FIRST BLOOD Part Six

I think it was William Tecumseh Sherman who best described Bull Run as, “one of the best-planned battles, but one of the worst fought.” And Sherman knew, since he was a Colonel in General Tyler's division, a spectator on the north side of the stone bridge while the battle raged south of the muddy meandering Bull Run. The fighting began about 9:30 that Sunday morning, 21 July, 1861, as the first federal soldiers wadded across Sudley Springs ford. They were the Second Rhode Island regiment, commanded by the tall, pleasant and amiable 38 year old Ambrose Burnside (above), an example of the Peter Principle a century before its enumeration. Brave, jovial, bright and easy going, he seemed a natural choice for command, but doubted his own competence, and proved it by becoming “obstinate and unimaginative” when given responsibility His men scrambled up the high southern bank of Bull Run in exactly the right place and moment to make Colonel Burnside a general.

Thirty minutes earlier the 1,000 men of General “Shanks” Evans battalion had been guarding the Warenton Turnpike where it crossed over that stone bridge at the northern base of Henry House hill.   Now they were over a mile to the northwest, trying to throw out a skirmish line on the forested northern slope of Mathews' House hill.

Unable to see more than a few yards in any direction, the zouaves of the First Louisiana Volunteers regiment, under Major Chatham Wheat, took a volley of friendly fire from another rebel unit, killing 3 men. Many of these “Tigers” had been “filibusters” in William Walkers' 1857-58 attempt to establish a slave state in Nicaragua. Armies from Costa Rica, Salvador and Honduras had eventually crushed the slavers, and Walker had been hanged in Honduras in September of 1860. But even now the filibusters remained true believers in slavery, and were reforming behind a split rail fence just as Burnside's men moved out of the trees at the top of the embankment.

The first volley fired by Evan's brigade was “A perfect hail storm of bullets, round shot and shell “, according to Rhode Island Private Sam English. But Burnside's men held (above), and after a five minute fire fight, they drove the rebels fell back. Twice more, Evens led his men forward, using the brush and a corn field to disguise his meager force.

After about fifteen minutes, Colonel John Slocum led a New Hampshire and a New York regiment in a general assault. The 5,000 federal troops pushed Even's 1,000 man brigade off the hill top. The retreat was stopped at the bottom  by the shallow creek called Young's branch, or the Chinn Branch.

From atop Henry House Hill, and seeing Major Evans preparing his men for a fourth assault, General Bernard Bee sent a note urging Evans to fall back. Instead Evans asked for help. General Bee gave into the impulse, and ordered his 2,000 man brigade forward, across the Warrenton Pike, splashing through the shallow Young's Branch, and alongside Even's brigade, up Mathew's House hill yet again. “Here is the battlefield,” he told his men, “and we are for it.”

The two sides stood within yards of each other, firing, reloading and firing again, the rebel assault blunted by more of McDowell's left hook climbing up from Sudley Springs ford. There were now close to 10,000 men battling on the Mathews' House Hill, the majority federal. And then, without warning, the rebels found themselves caught in a crossfire as federal troops suddenly appeared at their backs.

During the morning, Colonel William T. Sherman, a spectator on the north side of Bull Run, had seen a Confederate officer easily crossing Bull Run at a spot he noted. It was the hidden Farm ford. Just before noon, when General McDowell authorized Tyler's division to make an assault over the stone bridge (above), Sherman used his initiative to launch his regiment unresisted over his newly discovered ford. When Sherman's men fired into their backs, the rebel line crumpled, the survivors falling back to the crest of Henry House hill. General McDowell now arrived on Mathews' House hill, and ordered his artillery units to begin shelling the rebel positions, while his two divisions reformed for an assault on Henry House hill.

It was at this moment that Generals Beauregard and Johnston arrived on Henry House hill. The “Little Napoleon” began rallying Evan's exhausted soldiers at the crest, while Johnston rode toward the rear, to speed up the arrival of the rest of his Shenandoah battalions. At the same time, Thomas Jackson's 5 Virginia regiments arrived. But instead of forming on the crest of the hill with the others,  Jackson formed his men just behind the crest and ordered them to lay down. Using the hill to protect his men from the federal cannon fire, was a trick the Duke of Wellington had used to defeat the real Napoleon at Waterloo.

