occurred quite by accident when the victorious Confederates allowed the Union a hundred-gun salute.
And that was the end of the first of the two battles that comprised the First Civil War.
T HE SECOND AND final battle of the First Civil War occurred three months later, on July 21. The Union had been humiliated at Fort Sumter, and they were determined not to suffer another such travesty against the ‘inferior’ Confederate forces.
Lincoln’s generals outlined the situation to him. They would crush the rebellion once and for all by marching on Richmond in northern Virginia. They had 28,000 men primed and ready, they had the superior generals, the superior weaponry, the superior lines of supply, the superior strategy. It could be done in an afternoon, and Lincoln could accept all the Southern states back into the Union the next morning. Why, it would be such an easy victory that Congress and members of the government could take their horse-drawn carriages to the northern end of the battlefield and watch the Union’s triumph first-hand.
A couple of men didn’t see it quite that way. One was General Beauregard, who had 33,000 men at his command. And the other was Thomas J. Jackson, who picked up a new name during the battle: Stonewall.
Lincoln was less certain of an easy victory than his generals and military advisors, though he approved the plan. Finally General McDowell, who was in command of the Union troops, invited him to come to the battlefield and see for himself, and after some hesitation, Lincoln agreed.
McDowell led his Union troops into battle. Five hours later he led them out of battle; the proper word for it was retreat.
During those five hours his troops suffered 2,900 casualties, and most of his invited audience, who had anticipated watching an easy victory while having their picnics just beyond the battlefield, caused quite a traffic jam as they fled back to Washington D.C.
But one observer didn’t flee.
Nobody knew quite when or how it happened. One moment Lincoln was sitting on a chair, speaking with two of his cabinet members. The next moment he was sprawled on the ground, a bullet lodged in his head above his left eye. He was dead before any of McDowell’s medics could reach him, the most important casualty of the Battle of Bull Run.
And that was the end of the First Civil War.
A NDREW J OHNSON WAS sworn in that evening. His address to the joint session of the Congress was brief and to the point:
“A good and honorable man was a tragic, and I’m sure accidental, victim of the conflict this afternoon. I wish his death had accomplished something meaningful, but all it did was emphasize the brutality and futility of war.
“And perhaps in that respect it did accomplish something meaningful, because I have reached the decision that as your President I will preside over no further military debacles and deaths. The War of Southern Secession is over. I am not pleased with this. I am from Tennessee, a border state that believes in the Union, and that no man may own another. But I also believe that the Lord did not create men to kill one another either, and I will not be the one who ever orders men to take up arms against their brothers. I hope we can reach an accommodation with the secessionist states; I hope we can, with logic and goodwill, convince them to rejoin the Union. But no man will die because he and his neighbors have voted to go their own way.
“We face numerous problems, some caused by the secession, others that have been with us for generations. I pledge myself and my Presidency to addressing those problems that Mr. Lincoln died before he could address.”
It wasn’t as eloquent as some of his predecessor’s speeches, but it officially wrote fini to the war.
W ITH NO WAR to fight, the new President began dismantling the war machine that Lincoln had been building up. It was clear that the major responsibility for the disaster was General McDowell—but the
And that was the end of the first of the two battles that comprised the First Civil War.
T HE SECOND AND final battle of the First Civil War occurred three months later, on July 21. The Union had been humiliated at Fort Sumter, and they were determined not to suffer another such travesty against the ‘inferior’ Confederate forces.
Lincoln’s generals outlined the situation to him. They would crush the rebellion once and for all by marching on Richmond in northern Virginia. They had 28,000 men primed and ready, they had the superior generals, the superior weaponry, the superior lines of supply, the superior strategy. It could be done in an afternoon, and Lincoln could accept all the Southern states back into the Union the next morning. Why, it would be such an easy victory that Congress and members of the government could take their horse-drawn carriages to the northern end of the battlefield and watch the Union’s triumph first-hand.
A couple of men didn’t see it quite that way. One was General Beauregard, who had 33,000 men at his command. And the other was Thomas J. Jackson, who picked up a new name during the battle: Stonewall.
Lincoln was less certain of an easy victory than his generals and military advisors, though he approved the plan. Finally General McDowell, who was in command of the Union troops, invited him to come to the battlefield and see for himself, and after some hesitation, Lincoln agreed.
McDowell led his Union troops into battle. Five hours later he led them out of battle; the proper word for it was retreat.
During those five hours his troops suffered 2,900 casualties, and most of his invited audience, who had anticipated watching an easy victory while having their picnics just beyond the battlefield, caused quite a traffic jam as they fled back to Washington D.C.
But one observer didn’t flee.
Nobody knew quite when or how it happened. One moment Lincoln was sitting on a chair, speaking with two of his cabinet members. The next moment he was sprawled on the ground, a bullet lodged in his head above his left eye. He was dead before any of McDowell’s medics could reach him, the most important casualty of the Battle of Bull Run.
And that was the end of the First Civil War.
A NDREW J OHNSON WAS sworn in that evening. His address to the joint session of the Congress was brief and to the point:
“A good and honorable man was a tragic, and I’m sure accidental, victim of the conflict this afternoon. I wish his death had accomplished something meaningful, but all it did was emphasize the brutality and futility of war.
“And perhaps in that respect it did accomplish something meaningful, because I have reached the decision that as your President I will preside over no further military debacles and deaths. The War of Southern Secession is over. I am not pleased with this. I am from Tennessee, a border state that believes in the Union, and that no man may own another. But I also believe that the Lord did not create men to kill one another either, and I will not be the one who ever orders men to take up arms against their brothers. I hope we can reach an accommodation with the secessionist states; I hope we can, with logic and goodwill, convince them to rejoin the Union. But no man will die because he and his neighbors have voted to go their own way.
“We face numerous problems, some caused by the secession, others that have been with us for generations. I pledge myself and my Presidency to addressing those problems that Mr. Lincoln died before he could address.”
It wasn’t as eloquent as some of his predecessor’s speeches, but it officially wrote fini to the war.
W ITH NO WAR to fight, the new President began dismantling the war machine that Lincoln had been building up. It was clear that the major responsibility for the disaster was General McDowell—but the
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