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First And Second Manassas

In July 1861, the first major offensive operation of the Civil War got under way. The Washington area secured by the influx of volunteers, and most of them two thirds or more of the way through their service commitment, the Federal leadership saw the need to begin a campaign to conclude the "ninety-day" war. Richmond, the Confederate capital one hundred miles to the south, was the objective as was the Confederate force under the command of Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, standing in the way. Beauregard formed his force of 22,000 inexperienced and ill-equipped soldiers into a six-mile line along Bull Run, protecting the important railroad junction at Manassas.

Leading the Federal army was Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, a protégé of the aging Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott, general-in-chief of the army, who was too infirm to take the field, and powerful Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. McDowell had 35,000 men divided into five divisions under five older officers, but none had led the number of troops into battle before that they now controlled. In fact, there had never been an army this large operating in North America. Political pressure compelled McDowell to begin his march south before he felt prepared to move his ninety-day soldiers. The Federals advanced from camps around Washington on July 16 and reached Fairfax Court House midday on July 17.

A key necessity of the campaign was for the Federal commander who had crossed the Potomac and seized Harpers Ferry in early July (see Harpers Ferry, West Virginia), Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson, to keep the Rebel forces in the lower Shenandoah Valley occupied to prevent their commander, Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, from sending units to reinforce Beauregard. In this Patterson failed. Johnston left a cavalry screen at Winchester which fooled Patterson badly and on July 18 marched his force to Piedmont (now Delaplane) to shuttle them via the Manassas Gap Railroad to reinforce Beauregard. Although inadequate rail rolling stock and a derailment delayed the rail movement, the arrival of Johnston's soldiers from the Valley command raised Confederate strength at Manassas to nearly that of the Federals.

Meanwhile, the Federal vanguard pushed ahead to Centreville, which the Confederates had evacuated, and McDowell ordered their commander, Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler, to probe the area for Confederate positions. Tyler's advance on July 18 met with resistance at Blackburn's Ford. Though he had been ordered by McDowell not to engage the enemy, Tyler ordered his artillery unlimbered and Confederate artillery from across Bull Run replied. Concealed Rebel troops under the command of Brig. Gen. James Longstreet gave a few Union regiments their first taste of combat as they approached the stream. McDowell arrived and ordered Tyler to disengage. During the artillery duel a Federal shell crashed harmlessly into the chimney of a house where McDowell's West Point classmate P.G.T. Beauregard was having dinner.

McDowell then spent two more days reconnoitering and formulating a battle plan. During this time, Johnston's troops began arriving at Manassas Junction. McDowell decided to launch a demonstration against the Stone Bridge, which carried the Warrenton Turnpike over Bull Run, and employ two divisions to flank the Confederate line to the north, crossing at Sudley Springs. Before dawn on Sunday, July 21, on what would prove to be a hot and dusty day, the Federal force started out. The advance moved along slowly as artillery accompanied the march.

The feint at the Stone Bridge by Tyler was not convincing to South Carolinian Col. Nathan G. "Shanks" Evans. He left a small force there and marched the rest of his brigade to oppose the reported Federal advance from Sudley Springs. His 1,000 men were opposed by 6,000 Federals from Col. David "Black Dave" Hunter's division at Matthews Hill. Other Rebel units arrived to reinforce Evans, but McDowell pushed more units forward across Sudley Ford, and Tyler's troops, having discovered a farm ford, crossed Bull River upstream from the Stone Bridge. The telling weight of the Federal advance pushed the Confederates south, and they fell back to the cover of Henry Hill, where there was a house occupied by an invalid widow, Judith Henry, who refused to leave it. On the far crest of the hill, a brigade from Johnston's force commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson with supporting artillery held a firm line. Seeing Jackson and his force, Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee shouted a command to his retreating brigade, "Look! There is Jackson standing like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!"

Though Bee was mortally wounded shortly after uttering his legend-making exclamation, his troops and the rest of the forces retreating from Matthews Hill formed behind and alongside Jackson's unwavering line. Johnston, directing reinforcements, and Beauregard, controlling the battle line, managed to bring up enough reinforcements to maintain their Henry Hill position. McDowell unleashed a rain of artillery fire but the Federal guns were overwhelmed by a Confederate counterattack, and before the fighting on the hill ended were recaptured and captured four more times. One of the unique elements of this battle—called First Bull Run by the North, First Manassas by the South—was the variety of styles and colors of uniforms worn by the units of both sides; many were attired in their state militia garb. Two Henry Hill Federal cannons on occasion were taken by bluecoated Southerners, mistakenly identified by the artillery commander as infantry reinforcements.

About four P.M., the Federal right flank began to crumble and Beauregard ordered an attack that swept the field. As the Northern soldiers were forced off Henry Hill, most recrossed at Sudley Ford and a bridge on the next stream east, Cub Run. Soldiers, wagons, limbers, and horses tangled in a cacophony of confusion. An artillery shell into the Cub Run bridge turned the retreat into a rout and officers lost all control of their rookie soldiers. When word of the impending battle had reached Washington, politicians, reporters, and spectators had ridden out for a look. They too became part of the fleeing mass as the Union soldiers backtracked to Centreville and beyond. Some Confederate units pursued the Yanks as far as Centreville, but most of the Federal force drifted back to Washington through the night.