Seeing McDowell pushing forward almost 9,000 men toward Henry House hill, a desperate General Bee urged Jackson to advance his brigade forward. But unlike Bee, Jackson stayed right where he was.

Bee complained to his staff, “Look, there stands Jackson.  Like a stone wall”. Without Jackson's support the rest of the rebel flank began to give in the face of the advancing federal infantry. 

Then, just before stepping into effective musket range, McDowell ordered his men to halt, and brought forward two batteries of cannon, the 5^th U.S. artillery under Major Charles Griffin and the 1^st U.S. artillery under James Ricketts, to blast the rebel line, point blank.

The gunners positioned themselves with blue coated infantry to guard their flanks. As the 11 federal guns began firing across 300 yards at the 13 cannon supporting Jackson's brigade, the blue coated troops on one of the federal gunner's flank suddenly let loose a murderous volley on the gunners. (above) They were in fact 250 blue coated men of Arthur Cumming's 33^rd Virginia regiment, part of Jackson's brigade. At Cumming's command, his troops then charged the federal guns. Almost 50 of the rebels died in the assault, and almost half were wounded. But the federal battery was captured and turned on the federal line when Jackson's entire brigade stood and began returning the federal volleys. The federals charged, retook the guns, then lost them again, then retook them a third time. But the rebel battle line had stabilized alongside Jackson.

Rushing back and forth across his weakening battle line, Beauregard kept his men shooting. Then he saw the end approaching – more federal troops coming in on his left. General Beauregard was about to order a general retreat.

But the advancing troops were in fact the final Shenandoah brigades, part of Kirby Smith's battalion, and Jubal Early's from over on the rebel left. Together they were able to outflank the federal troops, and Beauregard ordered a general advance.

Under pressure across the line, the federal left began to crumble, and with Tyler refusing or unable to feed any more troops over the narrow stone bridge, General McDowell ordered a withdrawal.

The federal retreat was brilliantly handled at first. There was some panic when a rebel artillery shell landed on the bridge over Chub Run, and among the Washington elite who had gone forward to watch the fight, but in truth the image of a panic (above) has been greatly exaggerated. The exhausted federal troops could not be stopped at Centerville, but that was because the reserves were too weak to protect the retreating men. But the federal army largely stayed in good order, covered by Colonel Sherman's regiment. And the rebels were in no condition themselves to make the bad federal position, any worse.

It had been the bloodiest day in American history to date. There were 460 federal soldiers dead on the field, and over 1,100 wounded, many of whom would later die. Worse, there were 1,300 missing or taken prisoner. Confederate losses were about 390 killed, 1,500 wounded and just 13 missing. In terms of blood, the battle had been pretty much a draw. And by later battles the cost had been low. But this was only the first blood, the first major battle of a war that was too soon dwarf  the effort this day. 

The hero of the battle was clearly Colonel Thomas Jackson (above),  hereafter known as “Stonewall Jackson”. The accusation became an honor in large part because General Bee, who uttered it, was dead on Henry House hill.

On the federal side the villain was equally clear – General Robert Patterson (above). He was supposed to have held Johnston's men in the Shenandoah Valley. He did not. It could have been he could not. But as early as 19 July, the day after the “battle” of Blackburn's ford, and two days before the battle of Bull Run, Winfield Scott had ordered Patterson back to Harpers Ferry, and relieved him of command. Scott already knew, and McDowell already knew on that date,  that Johnston's 10,000 men were heading for Manassas Junction. But the approaching loss of the 90 day militia made the battle of Bull Run mandatory. And the north had come very close to winning it despite Johnston's reinforcement of Beauregard

The “Little Napoleon”, General Gustave Toutant Beauregard (above), was hailed as the hero of the Battle of Manassas Junction – Confederates always named their battles after the nearest town, the union after the nearest river. But within a few weeks Beauregard had so insulted President Jefferson Davis and his fellow officers, the Little Napoleon would be transferred first to the west, and later out of the war entirely. The man who sent the warning of the federal flanking movement, Captain Edward Porter Alexander, would come to command all artillery in the rebel Army of Northern Virginia, and conduct the largest bombardment of the war, on the afternoon of the third day at Gettysburg, preparing the way for the doomed Picket's charge.

Of the union veterans of Bull Run – the federal fight – William T. Sherman (above) would end the war, having carved his name across the deep south, all the way from Atlanta, Georgia, to North Carolina. 

