JULY 18–21, 1861
No sooner had news arrived in Washington of the firing upon Fort Sumter than President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 militia to help put down what he called an insurrection. They were to serve in the Army for 90 days, and it would not be the last call for volunteers that year. During the following several weeks, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas would cast their lot with the Confederacy, while Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri teetered in the balance.
Virginia’s Ordinance of Secession, although it required ratification by the voters, placed the nearby national capital at risk, and the uncertainty of continued allegiance in eastern Maryland and Baltimore made the protection of Washington even more imperative. Troops from the northern states were rushed to the defense of the city. On April 19, a regiment from Massachusetts shot their way through mobs of southern sympathizers in Baltimore. By the end of the day four soldiers were dead, twenty more were injured, and a score of civilians lay dying or wounded.
Virginia’s secession, ratified by a popular vote on May 23, had already led to the seizure of Norfolk’s Gosport Navy Yard and the Harpers Ferry Armory and Arsenal, and to the Confederate government’s decision to transfer its capital to Richmond, Virginia, some hundred miles south of Washington, transforming the area between the two capitals into prime battlegrounds. On the morning of May 24, Federal troops crossed the Potomac and seized the old port town of Alexandria, with its rail links to Richmond and the Shenandoah Valley, and Arlington Heights.
With a solid foothold in northern Virginia, Federal General in Chief Winfield Scott, now 75 years old, obese, and unable to mount a horse without considerable help, began collecting his forces. By early July, the Union had organized two sizable commands south of the Potomac. Some 35,000 men under the command of Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, a tall and rotund West Pointer from Ohio, prepared to advance south toward the Confederate capital. Another 18,000 men, commanded by 69-year-old Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson, would move down from Pennsylvania into the Shenandoah Valley. Patterson’s assignment was to pin in place a Confederate force, some 11,000 strong, commanded by Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. Patterson was to prevent Johnston from reinforcing the main Confederate Army, approximately 23,000 men, gathering around Manassas Junction, about 25 miles southwest of Washington, under the leadership of the hero of Fort Sumter, Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard. This key rail junction was located a few miles southwest of a winding creek known as Bull Run, which lay across the main routes from Washington south; one of the junction’s rail lines, the Manassas Gap Railroad, ran westward to Strasburg and Mount Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, some 50 miles away, offering Johnston, if he could evade Patterson, a quick way to unite forces with Beauregard.
McDowell was under political pressure to do something dramatic. The U.S. Congress was on call to convene in special session in Washington on July 4, and the enlistments of the Union Army’s 90-day volunteers were about to run out. When he complained to the President that his men were ill prepared to assume the offensive at this point, Lincoln replied, “You are green, it is true, but they are green also; you are all green alike.”
Hardly reassured, McDowell set his army in motion on July 16, heading first to Fairfax Court House, then to Centreville, from where he would pivot southwest to confront Beauregard’s force deployed beyond Bull Run. In Washington, socialite Rose O’Neal Greenhow, apprised of McDowell’s advance, sent coded word to Beauregard that the campaign was under way. In fact, Beauregard was probably already well aware of McDowell’s advance. Ill-disciplined Federal columns took a full day to advance six miles to the villages of Annandale and Vienna. Orders went out from Richmond directing Johnston to move his men via rail and to link up with Beauregard. Fortunately for Johnston, on the day McDowell advanced, Patterson withdrew to the vicinity of Harpers Ferry, leaving the Confederates free to board their trains.
Twenty-three years after his graduation from West Point, Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell (fifth from right) commanded Federal forces against Confederate Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard at Manassas.
As he waited for Johnston’s four brigades to arrive, Beauregard readied his defenses. The Confederate commander had chosen Bull Run, with its steep banks, as his defense line. A single stone bridge, carrying the Centreville-Warrenton Turnpike crossed the creek here, while the Orange & Alexandria Railroad crossed downstream at Union Mills. Beauregard posted more than half of his forces between Mitchell’s Ford, where the road between Centreville and Manassas crossed, and Union Mills Ford. He dispatched one brigade of South Carolina and Louisiana troops to guard Stone Bridge and left Sudley Ford, on upper Bull Run, undefended. On July 18 McDowell’s men finally arrived at Centreville in Beauregard’s front.
