150 Years Ago Today: The (1st) Battle of Manassas/Bull Run

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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A nice little animation of the basics of what happened.

The “least you need to know” of this super important battle:

-It was the first major battle of the Civil War

-It was the first major battle on the Eastern seaboard in 80 years

-It was where Thomas Jonathan Jackson became, effective immediately and henceforth and forever, Stonewall (and we got this great song)

-It was a major eye opener for both sides about the determination of the other, but especially for the north. D.C. learned that the south could and would fight, and the CSA learned the same about the north, but unfortunately the southerners were far more energized by the “we licked the Yankees!” aspect than appalled by the hundreds of dead and thousands of wounded left on the battlefield.

-It was the bloodiest battle in U.S. history to that point, a record it wouldn’t keep for long.

-It’s most famous associated story (and a quite true one at that) is of the hundreds of spectators who came to watch like it was a football game; very very very very not good very bad idea as not only were many seriously injured when the Union troops were routed but they clogged the roads for the Union retreat

-It did not involve Lee or Grant- they didn’t become “Name Before the Credits” stars until the third season. (Sherman was a colonel at the battle- had a major psychological breakdown shortly after)

-It was the first battle in U.S. history, among the first in world history, in which trains played a major part (the whole reason Manassas was the CSA line was the railroad terminals)

-There were foul-ups, bleeps and blunders on both sides

-McDowell was the first of Lincoln’s commanders to drag his feet and pay for it, and this would become a major problem

-The first shell to find a target (actually 3 days before the battle) came into the dining room of Beauregard’s HQ which was in the house of sugar merchant Wilmer McLean. Nobody was hurt but it definitely startled McLean. If you’re not familiar with why this would be very ironic, watch the first minute or two of Ken Burns’ miniseries- I won’t ruin it for you.

There are lots of truly gory photographs and drawings (by people who were there) of the battle. The spectators were prepared for the sounds of cannons and drums but not for the carnage: not only had there not been a really pitched battle this far east in 80 years, but weaponry had come a very long way (much further than medicine). There are photographs of the piles of limbs that were cut off in field hospitals from this battle.

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What about 1812? Wouldn’t that count?

ETA: Thanks for the link to the video, that was pretty cool.

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And somewhere online is footage of the 75th anniversary shindig where some old rebels and old northerners are shaking hands over a fence, and one of the rebels gives a rebel yell …

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I haven’t studied the War of 1812 nearly as much as I should have, but were there really any major battles, let alone on the East Coast?

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There weren’t that many pitched battles and practically none in the East. Washington D.C. fell without a fight and the British who died there were fatalities from a hurricane. The greatest carnage was in the massacres by and of Indians in the territories (really only tangentially related to the War of 1812, more a side ring), and a few battles in Canada and the west, but none particularly bloody. Even the Battle of New Orleans, the most famous army v. army battle of the war, had fewer than 100 fatalities.

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That’s fair. I wasn’t sure if the Battle of Baltimore would count as major or not.

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To RandMcnally: yes to the first part, no to the second. The Battle of Lundy’s Lane had casualties in the range of 1500, so smaller but well within the same order of magnitude as Manassas. Of course, the technology being what it was, most of the casualties were wounded, not dead, and the high number of casualties were exceptional by that war’s standards, but Lundy’s Lane would qualify.

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The American troops at that battle were led by 28 year old (newly promoted to Brigadier) General Winfield Scott. When Fort Sumter was shelled and the Civil War began 47 years later, he was General in Chief of the Army of the Potomac. Because he was 75, obese, diabetic, and unable to mount a horse he sought a successor, and famously his handpicked successor was Robert E. Lee who declined. Irvin McDowell was a lower down the list choice and would resign and be replaced himself within days of his return from Bull Run.

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My great-grandfather missed 1st Bull Run, but was captured at 2nd Bull Run. Interesting (and bloody) battles.

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From Wikipedia:

Battle of New Orleans , January 8, 1815.

“At the end of the day, the British had 2,042 casualties: 291 killed (including Generals Pakenham and Gibbs), 1,267 wounded (including General Keane) and 484 captured or missing.[2] The Americans had 71 casualties: 13 dead; 39 wounded and 19 missing.”[URL=“Battle of New Orleans - Wikipedia”]

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Although there’s a dispute about whether or not it was originally intended as a complement.

One interpretation was that General Bee saw Jackson holding firm in the face of the enemy and compared his resolute stand to being like a stone wall.

However, another interpretation that was offered by some officers at the scene was that General Bee desperately needed reinforcements and was angry at how Jackson wasn’t bringing his brigade up to the line of battle. He wanted Jackson to stop standing around like a stone wall.

