First Battle of Bull Run

• 1. Introduction

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  The First Battle of Bull Run, fought on the 21st of July 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, ended with Union soldiers abandoning their weapons and sprinting toward Washington in what the Southern press would later call "The Great Skedaddle." Wealthy Washingtonians, including members of Congress, had driven out to watch what they fully expected to be a swift Union victory. They brought picnic lunches. Instead, they found themselves fleeing in carriages alongside a routed army. How did the first major battle of the American Civil War spiral so completely out of Union control? And what did it reveal about the two armies, the two governments, and the illusions both sides carried into the war?

• 2. An Army Built in Weeks

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  Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase championed Maj. Irvin McDowell, a 42-year-old West Point graduate who had spent most of his career on staff duties, for the field command. Chase and McDowell were fellow Ohioans, and Chase's influence secured McDowell a promotion of three grades to brigadier general in the Regular Army. President Lincoln assigned him command of the Department of Northeastern Virginia on the 27th of May 1861. McDowell immediately set about organizing 35,000 men arranged in five divisions, a force he would call the Army of Northeastern Virginia. He had almost no time to train them. Units learned to maneuver at the regimental level but received little or no training at the brigade or division level. Lincoln, aware of the situation, offered his commander a wry reassurance: "You are green, it is true, but they are green also; you are all green alike." Against his better judgment, McDowell commenced campaigning. His army departed Washington on the 16th of July 1861 as the largest field army yet gathered on the North American continent, about 35,000 men. The march itself was already a warning sign. Soldiers unaccustomed to long walks broke ranks repeatedly, wandering off to pick apples or blackberries or to search for water, ignoring the orders of their officers.

• 3. Spies and Signal Flags

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  Before the first shot was fired, the Confederates already knew McDowell's plans. The previous year, U.S. Army captain Thomas Jordan had built a pro-Southern spy network in Washington, recruiting Rose O'Neal Greenhow, a prominent socialite with wide-ranging contacts. Jordan supplied her with a code for messages, and after joining the Confederate Army he continued receiving intelligence from her network. On the 9th and the 16th of July 1861, Greenhow passed secret messages to Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard, giving him critical details about Union military movements and McDowell's specific plans. Confederate President Jefferson Davis would later credit Greenhow personally with ensuring the Confederate victory. Jordan sent her a telegram in the name of Davis and Beauregard: "Our President and our General direct me to thank you. We rely upon you for further information. The Confederacy owes you a debt." On the Union side, intelligence was handled differently. McDowell called in Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, who was demonstrating his balloon Enterprise in Washington, to perform aerial reconnaissance over the Confederate lines. The balloon would play a further role after the battle, when on the 24th of July Lowe ascended to observe Confederate movements around Manassas Junction and Fairfax, eventually being forced to land in Confederate territory before he could report his findings.

• 4. Matthews Hill and the Wig-Wag Warning

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  At 5:15 a.m. on the 21st of July, Union artillery rounds crossed Mitchell's Ford and struck Beauregard's headquarters in the Wilmer McLean house while he was eating breakfast. The flanking columns of Hunter and Heintzelman, about 12,000 men, had set out from Centreville at 2:30 a.m. They did not begin fording Bull Run until 9:30 a.m. due to inadequate roads. All that stood between 20,000 converging Union soldiers and the Confederate left flank was Col. Nathan "Shanks" Evans with a reduced brigade of just 1,100 men. Evans was tipped off by Captain Edward Porter Alexander, Beauregard's signal officer, observing from 8 miles to the southwest on Signal Hill. In what was the first use of wig-wag semaphore signaling in combat, Alexander sent the message: "Look out for your left, your position is turned." Evans rapidly led 900 of his men to the slopes of Matthews Hill to meet the threat. The Confederate delaying action there included a spoiling attack by Major Roberdeau Wheat's 1st Louisiana Special Battalion, known as "Wheat's Tigers." After Wheat's command was thrown back and Wheat himself was seriously wounded, Evans received reinforcement from brigades under Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee and Col. Francis S. Bartow, bringing the total force to 2,800 men. Col. William Tecumseh Sherman crossed at an unguarded ford around 10:00 a.m. and struck the Confederate right flank. The Confederate line collapsed shortly after 11:30 a.m., sending the defenders in a disorderly retreat toward Henry House Hill.

