"Soldiers of the Press" Topic

"South Carolina had promised to secede if Abraham Lincoln was elected President in November 1860, and beginning in December, with Lincoln President-elect, there was a rush of Southern states to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). It had been an eventful winter (1860-1861) that preceded the outbreak of the War Between the States. The salient feature of that time, apart from the palpable excitement of forming armed militias and the extravagant romanticism, was the uncertainty. A real shooting war seemed inevitable, yet the temporizing continued. Few observers at the time thought that the questions raised concerning the fundamentals of American society and government would come to be "settled only at the cannon's mouth."

In response to secession, many northerners expected that the main Federal army would march on the main Confederate army before summer 1861, win the ensuing battle, take Richmond, and end the rebellion. Only gradually did the dire reality of the situation take hold. The lists of dead and wounded from the First Battle of Bull Run (July 1861)—the largest number of casualties in American history to that time—shocked the public and stunned the general staff. The federal Army of the Potomac—the largest American force ever to take the field in wartime—had lost the battle, and the US military went silent for several months thereafter while its generals absorbed the lessons they had learned…"
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