Ambrose Burnside would lend his name to the fuzz on his cheeks – sideburns- and had already designed the standard cavalry carbine used during the last 2 years of the war, although he would not profit from it. But promoted to the his level of incompetence, over all commander of the federal Army of the Potomac, he would be most remembered as man who pointlessly sacrificed thousands of federal lives at Fredricksburg. 

And Major Charles Griffin (above), the man who lost his battery at Bull Run, would rise to the rank of Major General, and be a witness at Appomattox Court House when Robert E. Lee would surrender the rebel army of Northern Virginia , and end the war.

Rose O'Neal Greenhow, the pro-slavery fanatic, would be arrested in Washington for betraying McDowell's plans. At the end of May 1862 she would be handed over to the Confederacy.  Jefferson Davis welcomed her in Richmond, and credited her with winning the battle, in part because it downplayed Beauregard's efforts. But then what to do with her? He shipped her to Europe, where she attempted to convince the Europeans that slavery was not evil. Much of the royalty, who did not think much of their own people, welcomed her. But the disapproval of the working classes prevented the blue bloods from doing more than inviting her to parties, and buying her book.

In September 1864, the lady was returning home. Outside of Wilmington, North Carolina, the last open harbor in the rebel south, her ship ran aground, and Rose insisted on setting out for shore in a row boat. The boat over turned and Rose Greenhow, the queen of antebellum Washington society, disappeared beneath the waves. Her body washed up on shore the next morning. She had been pulled under by the $2,000 in gold she had carried sewn into her dress, earned for her white-washed defense of the indefensible

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FIRST BLOOD Part Five

 

I would have thought the bubble for the flamboyant General Gustave Toutant Beauregard would have popped just after five, on Sunday morning, 21 July, 1861, when a federal artillery shell smashed into his headquarters, It had been hit 3 days before, by federal guns covering the union retreat from Blackburn's ford, ruining Beauregard's dinner. And now another 12 pound ball crashed his breakfast, almost killing his Spanish valet. This second shot ought to have proved two things to Beauregard – first, that it was past time to move his headquarters, and second, that federal troops were no longer passively waiting for Beauregard's coup de main. But in spite of this second rude warning, the little general retained his surplus of self confidence.

It had been a very busy year for Beauregard. In January, “The Little Napoleon” had been named superintendent of West Point. Five days later,when the appointment was withdrawn, Beauregard took offense, even tho there was never a chance he would stay in the job. He spent the next two years trying to get the government he had just betrayed to reimburse him for the train ticket to New York he had never used. Beauregard was again offended when he was not named commander of his native Louisiana's new Confederate army. In a snit he enlisted as private in “The Orleans Guards”, an aristocratic militia unit. Confederate President Jefferson Davis rescued Beauregard from his own ego, by making him Confederate commander of Charleston, South Carolina.

His many admirers said the 42 year old Beauregard worked so tirelessly to strengthen the harbor defenses that his hair turned white. Others, who knew him well, suggested the hostilities had cut off his supply of hair dye. But in April it was Beauregard who accepted the surrender of Fort Sumter, and he became a hero to the entire Confederacy. July found “Old Borey”, as the 21,000 men under his command called him, doing his very best to live up to his growing reputation for arrogance and to give his savior an ulcer.

Amazingly, after scaring the entire Confederate chain of command with a mere twitch on  18 July, Irwin McDowell's 35,000 man federal army at Centerville went somnambulant for 48 hours, oblivious while trains carrying the lead units of Joe Johnston's 10,000 man army staggered into Manassas Junction. By the morning of Sunday,21 July, 1861, the numerical odds in northeastern Virginia were just about equal. Despite this, Jeff Davis thought Beauregard's planned offensive, little short of insane.

The Little Napoleon intended on throwing half his army (12,000 men) across Bull Run at Union Mill, to drive past McDowell's left, and fall upon Centerville, isolating the federal army, and dictating peace terms from Arlington Heights, overlooking Washington, D.C.. President Davis did not know that McDowell had already dealt with that threat, on 19 July, sending 5.500 men back to Fairfax Court House, where they could easily out flank Beauregard 's out flanking maneuver. But Davis did know the Confederates had just enough ammunition for one big fight, and no logistics to support an advance. Davis tried to discourage Beauregard without offending the famously easily offended creole.  Unfortunately, Beauregard already despised Davis. "The curse of God must have been on our people when we chose him...” Beauregard wrote of his superior and savior. Despite his breakfast clue of a cannon ball, Beauregard still insisted upon launching his assault.

