It was a bright blue-skied July day in 1861, so the Washington elite decided to have a picnic and take in a battle. They brought sandwiches and opera glasses to admire the scene of Union recruits, who had signed up for 90-day enlistments, march by in their unblemished uniforms to put the rebels down. But the Confederates at Bull Run had other ideas. They brought reinforcements – and by the afternoon, a rout was on. Union soldiers threw down their weapons and fled, as picnicking senators tried ineffectively to block the road and threatened to shoot deserters. They came out expecting a lark, and instead saw the nation torn asunder. This would not be a 90-day war, after all.
Abraham Lincoln appealed in his inaugural address to the ‘better angels of our nature’, saying: ‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies’
Media networks played up yesterday’s indictment of Donald Trump as a circus.
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