From Bull Run to Appomattox

   The American Civil War was a watershed in our nation's history. It redefined the character of the United States and sent the population of the South reeling, especially people like Wilmer McClean, who always seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
   Wilmer McClean was one of the more prosperous residents of Manassas Junction, Virginia, in July of 1861, when the Northern and Southern armies began to gather around his place. His 1,400-acre plantation straddled Bull Run, so the Confederates occupied his house and used it as its headquarters in this, the first real, full-fledged battle of the Civil War.
   After the first battle of Bull Run, McClean sold his farm and moved further west, out of the line of fire between the two contending armies. He assured his family that "the sounds of battle would never again reach them" in their new home.
   In the meantime, battle followed battle: Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and hundreds of others. For four years Billy Yank and Johnny Reb pounded each other, and as they did, they got closer and closer to Wilmer McClean 's new home.
   Finally in April, of 1865, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Grant's Army of the Potomac faced each other, and where do you think they were? Somehow the center of this horrific conflict, which began at his Bull Run farm four years earlier, had sought McClean out and found him once more. The Union and Rebel forces were camped once again, almost in his front yard.
   On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, and since they were so close, the combatants took over McClean's home once again---to agree upon and sign the terms of the capitulation. When he left his home on Bull Run to find that safe haven from the ravages of war, McClean settled near Appomattox Courthouse, never dreaming that he was jumping from the frying pan into the fire.