Lincoln, the unknown

LINCOLN THE UNKNOWN • 131That sounded attractive, and every one agreed.Every one except the military authorities: they knew the armywasn't ready. But the President, bowing to public clamor, finallyordered an advance.So, on a hot, brilliant July day, McDowell, with his "GrandArmy," thirty thousand strong, marched away to attack theConfederates at Bull Run, a creek in Virginia. No Americangeneral then living had ever before commanded so large a bodyof men.What an army it was! Raw. Half trained. Several of the regimentshad arrived within the last ten days, and had no idea ofdiscipline."With all my personal effort," said Sherman, who commandeda brigade, "I could not prevent the men from stragglingfor water, blackberries, and anything on the way that theyfancied."The Zouaves and Turcos in those days were regarded asmighty warriors; so many soldiers aspired to dress like them andact like them. Consequently, thousands of the troops marchedaway to Bull Run, that day, with their heads in scarlet turbans,their legs in red baggy breeches. They looked more like a comicoperatroupe than men marching to death.Several silk-hatted Congressmen drove out to watch thebattle, taking with them their wives and pet dogs, and basketsof sandwiches and bottles of Bordeaux.Finally, at ten o'clock on a broiling day in late July, the firstreal battle of the Civil War began.What happened?As soon as some of the inexperienced troops saw cannonballscrashing through the trees, heard men shrieking, and sawthem pitching forward on the ground with blood running outof their mouths—as soon as they saw this, the Pennsylvaniaregiment and the New York Battery happened to recall thattheirninety-day term of enlistment had expired; and they insistedon being mustered out of service. Then and there! Quick!And, as McDowell reports, they "moved to the rear to thesound of the enemy's cannon."The rest of the troops fought surprisingly well until abouthalf-past four in the afternoon. Then suddenly the Confederates,throwing twenty-three hundred fresh men into the assault, tookthe field by storm.