On this day in 1861 in the second major battle of the American Civil War, Union forces are crushed by Confederate troops. President Abraham Lincoln would suffer a double blow when the world reached Washington that his close friend Edward Baker had been killed during the battle. How close a friend was he to the POTUS? The Lincoln’s had named one of their sons for him. Lincoln was  in tears when he heard the news.

The war had started off badly for the Union. This battle was a massacre. The Union forces came into the battle with 1720 men and suffered around a thousand casualties.