O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [2]
By the year of 1860 . . . eleven Southern States had formed a coalition to preserve the institution of slavery and threatened to secede from the United States if Mr. Lincoln was elected president.
In November, Abraham Lincoln won . . .and as his inauguration grew close an ominous cloud was descending upon the land.
Southern States called up their militias. Southern-born officers resigned from the army and headed home to organize the Rebels’ army.
Wally Kunkle’s platoon, designated as the First Philadelphia Marines, was ordered from the navy yard and boarded a troop train that swept down from Boston and New York, taking on militia and reserve units at every stop.
The train was met by dignitaries on stands covered with bunting and bands hustling up profound patriotic music and cheering citizens.
The dignitaries spoke fierce language about the traitors in the South and women wept and the newspapers blared headlines reeking of war fever.
By the time the train reached Washington, there was no anger to compare. The pending war changed the way people saw the sun rise and set. All focused on this new specter. In Washington, all other forms of life had been numbed by war cries.
March 1861
Wally Kunkle was a drummer boy under the speaker’s platform as Mr. Lincoln held his hand on the Bible, then spoke in words that reiterated the righteousness of the Union cause and sent forth a surge of confidence in the Northern States. Within the month, seven Southern States seceded.
The Confederacy demanded that the federal fort guarding Charleston Harbor be evacuated. When Lincoln refused, Fort Sumter was shelled and captured, and thus began the great American tragedy.
The zealots in the North demanded quick and decisive punitive action. The brazen Confederate act, they said, was no more than a dare. Quick victory was the demand. And the Union battered itself into a frenzy. It will be over by the Fourth of July! Great time to hold a victory parade.
The press wrote front-page editorials and the generals and Congress promised instant victory.
But Lincoln was not so sure. As he hesitated, the Confederacy and Union moved two forces toward each other, mostly of untrained or poorly trained militias. Now that the armies were on the move to face off, the instant-victory camp promised to smash the Rebels and march on their newly declared capital of Richmond. End of war.
The Confederate States, knowing the fight would come, had a more skilled officer corps and put the better force on the field.
Despite that, Washington was in a state of premature celebration. Everyone knew exactly where the battle would take place. The newspapers printed maps of the coming battlefield. Congressmen, civil servants, and thousands of the civilian population of the capital packed picnic lunches, loaded their wives into carriages and omnibuses, and took to the turnpike, already clogged with troops marching to the front.
Each side would field thirty thousand ill-trained, ill-equipped troops commanded mostly by men who had never seen combat.
Thirty miles from Washington and a hundred miles north of Richmond, sitting in a gap of a northern Virginia mountain range, sat the town of Manassas, unexceptional except for the rail junction that went off in all four directions.
For the Union forces to capture the Manassas Gap meant splitting the Confederate forces in half and opening the gates to Richmond.
On green rolling hills overlooking Manassas, spectators from Washington spread their picnic lunches and cheered their lads moving down into the fray.
The First Philadelphia Marines was led by Lieutenant Merriman, who kissed his wife and daughters as they marched past. The First Philadelphia was attached to a quickly assembled Marine battalion whose members had fewer than three weeks’ training.
The army’s guns moved on horse-drawn caissons and drummer-boy Kunkle had to beat quick time to keep up with them. At a creek named Bull Run on Jerome