that time, a crowd of
onlookers,

including congressmen, gathered
around the Union camp.

Union Major General James Fry
described the scene.

During the 19th and
20th the bivouacs of McDowell's

army at Centreville, almost
within cannon range of the

enemy, were thronged by
visitors,

official and unofficial, who
came in carriages from

Washington, bringing their own
supplies.

They were under no military
restraint,

and passed to and fro among the
troops as they pleased,

giving the scene the appearance
of a monster military picnic.

By this time,
Beauregard's army had been

reinforced by General Joseph E.
Johnston.

General Beauregard later wrote:

General McDowell,
fortunately for my plans,

spent the 19th and 20th in
reconnaissance;

and meanwhile, General Johnston
brought 8,340

men from the Shenandoah Valley,

with 20 guns, and General Holmes
brought 1,265

rank and file, with 6 pieces
of artillery,

from Aquia Creek.

As these forces arrived [most of
them in the afternoon of the

20th] I placed them chiefly so
as to strengthen my

left center and left...

One Confederate
officer would gain a nickname

during this battle that would
follow him

long after his own death.

Brigadier General Thomas J.
Jackson

was praised for his defense of
the strategic Henry Hill.

We arrived there
just as General Barnard Bee's

troops, after giving way, were
fleeing in disorder...

They had come around between the
base of the hill and the Stone

Bridge into a shallow ravine
which ran up to a point on the

crest where Jackson had already
formed his brigade...

Every segment of line we
succeeded in forming was again

dissolved while another was
being formed...

It was at this moment that
General Bee used the famous

expression, "Look at Jackson's
brigade!

It stands like a stone wall!"

And so was Stonewall
Jackson

christened at First Manassas.

Order was restored in the
Confederate line,

and things began to go badly for
the North.

Major General Fry later wrote of
the battle's turn.

The batteries of
Ricketts and Griffin,

by their fine discipline,
wonderful daring,

and matchless skill, were the
prime features in the fight.

The battle was not lost till
they were lost.

A regiment of
artillery moved out of the woods

to Captain Charles Griffin's
right.

He was about to open fire with
his artillery,

when his commanding officer
stopped him.

The infantry were wearing blue.

Believing them to be Union
troops,

Griffin held his fire.

A moment more and the
doubtful regiment proved its

identity by a deadly volley,
and,

as Griffin states in his
official report,

"every cannoneer was cut down
and a large number of horses

killed, leaving the battery...
perfectly helpless."

The loss of the
artillery and the arrival of

Confederate reinforcements was
too much.

The Union forces were soon
forced into a retreat.

It began as an orderly
withdrawal,

but turned into a full, panicked
rout.

Though much smaller than some
battles that would occur later

in the war, at the time, Bull
Run,

or Manassas, was the largest
battle in American history.

The Union suffered almost five
hundred dead and twenty-five

hundred wounded, captured, or
missing.

In comparison, the Confederate
troops lost almost four hundred

dead, sixteen hundred wounded,
and a handful missing.

The Confederate victory in this
fight led many in the south to

think that they had all but won
the war.

But despite the sense of
humiliation and despair among

many in the north, the defeat at
Manassas actually served to

strengthen Union forces.

The day after the rout at Bull
Run,

Lincoln signed a bill calling
for the enlistment of five

hundred thousand volunteers,
these to serve three years

rather than three months.

McDowell would bear the brunt of
the blame for the defeat.

Lincoln would soon remove him
from command,

to be replaced by the general
whose organizational skills had

so impressed Senator and General
Jacob Cox of Ohio:

Major General George B.
McClellan would be named

general-in-chief of the
Union armies.

McClellan would eventually prove
disappointing

as a commander in the field.

But his ability to inspire his
men and turn a ragtag bunch of

raw recruits into the
best-trained professional army

on the continent would put the
Union on the path

to military victory.

But victory for the north was
still four long years away.

Fondly do we hope -

fervently do we pray - that this
mighty scourge of war

may speedily pass away.

Yet, if God wills that it
continue,

until all the wealth piled by
the bond-man's two hundred and

fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk,

and until every drop of blood
drawn with the lash,

shall be paid by another drawn
with the sword,

as was said three thousand years
ago,

so still it must be said "the
judgments of the Lord,

are true and righteous
altogether."