A HARD NIGHTMARE

PART TWO
"I have just this moment heard from the front. There is nothing yet of a movement, but the Troops are continually on the alert, expecting something. To think we are to have here soon what I have seen so many times...
trains and boatloads of pale and wounded young men again; for that is certainly what we shall have. I see all the signs."
walt whitman, 1864

"War is all Hell"
tecumseh sherman

"Kill 'em. Kill 'em all"
stonewall jackson

"A Black Man has no rights a White Man is bound to honor"
Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 1859

"I feel I have been living a hard nightmare"
abraham lincoln, 1865

The first major battle of the War was fought at Bull Run Virginia in July of 1861. Confederate forces under General Beauregard commandeered the farmhouse of Wilmer McLean. Headquarters were set up in his front parlor and a hospital in his barn. after the battle, McLean moved his family 100 miles to the West to escape the ravages and dangers of the War.
During the Battle Union forces did well early. Crowds of onlookers from Washington came to cheer their troops. But around midday the Confederate General Jackson held a stone wall that he became famouus for. At the same time, the Union General McDowell was making a huge blunder with his artillery; the tide of battle turned.
Emboldened by the arrival of reinforcements and by the first use of the "Rebel Yell", the Confederates charged forth in the late afternoon. The Union line melted away. Retreat quickly transformed into mindless rout as the Northern troops rushed head-long back to Washington, discarding much of their equipment along the way.
From a personal account by a Union private:
Our artillery and baggage wagons became fouled with each other, completely blocking the bridge, while the bomb shells bursting on the bridge made it "rather unhealthy" to be around. As I crossed on my hands and knees, Capt. Smith who was crossing by my side at the same time was struck by a round shot and completely cut in two. After I crossed I started up the hill as fast as my legs could carry and passed through Centreville and continued on to Fairfax where we arrived about 10 o'clock halting about 15 minutes, then kept on to Washington where we arrived about 2 o'clock Monday noon more dead than alive, having been on our feet 36 hours without a mouthful to eat, and traveled a distance of 60 miles without twenty minutes halt.

The Nation was horrified at the 5000 casualties. They did not know that 1 year later the battle would be fought again, over the same ground, with 5 times that number of casualties; 25,000!

April 9th, 1865
General Lee sent two members of his staff into Appomattox Courthouse to find a place suitable for meeting with General Grant for the purpose of discussion of the terms of surrender. The first civilian they came to was Wilmer McLean. The very same Wilmer McLean who had moved from Bull Run almost 4 years earlier to escape the conflict. The meeting and terms of surrender were drawn up in his front parlor.
Is that ironic or what?