Bee himself was killed shortly afterwards and nobody was able to ask him what he meant.

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And there’s this song too. :wink:

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My great-great grandfather was at Second Bull Run, or rather a skirmish at Manassas Junction a few days before. His regiment was sent from Washington to join Pope’s army, but unexpectedly found Jackson’s army in the way and had to high-tail it back chased by Confederate cavalry.

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Mine got separated from his comrades in all the gunsmoke and confusion, was captured by Rebels and nearly executed. One of his captors knew him, however, from before the war and hustled him to the rear. Life takes strange turns. 23rd Regiment, Company K, New York Volunteers.

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My bad- I was looking at the daily counts, not the totals. Still though, it was a long way from the east coast.

One of mine may have been in 2nd Bull Run. His regiment was there but he is listed as having spent 20 days in a hospital during the 3 month period in which the battle occurred due to measles, though the dates aren’t mentioned. Most of my ancestors hadn’t enlisted by First Bull Run- they waited until the Conscription- and the one who had was in Pensacola.

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For the benefit of anyone who may not know, Manassas/Bull Run both refer to the same battle. The Confederates called it the Battle of Manassas because that was the town whose railroad junctions the rebels used for troops and supplies and that they defended from capture or bombardment. The Federals called it Bull Run after the miles long creek that winds through the area.

For those who haven’t toured a major battlefield, Manassas/Bull Run is- like most famous battlefields- huge. Movies sometimes give the impression that these battles were fought in basically a great big pasture but in fact it’s several big pastures and they’re spread out over several miles.

The Bull Run park is slightly more modest than Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and some of the other battlefields I’ve toured in terms of statues. It would be impossible to film a movie about Chickamauga or Gettysburg on the actual locations without digitally erasing thirty zillion monuments and memorials and towers that popped up over every site of any significance in the battle and honoring every unit that fought there.

During the First Battle of Bull Run the area was, as it is now, in the middle of a major heat wave. There are accounts of the surgeons (surgeons were far inferior to doctors in prestige and training) performing the hundreds of amputations and other procedures after the battle almost naked due to the heat, and there were deaths before, after and during the battle from heat stroke.

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Much later, my great-great grandfather was captured at the beginning of the Battle of Petersburg (after surviving Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor). He died of scurvy at Andersonville. Company I, Second New York Heavy Artillery Volunteers.

Speaking of strange turns, another great-great-great grandfather was a 45-year-old German tailor who enlisted in the “Fifth German Rifles” (45th NY Infantry). He was captured in his regiment’s first skirmish with the enemy, when they were on picket duty at Annandale south of Washington and the Confederate cavalry rode through their lines. According to official correspondence, there had been “rather free use of liquor” among the German troops. He spent six months as a POW and ended up being invalided out due to getting tuberculosis in prison. Being drunk on duty may have saved his life, since his regiment saw pretty heavy fighting at Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga.

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It felt that First Manassas was far more compact than any other battlefield I’ve visited other than the Battle of Bennington (which really did take place in a tiny little field)*. You could see nearly all the Battlefield from the visitor’s center. Like Bennington, you didn’t have to drive to see it all.

Second Manassas was far more spread out.

Battles on Confederate soil usually have few statues, since the south was too poor after the war to set them up, even for Confederate victories.

*I’ve visited Saratoga, Bennington, and Harlem Heights (technically) for the Revolution and Manassas (both), Gettysburg, Antietam, Chancelorsville/Wilderness, and Fredericksburg for the Civil War.

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Mine was given his release on the condition that he go north and not return to uniform for a specified period of time, or risk immediate execution if captured again. This was normal in the early stages of the war, as there were not enough prison camps to hold everyone. I have a copy of a letter he wrote to his comrades about the entire episode. It’s a great read.

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Later in the war both sides sometimes gave P.O.W.s the option of imprisonment or changing sides. I’m not certain what security measures they took to ensure loyalty or non-desertion of such men, but there was no shortage at all of men who fought, consecutively, for both sides.

One of the more famous was Henry Morton Stanley of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” fame. He was an Anglo-Welsh workhouse kid with a backstory that would make Charles Dickens say “That’s too melodramatic” and emigrated to New Orleans as a teenager. He fought in the Confederate army until he was captured and then changed sides. Some of Jack Daniels’ (of whiskey fame) brothers changed sides during the war as well. (Daniels himself didn’t fight because he was only a hair above 5’0 tall plus he was making too much money selling whiskey to both sides.)