0:01 [SPEAKER_01]: The first Battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Fort Sumger, off the coast of South Carolina in early April 1861. 0:08 [SPEAKER_01]: A week later, something like a battle erupted in the streets of Baltimore during the Pratt Street riots. 0:17 [SPEAKER_01]: When Union soldiers faced off with a gang of Southern sympathizers during their march to the city. 0:23 [SPEAKER_01]: Four Union soldiers and twelve citizens were killed in the shooting. 0:28 [SPEAKER_01]: The next clash was a gory three-man skirmish, in a staircase in a Virginian hotel, the Marshall Inn, one month later in May. 0:38 [SPEAKER_01]: One of the combatants was a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, who believed he was doing the president a personal favor by removing a confederate flag from the top of the building. 0:51 [SPEAKER_01]: He was killed by a double barrel shotgun blast to the center of his chest at a distance of a few inches. 0:59 [SPEAKER_01]: he died almost instantly. 1:01 [SPEAKER_01]: The man wielding the shotgun. 1:03 [SPEAKER_01]: The owner of the Marshall Inn, the secessionist James W. Jackson, was himself then shot in the face, at equally close range before being bayoneted, repeatedly, in the smokey aftermath of the first two shots, with such force that his body was propelled to the bottom of a flight of stairs. 1:26 [SPEAKER_01]: The lone survivor, private Francis Brownell, had ducked a shot from Jackson before killing him and knocking him to the landing below. 1:35 [SPEAKER_01]: If historians were to formally name this high casualty encounter, where two-thirds of all participants died, they might call it the Battle of Marshall's Landing, or the slaughter at the staircase. 1:48 [SPEAKER_01]: As it is, it's a footnote in history, forgotten by all, but the buffest of civil war buffs. 1:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, to qualify as a true battle, you need more than just three combatants. 2:01 [SPEAKER_01]: But there's a real sense in which this event is symbolic of the war itself. 2:07 [SPEAKER_01]: The South won early, the North won late, and at great cost do largely to its superior manpower and industry. 2:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Even the lowering of the Confederate flag represents the ultimate conclusion of the war, the surrender of Richmond, and the removal of that banner from all government buildings. 2:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Two months after the slaughter at the staircase, the battle of bull run would claim the lives of more than a thousand Americans. 2:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And over the next four years, a million more would die before the fighting ended. 2:41 [SPEAKER_01]: But in May of 1861, the only official casualty in the war had been the accidental death of a union soldier, standing too close to a cannon that fired prematurely during a 100-gun 2:59 [SPEAKER_01]: following the surrender of Fort Sumter to Confederate forces. 3:03 [SPEAKER_01]: The Battle of Fort Sumter itself have been bloodless. 3:07 [SPEAKER_01]: As high as tensions were, American on American killing in the war of Session was still more of an impossible nightmare than a real world concern. 3:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Most Americans still expected a short and relatively harmless war. 3:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember when the first battle of Bohr run began, two months later in July, the wrongs of spectators gathered around the edge of the battlefield, almost as if it were a sporting arena. 3:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Many of those in attendance actually brought picnic baskets to watch the drama unfold, dozens of members of Congress attended, and of course, food vendors were there to make a buck off those who hadn't brought enough to eat or drink. 3:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Any official violence in the name of the union, 3:51 [SPEAKER_01]: was a jarring reversal of popular expectations. 3:54 [SPEAKER_01]: So when Jackson killed Osworth and Brownell killed Jackson in an anonymous staircase in Alexandria, the nation took notice. 4:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Ellsworth was a union officer who had worked for Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, before following him to Washington. 4:10 [SPEAKER_01]: When Lincoln put out a call for volunteer troops following the surrender of Fort Sumter, Ellsworth did him one better. 4:17 [SPEAKER_01]: He formed an entire regiment of 1100 soldiers, called the first fire Zuhovs. 4:23 [SPEAKER_01]: or the Ellsworth Zoo-Obs, and known formally as the 11th New York Volunteer Infantry, with their flashy, French-inspired uniforms, and elaborate drilling exhibitions. 4:35 [SPEAKER_01]: The Zoo-Obs became a national sensation, and Ellsworth was soon a minor celebrity, having gathered and drilled his regiment, largely consisting of volunteer firemen into shape he brought them to Washington to meet his old friend Lincoln. 4:48 [SPEAKER_01]: But on his way into town, the Colonel spotted a Confederate flag, atop the Marshall Inn, in nearby Alexandria. 4:55 [SPEAKER_01]: When he learned this flag was visible, with field glasses from nearby Washington DC, and that Lincoln and his cabinet had been tracking it from a distance, he insisted on taking it down. 5:05 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I was worth cross-backed over the Potomac, into Virginia, with seven of his men, to take matters into his own hands. 5:13 [SPEAKER_01]: It was like a miniature seven-man invasion with a very specific, very small objective. 5:19 [SPEAKER_01]: What else worth did not know is that the owner of the inn had already declared the flag would be removed only over his dead body. 5:27 [SPEAKER_01]: As it happens, a news correspondent happened to be staying at the hotel and gave a eyewitness account of the scene as it unfolded. 5:35 [SPEAKER_01]: This appeared in the June 8, 1861 issue of Harper's Weekly, an American political magazine based in New York City. 5:46 [SPEAKER_01]: The article describes the small troop of union soldiers reaching the roof, and Ellsworth personally removing the flag from its position atop the martial end, then turning back immediately to leave. 