July 21, 1861
Senators and Representatives and others
traveled the twenty-five miles to Bull Run
near Manassas, Virginia,
equipped with picnic lunches
and opera glasses to watch the battle
It promised to be an intriguing Sunday outing:
duty for some of the picnickers,
curiosity for many of the others,
though most expected a decisive victory
in what they thought would be a short war
But that was not to be,
for much blood was shed, on both sides:
almost nine hundred killed,
almost twenty-six hundred wounded
The Union troops fled back to Washington
along with the picnickers
Some politicians tried to stop the fleeing
troops,
though one Senator,
Henry Wilson of Massachusetts,
proved his worthiness for the Vice-Presidency
he would attain a decade late
by giving sandwiches to some of the fleeing
troops
July 1, 1893
After arriving in Jersey City
after ten in the evening the night before,
President Cleveland told the reporters
"I have nothing to say for publication,
except
that I am going to Buzzards Bay for a rest"
He most assuredly did not tell them that,
while traveling on the yacht Oneida,
he would be undergoing surgery
to remove a cancerous mass
(pulled teeth would be the cover story
disseminated by the physicians
so the President could maintain
his reputation for truth-telling)
A reporter who broke the story on August 29th
would be savaged by Cleveland's supporters,
and Cleveland would die fifteen years later
with the secret surgery still unexposed
and his reputation for honesty intact
It would be almost a decade after his death
that one of the doctors involved,
with the permission of Cleveland's widow,
told his story of what had happened on this
date,
while at the same time praising
"the instant decision of Mr. Cleveland . .
.
to keep the operation a profound secret"
© Michael Ceraolo
Bio:
Michael Ceraolo is a 62-year-old retired firefighter/paramedic and
active poet who has had two full-length books (Euclid Creek, from Deep
Cleveland Press; 500 Cleveland Haiku, from Writing Knights Press) published,
and has two more (Euclid Creek Book Two,from unbound content press; Lawyers,
Guns, and Money, from Writing Knights Press) in the publication pipeline.