The Confederates had established their line covering the crossings of Bull Run along a seven-mile front from Stone Bridge, where the Warrenton Turnpike crosses Bull Run northwest of Ball’s Ford, extending down to Blackburn’s and Union Mills Fords. The Federals enter Centreville at mid-morning of July 18 with Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s division in the lead. They find the road toward Manassas strewn with thrown-away gear, indicating a rapid Rebel retreat from Centreville.
Tyler’s division consists of four brigades. The lead brigade is commanded by Col. Israel B. Richardson, a West Point graduate and Mexican War veteran who had left the Army and was living in Michigan at the outbreak of the Civil War. Known to some as “Fighting Dick,” his swarthy complexion leads other to call him, behind his back, “Greasy Dick.” I’m sure he preferred “Fighting Dick.”
Marching southwest, the Yankees approach the enemy position at Mitchell’s Ford. Tyler is under orders to make a reconnaissance and not to bring on an engagement. However, as he gets on the high ground overlooking Bull Run, it appears to him that the Confederates are in rapid retreat, and he gets carried away. Israel Richardson deploys most of his brigade in support of his artillery batteries. On the commanding ground overlooking Mitchell’s Ford, he positions two light 12-pounder howitzers of Capt. Romeyn B. Ayres’s Company E, Third U.S. Artillery, and sends the 12th New York, preceded by three companies of the First Massachusetts, to reconnoiter and force their way across Blackburn’s Ford, downstream a bit. Not a very smart idea, as they will find out.
About a mile below Blackburn’s Ford is McLean’s Ford, where you have the brigade commanded by Confederate Brig. Gen. David R. Jones. Brig. Gen. James Longstreet’s brigade, supported by four guns of the Washington Artillery, is assigned to guard Blackburn’s Ford, where the 12th New York is nosing around. Although “Old Pete” Longstreet has skirmishers on the north side of Bull Run, his main force is on the south side. In reserve is a brigade commanded by Col. Jubal A. Early. Upstream about a half mile as the crow flies, but a mile as Bull Run meanders, is Mitchell’s Ford, defended by Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham’s brigade. There are a number of fords scattered upstream, such as Ball’s Ford and Lewis Ford, guarded by Col. Philip St. George Cocke’s brigade; Col. Nathan “Shanks” Evans’s brigade is at Stone Bridge.
Jubal Early is ordered to reinforce Longstreet when the Confederates open fire on the 12th New York, whose men are not hardened combat veterans. The New Yorkers are finding out that in war people get killed; that people get very badly wounded. It is not quite as much fun as they had expected when marching out of New York to come down south. And then the Confederates counterattack—Rebels cross the stream. Soon the 12th New York is frightened and fleeing. Captain Ayres has to get his guns out of here. The Yankees see 22 of their own, now dead, carried to the rear. They see badly wounded men—and worse is the sight of panic-stricken soldiers. Confederate morale soars. Just like the Southern politicians said: One Rebel can lick ten Yankees. The Yankees are cowards.
McDowell spends the next two days out with Capt. John G. Barnard reconnoitering the fords and determining how best to cross Bull Run and assail the Confederates.
Realizing that Patterson could not interfere in time, Johnston marched from Winchester, crossed the Blue Ridge to Piedmont, and there began loading his men onto trains on the morning of July 19, to quickly shift most of his force to Manassas Junction. A veteran of the War of 1812, Patterson had gone so far as to say that the War Department could arrange for his execution should he fail in his duty of holding Johnston in the valley. His resignation after the First Manassas campaign served the same purpose. If Johnston can successfully bring his force to join Beauregard, the two opposing armies will be fairly evenly matched; the Federals have lost their numbers bulge.
Johnston began loading the first of his four brigades on trains for the journey to Manassas on the morning of July 19. These included a brigade of Virginians commanded by a strange fellow who had taught artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute—a West Pointer some of his former students still called “Tom Fool” Jackson or “Old Blue Light.”
