Vol. 2 - June - No. 28
Bull Run / Manassas
The battle still rages. "Manassas" exclaim southerners from Virginia down to Mississippi way. "Bull Run" rumbles those in the giant cities of the north continuing an endless feud that started on a Virginia battlefield some 140 odd years ago. The fires still burn for some, but the facts remain:Many northerners believed that the South could be overcome only by victory in battle. Virginia became the most likely battleground, especially after the Confederate government moved its capital to Richmond in May of 1961. "Forward to Richmond" clamored the newspapers of the north. And forward toward Richmond moved a Union army of 35000 men in July, despite General-in-Chief Winfield Scott's misgivings and those of the army's field commander, Irvin McDowell, who did not believe his raw, ninety-day militia were ready to fight, or win, a real battle. They got no farther than Bull Run, a sluggish stream twenty-five miles southwest of Washington, where a Confederate army commanded by Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard had been deployed to defend a key railway junction at Manassas.
Another small Confederate army in the Shenandoah Valley under General Joseph E. Johnston had given a Union force the slip and had traveled to Manassas by rail to reinforce Beauregard. On July 21 the attacking Federals forded Bull Run and hit the rebels on the left flank, driving them back. By early afternoon, the Federals seemed to be on the verge of victory. But a Virginia brigade commanded by Thomas J. Jackson stood "like a stone wall," earning Jackson the nickname he carried forever after. By mid-afternoon Confederate reinforcements - including one brigade just off the train from the Shenandoah Valley - had grouped for a screaming counterattack (hear was first heard the famed "rebel yell"). They drove the exhausted and disorganized Yankees back across Bull Run in a retreat that turned into a rout.
learn more about this fascinating subject:
The Battle of Bull Run (1st Manassas)
Manassas National Battlefield park
Flight of Doodles
Selected Civil War Photographs
Confederate Victory: The Battle of Bull Run
CWSAC Battle Summary
The Bull Run Run
