It’s the Boston Marathon today, the granddaddy of American Marathons. I salute all those who are running. I never got close to a time that would qualify for entry in the field when I could still run 26.2 miles, but I am proud that I ran seven of those races. Or at least I am when the weather doesn’t tell me about the crushed and shredded cartilige in my knees. There are other long-distance events in progress elsewhere in the world.

Jay Garner, the retired Lieutenant General and minister plenipotentiary for reconstruction, arrived in Baghdad this morning. His presence is already playing to mixed reviews, if the commentary by English-speaking Iraqis is to be believed. But I don’t. Let’s take it as an article of faith that if he can get the lights on and the economy functioning again he will be tolerated until we can serve up something more palatable. The Marines have pulled out of town and turned things over to the Third Infantry Division, since the Army has a much broader civil affairs and military police capability. The press claims they have a much lower profile than the Marines did. Maybe that is smart. We also have a couple Congressman in Damascus, telling young President Assad that he cannot harbor fugitive Iraqi leaders. I expect he is nodding, counting the days until the troop level in the region goes down again. They report the border is closed, though others say it was open yesterday. This is the Middle East, after all.

Hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims are on the road this morning, traveling on foot to the holy city of Karbala for Ashura ceremonies that start on Tuesday. These were banned under Saddam Hussein. The ceremonies The ceremonies include men whipping themselves with chains, flagellating themselves and scourging the flesh. They do this as an expression of mourning for the Shia leader, Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was killed at Karbala by treachery in the year 680. With his death began the great Islamic schism between Sunnis and Shiites.

I have friends who have lived in places like Bahrain, where the Shias are in the majority, and they say Ashura is is pretty colorful. They don’t view this as entertainment for the unbelievers, and the two days are a good time to keep your head down. I expect there is every opportunity for this to turn into anti-American protests, since the chief of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, has called on the faithful to reject the United States presence.

We have some challenges as we permit the free exercise of religion, something that the old regime did not do. One thing we apparently do not intend to extend to the Iraqis is the Second Amendment. A US Army spokesman said with some exasperation that the local schools might no be able to open again until September, based on the volume of munitions Saddam stored in the schools. Some senior figures involved in his chemical weapons program are saying that weapons were destroyed only days before the war. I shudder to think what might have happened if the Baathists had held their children as hostage in the schools and polluted their nation with chemicals to try to stop the inevitable.

I’m glad the fall of Baghdad was not like the occupation of Masada, where the Maccabis decided to die en mass rather than submit to Rome. I’m glad all we are getting is some irritation about the air conditioning not coming back on fast enough, and that we are permitting them to worship at Karabala for the first time in thirty years. I am optimistic that things will work out. Stranger things have happened. I saw an example last weekend.

We were driving back from Hunt Country. It was a superior day, bright and clear. We had looked at some sights and were headed toward the junction with Route 15 to head south toward Aldie. The new developments sprawl over what had been farmland outside of the county seat at Leesburg. If you follow the Pike out of town- Route 7, we call it now, there is a sign at one of the lights. There are strip malls on either side of the junction and you can get just about anything you need. There is a Ruby Tuesday restaurant, or maybe it is an Applebees or something. This was farmland not so long ago. There is one of those “Civil War Trails” signs with the bugle and stars. There is another sign, too, and it says that the Balls Bluff regional park is located back at the end of the sub-division.

We drove past some basketball backstops and guys washing their SUVs and over a gigantic pothole that smashed the convertible’s front wheel. Then we were in the trees and a little parking lot. We wandered down a trail in the woods and presently were standing on the edge of the high hill over the placid Potomac. On the other side of the river were the green fields of Maryland. It was stunningly beautiful and a little scary, because in the fall of 1861 a couple thousand Union troops crossed the river in boats and climbed up the nearly sheer face of the Bluff. Their goal, under the guidance of the Little General McClellan, was to take Leesburg and demonstrate a success after the debacle at Manassass. The President was eager for a victory.

As it turned out, it was another debacle. The intelligence was bad. A reported rebel camp of thirty tents turned out to actually be haystacks. When the Confederates under Colonel Nathan “Shanks” Evans found out the Yankees were on the Virginia side of the river they swarmed out of Leesburg, down the Pike, and pushed the invaders back across a little field. Then they charged with bayonets and ball they threw them down the eighty-foot rocky bluff and captured hundreds of them on the narrow bank of the river far below. Several dozens were slaughtered where they stood and hundreds more Yankees drowned trying to swim or paddle logs back to Maryland. Union dead floated down-river to Washington. One story holds that a body floated past Washington and was recovered at Mount Vernon.

There is a quaint little military cemetery on the property with eighteen graves. The Stars and Bars hung limply from the flagstaff over the graves, two of which were Union troops found on the field the year after the battle. Sort of an odd thing, but this is a Virginia regional park, after all, and no one has gotten around to making a big deal about it.

In the great sweep of what was going to rend the nation in that awful war this was not more than a small engagement. But coming when it did, right at the beginning, and as a second triumph of Confederate arms, it was a huge deal far out of proportion to the few thousand troops who met on this field. Senator Edward Baker, serving as a Colonel, was shot in the head and killed. He was one of President Lincoln’s best pals. There was a huge to-do, and an investigation was held and a scapegoat was found for the Union defeat. The panel concluded that this was “the most atrocious blunder in history.” General Charles P. Stone was imprisoned at Fort Lafayette in New York harbor, his military career in ruins. He was eventually released but cashiered from the service before the war was even over.

The interesting thing is that the Union commander on that field really was a pretty good solider and that was his life work. He sought employment elsewhere, and served honorably as the Commander of the Egyptian Army. After the hostilities were concluded some of the Confederates needed work and chose to move elsewhere. Colonel Nathan “Shanks” Evans wound up in the Egyptian army. So in the officer’s club of the Kedive of Egypt, Union and Confederate generals broke bread and sipped whiskey and talked about missed opportunities and the nature of justice and fate.

I suppose it goes to say that anything is possible.

Copyright 2003 Vic Socotra