By July 21, a Sunday, both armies are ready to attack one another. Each commander hopes to strike his opponent’s left flank: Beauregard plans to push northward across the fords at Union Mills, McLean’s, and Blackburn’s, while at Sudley Ford McDowell intends to swing northward around the Rebel left, cross Bull Run, and then slam southward into the enemy’s left flank. Part of his force advances west, across Cub Run, toward a small Confederate force deployed behind Stone Bridge.
Stone Bridge is on the Warrenton Turnpike where it spans Bull Run. The Union plan is to turn the Confederate left with the Union right, employing two of their five divisions. The Confederate plan is to turn the Union left with their right, committing 7 of 12 of their brigades. McDowell has spent two days reconnoitering and formulating his plan; he commences it earlier than the Confederates. If the Confederates had triggered their advance a couple of hours earlier, it’s possible that the outcome of this battle would have gone the other way, because both armies are new to the art of warfare. Their leaders have never commanded such large numbers.
The Union plan is that Daniel Tyler is going to lead the march out of the Centreville encampment, move down the Warrenton Turnpike, and demonstrate against the bridge to keep the Confederates thinking that this is where the attack will come. Then the turning column, the division commanded by Col. David Hunter in the lead, with Col. Samuel P. Heintzelman’s division following, will march along circuitous roads passing to the north, and cross Bull Run at Sudley Ford beyond Sudley Church, positioning them to carry out their mission and turn the Confederate left. To be successful they must move rather rapidly, while Tyler’s demonstration must keep the Confederate defenses pinned down along Bull Run.
The Confederates have four brigades in their right flank at Blackburn’s, Mitchell’s, McLean’s, and Union Mills Fords, with more in reserve, including the brigades of Brig. Gens. Barnard Bee and Thomas Jonathan Jackson, and Cols. Jubal Early and Francis Bartow. All are to be committed to the Confederate attack on the Union left. Action starts at Stone Bridge about 6:30 a.m. Who does the Union have to watch their left flank and rear? Here is one of the “great names of military history!”: Col. Dixon S. Miles, who will face a court of inquiry for drunkenness during this battle. With three brigades he is charged with covering the Union left and making a demonstration to hold the attention of the seven Confederate brigades. There are five brigades in McDowell’s turning column, with three of Tyler’s to bluff the Stone Bridge Rebels.
Beauregard has appointed Capt. E. Porter Alexander as his chief signal officer. After Alexander arrives in June he picks a dozen intelligent privates for the signal service. Now, all privates are intelligent, so that means there are 12 intelligent privates that he teaches the “wigwag” signal system he learned from then-surgeon Albert Myer, the Union Army’s first signal officer. The Confederates also erected four signal stations. One station is on Van Pelt Ridge, just north of the Warrenton Turnpike and west of Bull Run; another is on Wilcoxen’s Hill, south of Manassas Junction.
It’s Sunday morning. McDowell is a large man and he has also been a staff officer most of his military life. He got his job principally because Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Portland Chase knows he is from Ohio, and Chase and Chase’s daughter are both convinced that Salmon P. Chase and not Abraham Lincoln should be sitting in the White House. Chase wants his own man in command; he went to bat and McDowell got the job.
The Confederates in the Stone Bridge area are commanded by South Carolinian Nathan “Shanks” Evans. He got the name “Shanks” at West Point. At West Point you get your nickname not because of your beauty. In the eyes of his fellow cadets he was not good looking. Shanks’s problem—he had rather spindly legs. What does he have to defend this bridge with? He has the Fourth South Carolina Infantry. He has a colorful unit out of Louisiana, the First Louisiana Special Battalion, soon to gain fame as the “Louisiana Tigers,” commanded by Maj. Roberdeau L. Wheat. If you had a football team you’d want to recruit Wheat as a linebacker. He’s the son of an Episcopal rector, stands some six feet three, and weighs about 250 pounds. He served with William Walker—“the gray-eyed man of destiny”—in Nicaragua and Giuseppe Garibaldi in Sicily. Many of his men are Irish and had worked as stevedores in New Orleans. They wear distinctive Zouave uniforms. Evans has two cannon attached to him and two companies of cavalry. It’s a small force, under a thousand men.
Unfamiliar with the terrain at Manassas, Gen. Joseph Johnston, the highest ranking Regular Army officer to join the Confederacy, shared command with Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard.
