LINCOLN HADN’T EVEN been inaugurated yet, and here he was faced with a rebellious upheaval of nearly half the country. On March 4, 1861, he was sworn in as president, and along with his oath of office he swore to protect the Union and its laws. In South Carolina, just over a month later, state troops fired on the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston’s harbor.
Soon Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina—even the Cherokee Nation—had joined the rebel cause. The new Confederate States of America declared Richmond, Virginia, their capital. At once they began to raise its army.
Lincoln was raising his army too. The Union must be preserved. The unlawful rebellion must be defeated.
It should have been over quickly. People expected it to be over quickly—over by Christmas at the latest. From Rhode Island to Minnesota, boys pouted in disappointment, sure that the fighting would be over before they ever had a chance to join up. After all, the North had a population of over twenty million people. The North also had industrial factories and plenty of railroads and ships for moving armies and supplies. In the South, if you didn’t count the slaves, there were only about nine million people, and they were not nearly so well supplied with factories and railroads and ships. By numbers alone the Union should have been able to squash that confederacy of rebel states before the leaves turned colors in the sugar hills of Vermont, before the geese flew over the lakes of Indiana, before the pumpkins grew ripe in Massachusetts, or before the apples fell off the trees in Ohio.
But to Lincoln’s dismay it didn’t work out that way.
North and South used the spring and early summer of 1861 to raise and train their armies. Here and there were small battles—skirmishes, really—that didn’t prove anything one way or another. The first great clash came in July. There was a town a little ways south of Washington, D.C., called Manassas Junction, where a stream called Bull Run simmered in the summer sun. It looked like the armies were going to meet head-on there.
Folks drove out from the capital in their carriages to see the fight, planning to be home by suppertime. There was an air of holiday, with flags flying and patriotic songs to sing like “Union Forever!” and “Star Spangled Banner.” Photographers drove wagons equipped with darkrooms so they could take pictures of the victory. Ladies waved to the soldiers as they marched past in their new uniforms. “There’s our senator!” called out a soldier from Connecticut, and the Union boys were thrilled to think they were about to whip the rebs in front of all the bigwigs from Washington. But when the battle turned into a defeat for the Union, the spectators turned and fled in terror, their carriages clogging the roads. Riderless horses galloped madly among running soldiers: The Union army was skedaddling right alongside the civilians.