General Richard Ewell got the first of his 5 Virginia regiments across Union ford on the rebel right, as the federal artillery was opening fire. General David Jones was ready to follow with 3 more regiments, and behind him was General Longstreet with 4 more. The Virginians shoved aside the cavalry skirmishers, and pushed north on the empty road. McDowell was duly informed of the assault, and glad to hear of it. By the time Ewell got to the west bound road leading to Centerville, the federal army would be in Manassas Junction. Luckily for Beauregard, orders for Ewell to halt and withdraw arrived within half an hour of his crossing Bull Run. .The only problem was, no correction arrived for General Jones, who kept going and found himself on the north side of Bull Run, advancing all by himself.

The new orders had been issued by Joe Johnston (above), who was junior to Beauregard, but twice as smart and half as arrogant. And when he saw reports from Longstreet saying that Federal General Daniel Tyler's division seemed to be getting ready to attack the north side of the stone bridge that carried the Warrenton Turnpike over Bull Run, Johnston had ordered Ewell to get back south of Bull Run, fast. General Beauregard was suspicious at first, but held off countermanding the order until he received an appraisal of Tyler's intentions from the observation post 358 feet up Signal Hill knob. And that delay gave Beauregard enough time to become a military genius.

At about 8:45 that Sunday morning, to the west of Manassas Junction on the rebel right, Captain Edward Porter Alexander (above)  was watching through a spy class Tyler's movements 8 miles to the north, on the rebel left. It was obvious to him that Tyler had no real intention of launching an assault. But before he could tell Beaurgard that,  out the corner of his eye,  Alexander saw a glint of a brass cannon in the sunlight, and the sparkle of thousands of muskets moving toward Sudley Springs, further beyond the rebel left. Alexander sent a flag message to his operator at the Stone Bridge, “Look out for your left, your position is turned." He then followed that up with a note alerting Beauregard: “I see a body of troops crossing Bull Run about two miles above the Stone Bridge...I can see both infantry and artillery.”

Federal muskets were glinting in the sun only because McDowell's army had not yet learned how to march on a battle field. At 2:30 that morning a battalion each under Generals David Hunter and Samuel Heintzelman, 12,000 men in all,  marched south on the Warrenton Pike from Centerville. In the predawn blackness, just after crossing a bridge over Cub Run, they ran into the rear of General Tyler's 8,000 man division, which was stumbling forward to threaten the stone bridge over Bull Run. What followed was an exhausting two hours of standing, marching and counter marching before the flanking battalions could reach the Sudley Springs cross roads, and get clear of the mess. The delay meant Tyler's men were demonstrating for 3 ½ hours in front of the Warrenton Pike stone bridge, before Hunter's division even began crossing Bull Run at Sudley Springs at about 9:30. Which left them out in the open to be seen from Signal Hill by Captain Alexander.

The left flank of the rebel army rested on the stone bridge carrying the Warrenton Turnpike over Bull Run. It consisted of 1,000 men and a battery of artillery, commanded by the hard drinking, knock-kneed General Nathan “Shanks” Evans (above). And after reading Alexander's message, and matching it with his own assessment, Evans acted boldly. 

He left 4 companies to guard the Stone Bridge (above), and led the rest of his brigade on a forced march to the north, first over Henry House Hill and then to Mathew's House hill. As always, Evens was accompanied by an aide, who carried on his back a small barrel of Even's favorite whiskey.

Even also sent word six miles back to Manassas Junction, demanding immediate reinforcement, where it found the rebel brigades from the Shenandoah Valley - the newly arrived 800 South Carolinans under General Bernard Bee, and the 1,000 Georgians under Colonel Francis Bartow. These two brigades began an immediate force march toward the Henry House Hill,  followed by Colonel Thomas Jackson's brigade of Virginians.

It was not yet 10 a.m., Sunday, 21 July, 1861, and the first great battle of the American Civil was about to begin in earnest. And having shown himself to be a delusional commander, Gustave Toutant Beauregard was about to prove to be a great leader.

