From “Lincoln 365,” by Arnold Kunst
July 19
What came to be called First Bull
Run took place about 18 miles from Washington on July 19, a balmy Sunday in
1861, and, hard though it may be for us at this vantage to imagine, all of
Washington took picnic baskets with them in their carriages to watch the Rebels
get whipped. [The assumption, North and South, was that this was going to be a
quick and easy war, each side asserting that the other was no match for them!]
Unfortunately, after what looked like a quick Northern victory, it was the
Yankees who got whipped. At the end of the day the roads back to Washington
were clogged with an odd but profoundly sobering assortment of panicky
congressmen, women in their summer finery, members of the diplomatic corps and
soldiers flinging their equipment to the four winds – all in headlong flight
from what looked very much like abject defeat. Confident Northern boasts were
destined to disappear like snow in spring. A world of tranquil certitudes was
over, perhaps never to return.
‘Wisdom comes by
disillusionment.’
- George
Santayana
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