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.