First Battle of Bull Run

The battle was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of what is now the city of Manassas and about thirty miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C.Just months after the start of the war at Fort Sumter, the northern public clamored for a march against the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which was expected to bring an early end to the Confederacy.Units were committed piecemeal, attacks were frontal, infantry failed to protect exposed artillery, tactical intelligence was minimal, and neither commander was able to employ his whole force effectively.Since General Scott was seventy-five years old and physically unable to lead this force against the Confederates, the administration searched for a more suitable field commander.During the previous year, U.S. Army captain Thomas Jordan set up a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, D.C., recruiting Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a prominent socialite with a wide range of contacts.He assumed that the Confederates would be forced to abandon Manassas Junction and fall back to the Rappahannock River, the next defensible line in Virginia, which would relieve some of the pressure on the U.S.[33] The Confederate Army of the Potomac (21,883 effectives)[34] under Beauregard was encamped near Manassas Junction where he prepared a defensive position along the south bank of the Bull Run river with his left guarding a stone bridge, approximately 25 miles (40 km) from the United States capital.Although McDowell had arrived at a theoretically sound plan, it had a number of flaws: it was one that required synchronized execution of troop movements and attacks, skills that had not been developed in the nascent army; it relied on actions by Patterson that he had already failed to take; finally, McDowell had delayed long enough that Johnston's Valley force, which had trained under Stonewall Jackson, was able to board trains at Piedmont Station and rush to Manassas Junction to reinforce Beauregard's men.[39] McDowell was getting contradictory information from his intelligence agents, so he called for the balloon Enterprise, which was being demonstrated by Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe in Washington, to perform aerial reconnaissance.On the morning of July 21, McDowell sent the divisions of Hunter and Heintzelman (about 12,000 men) from Centreville at 2:30 a.m., marching southwest on the Warrenton Turnpike and then turning northwest toward Sudley Springs to get around the Confederates' left.The later units found the approach roads to Sudley Springs were inadequate, little more than a cart path in some places, and did not begin fording Bull Run until 9:30 a.m. Tyler's men reached the Stone Bridge around 6 a.m.[41] At 5:15 a.m., Richardson's brigade fired a few artillery rounds across Mitchell's Ford on the Confederate right, some of which hit Beauregard's headquarters in the Wilmer McLean house as he was eating breakfast, alerting him to the fact that his offensive battle plan had been preempted.[42] All that stood in the path of the 20,000 Union soldiers converging on the Confederate left flank were Col. Nathan "Shanks" Evans and his reduced brigade of 1,100 men.[45] Evans had moved some of his men to intercept the direct threat from Tyler at the bridge, but he began to suspect that the weak attacks from the Union brigade of Brig.One of Tyler's brigade commanders, Col. William Tecumseh Sherman, moved forward from the stone bridge around 10:00 a.m.,[47] and crossed at an unguarded ford and struck the right flank of the Confederate defenders.This surprise attack, coupled with pressure from Burnside and Maj. George Sykes, collapsed the Confederate line shortly after 11:30 a.m., sending them in a disorderly retreat to Henry House Hill.[49] Fortunately for the Confederates, McDowell did not press his advantage and attempt to seize the strategic ground immediately, choosing to bombard the hill with the batteries of Capts.The Hampton Legion, some 600 men strong, managed to buy Jackson time to construct a defensive line on Henry House Hill by firing repeated volleys at Sherman's advancing brigade.Hampton had purchased approximately 400 Pattern 1853 Enfield rifles to equip the men with; however, it is not clear if his troops had them at Bull Run or if the weapons arrived after the battle.Unable to stop the mass exodus, McDowell gave orders for Porter's regular infantry battalion, near the intersection of the turnpike and Manassas-Sudley Road, to act as a rear guard as his army withdrew.A Union wagon was overturned by artillery fire on a bridge spanning Cub Run Creek, inciting panic in McDowell's force.As the soldiers streamed uncontrollably toward Centreville, discarding their arms and equipment, McDowell ordered Col. Dixon S. Miles's division to act as a rear guard, but it was impossible to rally the army short of Washington.Expecting an easy Union victory, the wealthy elite of nearby Washington, including congressmen and their families, had come to picnic and watch the battle.[63][64] Since their combined army had been left highly disorganized as well, Beauregard and Johnston did not fully press their advantage, despite urging from Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who had arrived on the battlefield to see the Union soldiers retreating.The two commanders squabbled with each other and when Bonham's men received some artillery fire from the Union rear guard, and found that Richardson's brigade blocked the road to Centreville, he called off the pursuit.Bull Run was a turning point in the American Civil War... in the sense that the battle struck with impelling force upon public opinion at home and abroad, upon Congress, and upon the Commander-in-chief.Volunteering accelerated, 90-day men reenlisted, states rushed fresh regiments forward in plenitude.... As they realized victory would not come readily, a new mood fastened upon Northerners.[77] On July 25, 11,000 Pennsylvanians who had earlier been rejected by the U.S. Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, for federal service in either Patterson's or McDowell's command arrived in Washington, DC, and were finally accepted.[81] Stonewall Jackson, arguably the most important tactical contributor to the victory, received no special recognition but would later achieve glory for his 1862 Valley Campaign.Although modern historians generally agree with that interpretation, James M. McPherson has argued that the esprit de corps attained by Confederate troops on the heels of their victory, together with a new sense of insecurity felt by northern commanders, also gave the Confederacy a military edge in the following months.The battle is described from the viewpoint of a Union infantryman in Upton Sinclair's novella Manassas, which also depicts the political turmoil leading up to the Civil War.