First Manassas

Yup.  There were two battles at Manassas, a year apart.  Now, Manassas is what the Rebels called the battles because they named their battles after towns.  The Union called them the battles of Bull Run because the Yankees named their battles after rivers.

Why Manassas?  Well, geography mainly.  Manassas was halfway between D.C. and the Confederate capital of Richmond.  That, and the railroad junction there making it possible to supply troops was a must-have for both sides.

In April, 1861, the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.  That produced 90-day wonders volunteering to get a little glory.  Why 90 days?  Why, that's all the time BOTH sides thought it would take to whip the other side!  Au contrair, mon ami!

Union General McDowell spent the first couple of months drilling and parading these guys around Washington.  Spit 'n polish, chest out, shoulders back, head up!  That's the kind of military man McDowell was.  It's now July, and time to move his troops out.  It was party time, and I mean that that was how everyone felt about this first battle only twenty-five miles from D.C.  The volunteers moseyed down the road stopping to pick blackberries and fill their canteens with fresh, cool water from lazy streams by the roadside.  But they were fixin' (as we say in Texas) to run slap-dab (as we say in Texas) into 22,000 not-so-lazy Rebels!

The civilians (and Congressmen) from Washington thought this was a grand time for a picnic while they watched those Southerners get what was coming to them, so they got all decked out in their pretty picnic clothes, packed fine baskets of yummy morsels, and joined the troops on the road.  (I have to say, the Southern ladies weren't so gauche.)

The first shots were fired at the Stone Bridge crossing of the Bull Run. ("Run" means river.)

But it was only McDowell trying to pull a diversionary tactic, and Rebel Colonel Nathan Evans very quickly figured that out.  (No dummy was he!)  So he left a few dudes at the Stone Bridge, and lit out for a blocking action on Matthews Hill.

Splitting his forces didn't give him a lot of firepower, but soon a couple of brigades joined in the effort.  Still, not enough!  Retreat!  Retreat to Henry's Hill! 

(Imagine a passel of rebels rushing up the hill behind the Henry house.)  These Rebs find Confederate General Thomas J. Jackson and his troops already there.  “There stands Jackson like a stone wall!  Rally behind the Virginians!” shouts the retreating General Barnard Bee.  Jackson will forever after be known as "Stonewall" Jackson. 

Union General McDowell grinds his army to a halt and takes time to reorganize rather than pressing the issue.  This gives the Rebels a chance to reorganize, too, though.  The rest of the afternoon the two armies play King of the Mountain.

About 4 p.m., fresh Confederate troops show up, and those 90-day wonders of McDowell's run out of steam.  They start a tidy little retreat back to D.C., but it turns into something more like hightailing it - along with those hoity-toidy civilians that came to the picnic. 

Over 60,000 men engaged in this little turf war, almost 5,000 remained - forever...  McDowell was a good officer, but he wasn't a very good general.  Abraham Lincoln fired McDowell and replaced him with General George McClellan.  Now the war would begin in earnest.