Jefferson Davis had traveled to the field that day from Richmond and observed the final phase of the battle. When he questioned his senior commanders why a more vigorous pursuit hadn't been made, Johnston offered the president a reply which he explained later, "Our army was more disorganized in victory than the Federal army was in defeat." Casualties were light compared to later conflicts: 4,878 total casualties for both sides for nearly 71,000 engaged. Not included in this statistic was Judith Henry, mortally wounded as the battle raged around her house. Two products of the battle were a Confederate battleflag, which became more popular on the field than the Stars and Bars, which was similar to the Stars and Stripes of the Federal army. And the soon-to-be-famous "Rebel Yell" first rang out during that afternoon's counterattack.

On August 28, 1862, great land forces in blue and gray were once again poised to clash on the farmland and wood lots west of Bull Run. Rather than a one-day battle, Second Manassas was a series of developing maneuvers fought by experienced veterans. The battle was brought on by Gen. Robert E. Lee, who split his force to challenge the new Federal Army of Virginia under Maj. Gen. John Pope (see Cedar Mountain). Lee sent Jackson and his fast-marching force to Manassas Junction to destroy Pope's main supply base and link to Washington while he advanced north separately with the slower-moving corps of James Longstreet. Having driven Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's proud army from Richmond's gates and eventually from the Virginia peninsula, in the Seven Days' Battles and during the ensuing weeks, Lee was anxious to confront Pope before his force and McClellan's could combine.

Jackson's destruction of the Manassas Junction supply depot on August 27 brought Pope forward to "bag" Jackson as he boasted, but Jackson marched north and placed his men along an unfinished railroad grade running southwest from Sudley Springs. Pope's forces marched and countermarched in a fruitless search for Jackson on August 28 until six P.M. when the "Black Hat" brigade of Indiana and Wisconsin soldiers under Brig. Gen. John Gibbon marched northeast along the Warrenton Turnpike in front of Jackson's right flank at Brawner's Farm. Jackson attacked and the "Black Hat" brigade as reinforced put up a spirited defense. Both sides fought savagely for two hours until dark in the Battle of Brawner's Farm (also called Groveton).

The next morning Pope formed a line with his army and the first units arriving from McClellan's command. But a day spent in savage, unsupported thrusts at Jackson's position was unproductive. Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker's division scored a momentary breakthrough that was erased by a Rebel counterattack. Late in the day, Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny's division broke through Jackson's left and drove the Confederates back to Stony Ridge, but the Southerners rallied and Pope did not exploit the advantage. The mid-afternoon arrival of the 31,000 men in Longstreet's corps extended the Confederate line one mile farther south. Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter detected the reinforcement of Jackson's right flank but refused to attack as ordered by Pope. Pope disregarded the presence of Longstreet and directed Porter to attack again the next day.

When Pope resumed his probes on August 30, he was convinced he could finish off Jackson. Jackson's response to Porter's advance in mid-afternoon taxed his forces and he had to call on Longstreet for reinforcements. At one point part of Jackson's command, their ammunition exhausted, threw rocks at the Federal soldiers twenty yards away.

Pope sent his bluecoats into the gaping pincers of a giant claw. On the Union left, north and south of the Warrenton Turnpike, two brigades were engulfed when Longstreet launched his counterattack. Longstreet's people closed on Chinn Ridge. Pope rushed his reserves to Chinn Ridge. The Federals fought stubbornly but slowly gave ground when hammered again and again by Longstreet's repeated assaults. They did gain time enough for Pope to form another line on Henry Hill, anchored by Brig. Gen. John F. Reynolds's Pennsylvanians and Lt. Col. William Chapman's "Regulars." The Federal stand on Henry Hill, echoing Jackson's heroics more than a year earlier, bought time and as the sun set, the Federals began an orderly retreat across Bull Run's Stone Bridge.

The casualty figures for Second Manassas (Second Bull Run) were staggering when compared to the first—nearly 24,000 killed, wounded, captured, and missing. The Confederate pursuit of the Union forces marching back to Alexandria, even as more units from McClellan's Army of the Potomac arrived at Centreville to reinforce Pope, was checked on September 1 at Chantilly (see Chantilly). The victory gave Confederate morale a tremendous boost. On the Federal side, the battle altered the military careers of three Federal officers: Pope was sent to Minnesota to fight the Sioux; McDowell was shelved until reassigned to a desk job in California; and Porter was cashiered—he spent nearly sixteen years clearing his name.

McClellan did not escape the ire of Lincoln and others in Washington for his role in the disaster. Word circulated that "Little Mac" had mismanaged the sending of reinforcements, secretly hoping that Pope would fail at Second Manassas, paving the way for a triumphant George McClellan to step into the breach and save the day. McClellan did lead the Army of Potomac, including the forces of Pope's short-lived Army of Virginia, into battle again, but only because at that time he was, in Lincoln's opinion, the only Federal officer capable of reorganizing the dispirited soldiers, and getting them battle-ready.

Jay Wertzand Edwin C. Bearss. . William Morrow and Company, Inc. 1997.

The Civil War Fredericksburg to Meridian. Shelby Foote. A unique achievement, recognized as one of the finest histories ever fashioned by an American. The great armies confront each other almost continually, including such bloody battles as Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, Gettysburg and Chickamauga. Also covers the life of the times: the elections of 1863, the Conscription riots and more.

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