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FIRST BLOOD Part Four

I consider the “Marne Taxis” the second most innovative experiment in the history of military transport. On the night of 7 September, 1914 about 1,000 Renault taxicabs and their drivers were requisitioned off the streets of Paris to transport 6 thousand soldiers 31 miles, where they arrived just in time to stop the German march on Paris and save France. This desperate measure also produced two odd facts. In feeding the cab drivers, twenty refused their wine ration – an almost unbelievable 0.02% of Frenchmen were actually oenophobes. The second odd fact was that paying off the meters, which were kept running, cost the French tax payers only about 70,000 francs - proving that Parisians never tip. The greatest innovative experiment in military transport came on 18 July, 1861, at the little railroad station of Piedmont Station, Virginia on the Manassas Gap Railroad, when for the first time in history an army was transported by rail directly to a battlefield. And this one also produced two odd facts.

It all began with Jefferson Davis' desperate telegram to Joe Johnston, on 18 July, 1861- “General Beauregard is attacked; to strike the enemy a decisive blow, a junction of all your effective force will be needed.” The attack by General Tyler's division might have been a farce, originally intended as a feint. But the crises for the Confederacy of the slave states was real. Outnumbered two to one in both theaters, the rebellion could survive only if the two rebel armies could combine against one of the federal armies. But from Winchester, to Manassas Junction was 60 miles. A forced march by road would take four to five days. The troops would arrive exhausted, spread out and with substantial loses to straggling. And the federals could probably match that march. But at his headquarters in Winchester, General Johnston had what he hoped was a better idea.

Johnston sent his chief engineer, Major W.H.C. Whiting, to the closest Manassas Gap Railroad connection - Piedmont station. His orders were to find if  “trains, capable of transporting the troops to their destination more quickly than they were likely to reach it on foot, could be provided there."  Whitting reported back that MGRR president Edward Marshall promised his railroad could transport Johnston's entire 11,000 man army to Manassas Junction in just 24 hours. However the supply wagons and artillery would have to go by road, since he had no rail cars capable of carrying them.

Johnson now called out the local militia to hold Winchester, while his army maneuvered. He also left behind his 1,700 sick men, unfit for duty. If federal General Patterson had moved against Winchester any time between the 18 and 24 July, he would have faced around 3,000 barely trained and badly armed old men and boys, and sick and wounded soldiers, with little artillery support. Even General Patterson, with just 6,000 men left after the 90 day Yankee volunteers had all gone home, could have captured Winchester. But he never tried.

The first to step off was Duncan's Kentucky Battalion, members now of Colonel Thomas Jackson's brigade. Private J.W. Brown wrote to his father, "We broke up camp at Winchester, Va. on the 18^th... and made a forced march, marching all day and all night, of thirty miles...” In fact they left after noon, and marched only 17 miles from Winchester to Ashby's Gap. The 1,000 foot pass through the Blue Ridge mountains, was a toll road and paved. It had been named after Thomas Ashby, who founded the village of Paris at the eastern end of the gap.  Jackson's brigade arrived there after dark, having marched 17 miles in 14 hours. Jackson then let his men catch some sleep in a field south of Paris.

Joe Johnston and his staff rode on the 7 miles on to Piedmont station that night, to discover there were no cars waiting and just one sad locomotive. It turned out the Manassas Gap Railroad had only one engine, and the engineers told the frustrated general that it would take 8 hours to make the 30 mile round trip to deliver just one 2,000 man brigade, and return for a second. It appeared railroad president Marshall was a true executive, well versed in schmoozing bankers and investors, but who had no idea how to actually run his railroad.  Johnston contained his anger, and set about assembling every box and passenger car he could find. 

When Jackson's men arrived about 6 a.m the next morning, 19 July, they found a train ready and waiting, with steam up in the engine. And the entire neighborhood had assembled to greet them. It was, according to soldier John Casler, “a regular picnic with plenty to eat, lemonade to drink, and beautiful young ladies to chat with" .  It would remain a romantic image for the next 150 years.

By 8 a.m. Jackson and his men (short the 33^rd Virginia regiment, which had to wait for the next train) were loaded, and the train roared off at 8 miles an hour -  30 minutes to Rectortown,  21/2 hours to Broad Run, 3 hours to Gainsville and 4 ½ hours to Manassas Junction, stopping at every station to refuel, add water and oil the engine.

