The Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run)

Rallying the Troops of Bee, Bartow, and Evans, Behind the Robinson House.
Rallying the Troops of Bee, Bartow, and Evans, Behind the Robinson House, by Thure de Thulstrup

Prelude to Battle

Cheers rang out in the streets of Washington on July 16, 1861 as Gen. Irvin McDowell’s Federal army, 35,000 strong, marched out to begin the long-awaited campaign to capture Richmond and end the war. It was an army of green recruits, few of whom had the faintest idea of the magnitude of the task facing them.

McDowell’s lumbering columns were headed for the vital railroad junction at Manassas. Here the Orange and Alexandria Railroad met the Manassas Gap Railroad, which led west to the Shenandoah Valley. If McDowell could seize this junction, he would stand astride the best overland approach to the Confederate capital.

On July 18, McDowell’s army reached Centreville. Five miles ahead a small meandering stream named Bull Run crossed the route of the Union advance. Guarding the fords from Union Mills to the Stone Bridge were 22,000 Southern troops under the command of Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard. McDowell first attempted to move toward the Confederate right flank, but his troops were checked at Blackburn’s Ford. He then spent the next two days scouting the Southern left flank. In the meantime, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's army, stationed in the Shenandoah Valley with 10,000 Confederate troops, were ordered to support Beauregard. Johnston gave an opposing Union army the slip and, employing the Manassas Gap Railroad, started his brigades toward Manassas Junction, with most arriving July 20 and 21.

 

 

July 21, 1861

Morning

 

     

Afternoon

 

Aftermath

At first the withdrawal was orderly. Screened by the regulars, the three-month volunteers retired across Bull Run, where they found the road to Washington jammed with the carriages of congressmen and others who had driven out to Centreville to watch the fight. Panic now seized many of the soldiers and the retreat became a rout. The Confederates, though bolstered by the arrival of President Jefferson Davis on the field just as the battle was ending, were too disorganized to follow up on their success. Daybreak on July 22 found the defeated Union army back behind the bristling defenses of Washington.
 

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Last updated: July 15, 2024

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