The Yankees come down off the ridge separating Cub Run and Bull Run. The lead gun, a 30-pounder Parrott rifle weighing three tons, is commanded by Lt. Peter Hains of Company E, Second U.S. Artillery, fresh out of West Point. He throws that big 30-pounder into position and trains it toward the Van Pelt house, along the ridge north of the Warrenton Pike and West of Bull Run. Three shots crash in the vicinity of the house, one of which goes through the signalman’s tent. Tyler’s men keep Evans’s Confederates pinned here while David Hunter’s men—leading the turning column—move around their flank. The first to arrive at Stone Bridge is Brig. Gen. Robert “Fighting Bob” Schenck. He ought to be able to bluff, because he wrote the book on playing stud poker, but he doesn’t do a very good job today. He throws forward the Second New York on either side of the Warrenton Pike. Then he tells Col. Alexander D. McCook’s Ohio boys to move down a side road to Lewis Ford and keep the Rebs busy there. Evans isn’t taken in by any of this. He doesn’t think the Yankees are aggressive enough to mean trouble. Meanwhile, Col. William T. “Uncle Billy” Sherman, commanding a brigade of troops from New York and Wisconsin, reconnoiters the east bank of Bull Run above Stone Bridge. About 8:30 he spots a large man—Major Wheat—riding down and across at a farmer’s ford. Sherman puts that information in his back pocket until he finally crosses Bull Run at 11 a.m. at Farm Ford.
Nathan Evans is getting increasingly suspicious. The Federals are not pushing very hard against his front for this to be anything but a feint. His position is protected by a formidable abatis of felled timber—the wooden equivalent of barbed wire—extending from the bridge north and southwest of the turnpike about a quarter mile. As Captain Alexander gazes out from his signal station on Wilcoxen’s Hill in an easterly direction, he sees Brig. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Confederates at Union Mills. He sees D. R. Jones’s men preparing to cross at McLean’s Ford, and Longstreet at Blackburn’s. As he is looking toward the north, he sees columns of infantry coming out of the woods, sunlight flashing off brass cannon and bayonets. It’s Hunter’s Yankees closing on Sudley Ford. Alexander signals to Evans at the bridge: “Look to your left. You are turned.”
On the morning of July 21, McDowell sent several brigades across Bull Run at Sudley Ford to attack Beauregard’s left flank. By late morning Federal forces had pushed aside the Confederates holding Matthews Hill and advanced on Henry Hill south of the Warrenton Turnpike. There the Federals launched a series of assaults to drive Rebel forces off the hill. By late afternoon, Beauregard dispatched reinforcements to Chinn Ridge, and two Confederate brigades struck the left flank of the Federals, and the Yankees began to withdraw from the battlefield in a retreat that soon turned into a rout.
Evans immediately takes six companies of the Fourth South Carolina, Wheat’s battalion, and two cannon, and heads toward Pittsylvania (the Carter House); he then redeploys his men astride Sudley Road. Later in the day Evans pulls two more companies, leaving only two companies at Stone Bridge. It is going to be well into the afternoon before Fighting Bob Schenck crosses this bridge and moves west.
Throughout the morning the Union forces continue to march northwest in their effort to turn the Confederate left. It is midmorning before they finally cross Bull Run at Sudley Ford. As the long blue columns turn south on the Sudley Road, only Evans’s people stand in their way. Beauregard, realizing that his flank is in danger, reconsiders his own offensive thrust against the Union left and begins shifting brigades to meet the attacking Yankees.
At Sudley Ford five Union brigades made their way across Bull Run. David Hunter’s division has the lead. An ex-staff officer—a paymaster—Hunter owes his position to being in the right place at the right time. If I wanted to get ahead in the Civil War, I would be sure to be in Springfield, Illinois, on February 11, 1861, aboard the train that left that day, carrying President-elect Abraham Lincoln to Washington. For the next 11 days I’d have a chance to make an impression on the new boss. Look who was on that train—John Pope, then a captain; Edwin Sumner, already a colonel; and David Hunter—three future generals.