• 5. The Stone Wall on Henry House Hill

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  Capt. John D. Imboden and his battery of four 6-pounder guns held off the Union advance while Confederate forces tried to regroup on Henry House Hill. Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson's Virginia Brigade came up around noon, joined by Col. Wade Hampton and his Hampton's Legion, some 600 men strong, and J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry. Jackson posted his five regiments on the reverse slope of the hill, shielded from direct fire, and assembled 13 guns at the crest. As the guns fired, their recoil moved them down the reverse slope where they could be safely reloaded. McDowell ordered the batteries of Capts. James B. Ricketts and Charles Griffin to move from Dogan's Ridge to the hill for close infantry support, positioning 11 guns across 300 yards from Jackson's 13. One of the casualties of the artillery exchange was Judith Carter Henry, an 85-year-old widow and invalid who could not leave her bedroom in the Henry House. Ricketts believed rifle fire was coming from the house and turned his guns on it. A shell crashed through the bedroom wall, tore off one of the widow's feet and inflicted multiple injuries; she died later that day. As his men fell back toward the hill, Bee told Jackson that the enemy was driving them. Jackson, a former U.S. Army officer and professor at the Virginia Military Institute, is said to have replied, "Then, Sir, we will give them the bayonet." Bee then reportedly rallied his own troops by shouting, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians." Bee was shot through the stomach shortly afterward and died the next day, leaving the exact meaning of his words forever uncertain. At approximately 3 p.m., the 33rd Virginia, whose men were dressed in blue uniforms, overran two of Griffin's guns after his commander mistook them for Union troops and ordered Griffin not to fire. Jackson told soldiers of the 4th Virginia Infantry, "Reserve your fire until they come within 50 yards! Then fire and give them the bayonet! And when you charge, yell like furies!" For the first time, Union troops heard what would become known as the Rebel yell.

• 6. Rout and Reckoning

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  At 4 p.m. on the 21st of July, the last Union troops were pushed off Henry House Hill by a charge from Col. Philip St. George Cocke's brigade. On Chinn Ridge to the west, two Confederate brigades crushed Col. Oliver Otis Howard's brigade, and Beauregard ordered his entire line forward. By 5 p.m., McDowell's army was disintegrating across the field. A Union wagon overturned by artillery fire on a bridge spanning Cub Run Creek ignited full panic. Soldiers streamed toward Centreville, discarding weapons and equipment. Among the abandoned materiel was the 30-pounder Parrott rifle, which had opened the battle with such fanfare. When Johnston attempted to intercept the retreating Union forces using the brigades of Brig. Gens. Milledge L. Bonham and James Longstreet, the two commanders quarreled, and when Bonham's men drew artillery fire from the Union rear guard, the pursuit was abandoned. A telegram reached President Lincoln in Washington stating: "General McDowell's army in full retreat through Centreville. The day is lost. Save Washington and the remnants of this army." Confederate President Davis, who had arrived on the battlefield himself, telegraphed Richmond: "We have won a glorious but dear-bought victory. Night closed on the enemy in full flight and closely pursued." Union casualties were 460 killed, 1,124 wounded, and 1,312 missing or captured. Confederate casualties were 387 killed, 1,582 wounded, and 13 missing. Among the Union dead was Col. James Cameron, brother of Lincoln's Secretary of War. Among the Confederate dead was Col. Francis S. Bartow, the first Confederate brigade commander killed in the Civil War. On the 22nd of July, Lincoln signed a bill providing for the enlistment of another 500,000 men for up to three years of service.

• 7. What the Battle Left Behind

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  Three months after Bull Run, Union forces suffered another defeat at the Battle of Ball's Bluff near Leesburg, Virginia. The perceived military incompetence at both engagements led directly to the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a congressional body created to investigate Northern military affairs. The committee concluded that Patterson's failure to prevent Johnston from reinforcing Beauregard was the principal cause of the Union defeat. Patterson's enlistment had expired a few days after the battle, leaving him beyond the reach of military justice. McDowell bore the public blame and was relieved of army command on the 25th of July, replaced by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. On the Confederate side, Beauregard was promoted by President Davis to full general on the very day of the battle. Stonewall Jackson, arguably the most important tactical contributor to the Confederate victory, received no special recognition at the time but would later gain wide fame in the 1862 Valley campaign. The battlefield confusion between the similar-looking Confederate "Stars and Bars" and the Union "Stars and Stripes" led directly to the adoption of a distinct Confederate Battle Flag, which would become the most widely recognized symbol associated with the South. Commentators on both sides would eventually agree that the one-sided outcome "proved the greatest misfortune that would have befallen the Confederacy," a verdict that historian James M. McPherson would later complicate by noting that the victory also gave Confederate troops a strong esprit de corps that provided a military edge in the months that followed.