5:57 [SPEAKER_01]: All at the eyewitness, Mr. House, take it from here. 6:01 [SPEAKER_00]: We at once turned to descend, private Bronel leading the way, and Colonel Ellsworth immediately following him with the flag. 6:08 [SPEAKER_00]: As Bronel reached the first landing place after a descent of a dozen steps, a man jumped out of a dark passage, and hardly noticing the private, leveled a double barrel guns squared at the Colonel's breast. 6:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Bronel made a quick pass to turn the weapon aside, but the fellow's hand was firm, and he discharged one barrel straight to its aim. 6:31 [SPEAKER_00]: entering the Colonel's heart and killing him in an instant. 6:34 [SPEAKER_00]: I think my hand was resting on poor Elzworth's shoulder at the moment. 6:38 [SPEAKER_00]: At any rate, he seemed to fall almost from my grasp. 6:41 [SPEAKER_00]: He was on the second or third step from the landing, and he dropped forward with a heavy, horrible, headlong weight, which almost comes of sudden death inflicted in this manner. 6:51 [SPEAKER_00]: His assailant had turned like a flash to give the contents of the other barrel to Braun El. 6:56 [SPEAKER_00]: But he could not command his aim, where the Jewav was too quick for him, for the slugs would over his head, and passed through a nearby door, which sheltered some sleeping lodgers. 7:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Simultaneously, with the second shot and sounding like the echo of the first, Browning's rifle was heard, and the assassin staggered backward. 7:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He was hit exactly in the middle of the face, and the wound. 7:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, in the smoke, Browning did not know how fatal his shot had been, so, before the man dropped, he thrust his saber bay and net through and through the body. 7:33 [SPEAKER_00]: The force of the blow sending the dead man violently down the upper section of the second flood of stairs, at the foot of which he lay with his face to the floor. 7:42 [SPEAKER_01]: Having killed Jackson, Brownel quickly reloaded, and shouldered his musket to confront any possible conspirators, before realizing Jackson had acted alone. 7:54 [SPEAKER_00]: The first thing to be done was to look to our dead friend and leader. 7:58 [SPEAKER_00]: He had fallen on his face, and the streams of blood that flowed from his wound had literally flooded the way. 8:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The chaplain turned him over gently, and a stooped and called his name aloud, at which 8:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I presume I was mistaken, and I'm not sure that he spoke a word after being struck. 8:18 [SPEAKER_00]: It might have been Bronel, or the chaplain who was close behind him. 8:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Windsor and I lifted the body with all the care we could apply and laid it upon a bed in a room nearby. 8:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The rebel flag, stained with his blood and purified by this contact from the baseless of its former meaning, we laid about his feet. 8:43 [SPEAKER_00]: for all parts of his coat were equally saturated with blood. 8:46 [SPEAKER_00]: By cautiously loosening his belt and unbuttinging his coat, we found where the shot had penetrated, and saw that all hope must be resigned. 8:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Elzworth's personal fame made his death national news, and he was immediately memorialized as a martyr to the union cause. 9:03 [SPEAKER_01]: The stairway where he died became a kind of shrine for tourists, who carried away pieces of it for souvenirs. 9:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Remember Elzworth was a northern battle cry for the early months of the war, and towns in West Constant, Michigan, Iowa and Kansas were named for him. 9:20 [SPEAKER_01]: as well as Fort Ellsworth in Washington, D.C., poems and songs were written, one of which appeared in the same Harper's Weekly article, it's titled, A Battle Him, For Ellsworth Zuos. 9:47 [SPEAKER_00]: for every veil and hill, one response all heart shall thrill. 9:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Elzworth's fame is with us still. 9:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Nare to pass away. 9:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Bring that rebel banaloe, hoisted by a treacherous foe, twuzz for that they dealt the blow, laid him in the dust. 10:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Razaloft, that all may see his loved flag of liberty, forward then to victory, or perish if we must. 10:11 [SPEAKER_00]: Hark, to what Columbia sayeth, 10:16 [SPEAKER_00]: with each patriot's dying breath strength renewed is given to the cause of truth and right to the land for which they fight after darkness come at the light such the law of heaven. 10:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So we name him not in vain though he comes not back again. 10:35 [SPEAKER_00]: For his country he was slain, Elzworth's blood shall rise. 10:40 [SPEAKER_00]: To a gracious savior king, his a holy gift we bring, such a sacred offering, God will not despise. 10:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, Abraham Lincoln was deeply wounded by the death of his friend and called him quote, the greatest little man I ever met. 10:58 [SPEAKER_01]: Ellsworth was five foot six, Lincoln six foot four. 11:03 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll leave you with a brief selection from another popular tribute to Lincoln's little friend, called Brave Men, Behold Your Fall in Chief. 11:12 [SPEAKER_01]: The audio quality isn't great, and the singing is not professional. 11:16 [SPEAKER_01]: It's more the style you'd have heard in northern pubs and ends in the weeks leading up to the first battle of Bull Run. 12:00 [UNKNOWN]: Thank you. 12:37 [UNKNOWN]: Thanks for watching!
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