The return trip, running empty, took about an hour less, and the little engine that could arrived back in Piedmont Station about 3 p.m.. It was quickly reloaded with more troops and set out for the second trip. By now Johnston had scrounged up a second engine, one of the half dozen liberated from the Baltimore and Ohio shops in Martinsburgh, and smashed together another train, which he sent off about five that evening.

This third run carried the 7^th and 8^th Georgia regiments. Private W.A.Evans would recall later, “I thought the top of the car would be the best place...But soon the heated metal and boards, supplemented with cinders and smoke from the engine, caused me to want to be inside the car. So at the first station I swung down and entered. I thought of the "black hole of Calcutta" and began to think my time had come - not from Yankee bullets, but from choking suffocation. I felt that I was being cooked alive...I slept some, of course, but was waked up every few minutes...by rude jolts as we backed or went into a side track to get out of the way of an approaching train.”

The approaching train was the returning little engine, empty again. And when it pulled into Piedmont Station, at about 10 p.m., Friday, 19 July, it found even more eager troops ready to load. Instead the exhausted train crews went home to get some sleep. Joe Johnston was apoplectic, but while the engineer and crew slept, the engine was probably serviced, as was the additional engine, spending the night in Manassas Junction. Rebel commanders were unfamiliar with the limitations of railroad equipment and expected it to work miracles, when it fact it had already done just that. The first amazing fact about this experiment in military transport was that in one day,  about 6,000 men - half of Johnston's army -  had been delivered 50 miles to the battle field. They had no artillery, or supply trains, but you can't have everything.

Saturday morning, 20, July the men of the 8^th Georgia infantry regiment, remembered “the good ladies who furnished our breakfast and filled our haversacks.” But the hospitality of Piedmont Station had by now run low. Mrs. William Randolph complained, “ The soldiers...have eaten up everything I have in the house, and still they keep coming."  That night, the last train carrying the 10^th Virginian regiment left Piedmont Station about 3 a.m, filled with exhausted, hungry men, who had seen no romantic examples of southern womanhood offering succor.

These men had not eaten since leaving Winchester, and the engine was now traveling barely 5 miles per hour, because of wear and tear to the roadbed. At one water stop the hungry soldiers spotted blackberry's in a nearby field. McHenry Howard was among those who could not resist. “I heard a voice exclaiming furiously, 'If I had a sword I would cut you down where your stand,' and raising my eyes I beheld the crowd scatting for the cars before an officer striding up from the rear.” The officer turned out to be a tired and frustrated General Kirby Smith. “...he came up close and glared at me, thinking he was going to strike me and wondering what I would do, and when he turned off I was glad to regain my position on the car top.”

Shortly after resuming its journey, the train derailed. The crash was likely caused simply by the wear on the track and the wheels, never meant to carry this volume and these weights, and having been badly maintained for years by a company always operating near bankruptcy. No one was killed because the crews had been running at a reduced speed. But the soldiers had little doubt it was sabotage. According to W.A. Brown, “Some body tore up the track on Saturday night which had to be relaid...” Henry McDaniel of the 9^th Georgia was clearer. “An engineer caused a collision of the trains on Saturday and that kept us out of the fight. He was afterward shot. He was a northern man." And W.A.Gus Evans contended it was a conductor who was “court martialed and shot, charged with bribery by the court and intentionally producing the collision...”

It seems likely that someone, a civilian conductor or an engineer, working for the Manassas Gap railroad was dragged before a kangaroo court, tried, convicted and shot that Saturday. And it seems likely that if the unfortunate victim had intended to cause damage, he would made certain the train was running faster when it was run off the rails, or sooner, before all but the last brigade of Joe Johnston's army had reached Manassas Junction. But the soldiers were weary, after a long forced march, with no food and little water. They were frustrated with the delays, lack of sleep, and they were not thinking clearly. They were also suspicious of the mechanics and their mechanical world that was destroying the economic viability of slavery. And it seems likely that on 20 July, 1861, they struck out in anger at the only part of the north they could reach at that moment.

Non one seems to have recorded the name of the officer who ordered the railroad man's death. The rebel victory on the 23 July laid bare the paranoia behind the act, and it seems likely the officer responsible was no longer proud of his action. This was the second odd truth the southern cavaliers would learn over the next four bloody years. Never start a war. Ever. Besides killing people, and destroying lives, it puts far too much power in the hands of tired, frightened and and angry average people, who will then do things they will regret for the rest of their lives.

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