When John Brown cunningly surveyed the lines around those houses in
Kansas, observed the fastenings of their doors, marked the strength of
the shutters, learned the names of their dogs, crept under the cover
of darkness on his prey as a wild beast creeps through the jungle and
hacked his innocent victims to pieces, we know that he was a criminal
paranoiac pursuing a fixed idea under the delusion that God had sent
him.
Yet on the eighteenth of July, 1861, Colonel Fletcher Webster's
regiment, the Twelfth Massachusetts, marched through the streets of
Boston singing a song of glory to John Brown which one of its members
composed. They were also marching Southward to kill. The only difference
was they had a Commission.
War had been declared.
Why did the war crowd on the streets and in the ranks burst into song as
they marched to kill their fellow men?
To find the answer we must go back to the dawn of human history and see
man, as yet a savage beast, with but one impulse the dominant force in
life, the archaic impulse to slay.
All wars are not begun in this elemental fashion. There are wars of
defense forced on innocent nations by brutal aggressors. But the joy
that thrills the soul of the crowd on the declaration of war is always
the simple thing. It is the roar of the lion as he springs on his prey.
In this Song to the Soul of John Brown there was no thought of freeing
a slave. War was not declared on that ground. The President who called
them had no such purpose. The men who marched had no such idea. They
sang "Glory, Glory Hallelujah! Glory, Glory Hallelujah!" because they
saw Red.
The restraints of Law, Religion and Tradition had been lifted. The
primitive beast that had been held in check by civilization, rose with
a shout and leaped to its ancient task. The homicidal wish--fancy
with which the human mind had toyed in times of peace in dreams and
reveries--was now a living reality.
Not one in a thousand knew what the war was about. And this one in a
thousand who thought he knew was mistaken. It had been made legal to
kill. They were marching to kill. They shouted. They sang.
They were marching to the most utterly senseless and unnecessary
struggle in the history of our race. The North in the hours of sanity
which preceded the outburst did not wish war. The South in her sane
moments never believed it possible. Yet the hell-lit tragedy of brothers
marching to slay their brothers had come. Nothing could dampen the
enthusiasm of this first joyous mob.
On the night of the twentieth of July the Army of the North was encamped
about seven miles from Beaureguard's lines at Bull Run. The volunteers
were singing, shouting, girding their loins for the fray. They had heard
the firing on the first skirmish line. Fifteen or twenty men had been
killed it was reported.
The Red Thought leaped!
At two o'clock before day on Sunday morning, the order came to advance
against the foe. The deep thrill of the elemental man swept the crowd.
They had come loaded down with baggage. They hurled it aside and got
their guns.
What many of them were afraid of was that the whole rebel army would
escape before they could get into the thick of it. Many had brought
handcuffs and ropes along with which to manacle their prisoners and have
sport with them after the fight, another ancient pastime of our half-ape
ancestors. They threw down some of their blankets but held on to their
handcuffs.
When the first crash of battle came these raw recruits on both sides
fought with desperate bravery for nine terrible hours. They fought from
dawn until three o'clock in the afternoon under the broiling Southern
sun of July. Charge and counter charge left their toll of the dead and
then the tired archaic muscles began to wonder when it would end. Why
hadn't victory come? Where were the prisoners they were to manacle?
Both sides were sick with hunger and weariness. The Southerners were
expecting reinforcements from Manassas Junction. The Northerners were
expecting reinforcements. Their eyes were turned toward the same road
which led from the Shenandoah Valley.
A dust cloud suddenly rose over the hill. A fresh army was marching on
the scene. North and South looked with straining eyes. They were not
long in doubt. The first troops suddenly swung in on the right flank of
the Southern army and began to form their lines to charge the North.
Suddenly from this fresh Southern line rose a new cry. From two thousand
throats came the shrill, elemental, savage shout of the hunter in sight
of his game--the fierce Rebel Yell.
They charged the Northern lines and then pandemonium--blind, unreasoning
wolf-panic seized the army that had marched with songs and shouts to
kill. They broke and fled. They cut the traces of their horses, left the
guns, mounted and rode for life.
The mob engulfed the buggies and carriages of Congressmen and picnickers
who had come out from Washington to see the fun. A rebellion crushed at
a blow!
Stuart at the head of his Black Horse Cavalry, his saber flashing, cut
his way through this mob again and again.
When the smoke of battle lifted, the dazed, ill-organized ambulance
corps searched the field for the first toll of the Blood Feud. They
found only nine hundred boys slain and two thousand six hundred wounded.
They lay weltering in their blood in the smothering heat and dust and
dirt.
The details of men were busy burying the dead, some of their bodies yet
warm.
The morning after dawned black and lowering and the rain began to pour
in torrents. Through the streets of Washington the stragglers streamed.
The plumes which waved as they sang were soaked and drooping. Their
gorgeous, new uniforms were wrinkled and mud-smeared.
The President called for five hundred thousand men this time. The joy
and glory of war had gone.
But war remained.
War grim, gaunt, stark, hideous--as remorseless as death.