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Volume Two
1862: Very Bloody Affair
It is eight months after Bull Run, and 1,000,000 men are massing along a 1,000-mile front.
Washington is a mad-house with hordes of opportunists jostling for advantage - "too many
pigs for the teats," Lincoln observes dryly. General George McClellan, an able organizer
but hesitant warrior, slowly leads his huge Army of the Potomac up the Virginia Peninsula
toward the Confederate capital of Richmond. But when he encounters only a tiny Confederate
force, he halts and digs in; even Lincoln cannot budge him. To the West, however, a different
sort of general, Ulysses S. Grant, meets the south's Albert S. Johnston in a battle called
Shiloh: a Hebrew word meaning "place of peace". For two days 100,000 men slam viciously into
each other. At the end, the Union holds the field, and 23,000 soldiers have fallen: the same
as at Waterloo. And there are another 20 Waterloos to come.
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