Two Miserable Presidents by Steve Sheinkin

then fire and charge at the enemy with their bayonets. “And when you charge,” he told them, “yell like furies!”
    As Jackson’s men charged, they let loose a high-pitched shriek that was part anger and part fear. This Southern scream became known as the “rebel yell,” and it terrified Northern soldiers in battles throughout the war.

    Now the Union army started tripping backwards. Groups of Union soldiers got separated from their commanders and had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. One by one, and then in large groups, Union soldiers started turning from the battle, tossing their guns, and sprinting away.
    Up on the hills, the picnickers were getting very nervous. One of them, a newspaper reporter, asked a retreating Union soldier what was happening.

    Reporter: What is the matter, sir? What is this all about?
    Soldier: Why, it means we are pretty badly whipped, that’s the truth .
    Reporter: Can you tell me where I can find General McDowell?
    Soldier: No! Nor can anyone else.

    The picnickers jumped into their wagons and whipped their horses and rattled down the hill. They sped onto the road and quickly got tangled up with long lines of shouting soldiers, causing the last thing anyone needed—a terrible traffic jam.
    Northerners called this the battle of Bull Run. Southerners called it the battle of Manassas. Either way, 625 Union and 400 Confederate soldiers were killed. It was the bloodiest battle the country had ever seen. And it was nothing compared with what was still to come.
    At this point, though, Jefferson Davis felt that the South just about had the war won. “We have taught them a lesson,” Davis told the cheering crowds in Richmond.
    The scene was very different in Washington, D.C., where exhausted soldiers staggered back into town under a heavy rain, collapsing in the muddy streets. Abraham Lincoln spent a sleepless night on a couch in the White House, listening to the bad news from
the battlefield and taking notes on what to do next.
    One thing was obvious to Lincoln: defeating the Confederacy was going to be much harder and much bloodier than he had hoped. Lincoln called on the Northern states to deliver 1 million new soldiers. And not for three months this time, but for three years.
    Little Mac Takes Command
    L incoln also named a new leader for the Union army: thirty-four-year-old General George McClellan. Thrilled with the opportunity, McClellan wrote to his wife, Ellen:

    â€œWho would have thought, when we were married, that I should so soon be called upon to save my country?”

    McClellan got right to work. He spent long days riding around Washington and whipping the army into shape, giving the soldiers a new level of pride and confidence. The men loved him and affectionately nicknamed him “Little Mac” (he was five foot six). “You have no idea how the men brighten up now when I go among them,” he told his wife.
    George McClellan
    The big question was: When was this new and improved army going to march out of Washington and get on with winning the war? Lincoln started urging McClellan to go on the attack. But Little
Mac did not exactly respect the president’s military opinions. In fact, he wasn’t a Lincoln fan at all. “The president is nothing more than a well-meaning baboon,” McClellan said. (He was also known to refer to Lincoln as “the original gorilla.”)
    One night Lincoln walked to McClellan’s house, hoping to have a quick meeting with the general. A servant told Lincoln that McClellan was at a wedding but would be back soon. So Lincoln sat down and waited. About an hour later, McClellan came home and the servant explained that the president was waiting to see him. McClellan shrugged and went upstairs and got into bed. Lincoln sat patiently for another half hour, then asked the servant when McClellan was expected home. McClellan was already home, the servant said—he was