Hunter leads his men southward. Ahead of them on Matthews Hill is Nathan Evans, with his less than a thousand Confederates supported by two cannon, one gun on Buck Hill and the other north of the turnpike in front of “Gentleman” James Robinson’s house. (Gentleman Jim was the widow Judith Carter Henry’s half-brother.) Hunter plans to run over the Confederates and secure Matthews Hill. He doesn’t even take the time to put out cavalry to see what’s in front of him. The Rebs open fire; Hunter goes down; it takes time for his replacement, Col. Andrew Porter, to take over. Col. Ambrose E. Burnside’s brigade, part of Hunter’s division, is already confused. Things are becoming a mess.
Accompanying Burnside’s First Rhode Island Regiment is the governor of Rhode Island himself, William Sprague. Among the other unofficial observers on the battlefield are two men destined for major roles in the Civil War. Congressman John A. Logan will end up a corps commander. In the future, Sherman’s worst mistake will be when he gives Oliver O. Howard command of the Army of the Tennessee, passing over Logan. Logan believed he had been passed over because he was not a West Pointer. If Logan had been elected President in the postwar years, West Point would have been in deep trouble.
Another civilian here is Joseph Hooker, a West Pointer who had served in the Mexican War. He has a lot of nerve. He has made enemies. After leaving the Army, he had gone broke in California; he played too much poker in Sonoma Square. So he borrowed money from banker William T. Sherman and stiffed him. If somebody stiffs you for your money, you never forget it. He had also stiffed Henry Halleck, the future general in chief, for money, and he was on the outs with General in Chief Winfield Scott. So he can’t get a commission. The day after the battle he meets with President Lincoln and tells him, I don’t know how good a general I would be, but I will tell you one thing—I am a helluva lot better then any of those you had out there yesterday. So Lincoln writes a memorandum to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, and Hooker becomes an instant brigadier general.
While Evans’s men to the north of the Warrenton Turnpike face the Federal onslaught on Matthews Hill, two more Confederate brigades, under the command of Barnard Bee and Francis Bartow, hurry north from the Blackburn’s Ford sector to join them. Unbeknownst to them, two of Tyler’s Union brigades, under William T. Sherman and Erasmus Keyes, are about to cross Bull Run at Farm Ford and advance westward into the right and rear of the Confederates’ Matthews Hill line. South of the Warrenton Turnpike, on Henry House Hill, Thomas J. Jackson will arrive about noon, following the route north pioneered by Bee and Bartow, and prepare his Virginians for combat.
When Burnside finally gets his act together, he deploys his brigade. In an open field on Matthews Hill, facing Buck Hill, he positions the six guns—James rifled cannon—of Capt. William H. Reynolds’s battery of Rhode Island artillery, which is attached to the Second Rhode Island Volunteers. The James rifle is a ripoff. You take a good smoothbore gun, you rifle it and convert it into a substandard rifled gun. The bronze being relatively soft, you have to use resin for your rotating band to give the projectile a spin, but resin isn’t satisfactory. One third of McDowell’s 57 guns at First Manassas are James rifles, but two years later, there are few if any James rifles at Gettysburg. They would be replaced by better rifled guns—ten-pounder Parrotts and three-inch ordnance rifles.
Burnside forms his men for the assault on Matthews Hill. He outnumbers the Rebels three to one. He’s got them outgunned, eight cannon to two counting the 71st New York’s two boat howitzers. Johnston and Beauregard realize that the Union has seized the initiative. They scrub their attack on the Yankees’ left and rush men to support Evans’s people in the fight for Matthews Hill. The first reinforcements to arrive are Barnard Bee’s. A West Pointer, Bee has two regiments and two companies of a third. He now must make a crucial decision. Evans asks for help. Bee doesn’t hesitate, he leaves Henry Hill and crosses Young’s Branch to support Evans. He is heavily outnumbered. Later Bartow will arrive on Henry House Hill, and he will advance one of his two regiments, the Eighth Georgia, to be soon reinforced by the Seventh Georgia. You don’t want to belong to the Eighth Georgia because you’re going to get blown away in the Matthews Hill fight. The Eighth is going to lose almost half its men—killed, wounded, or missing—in 20 minutes. The Rebels carry the fight to the enemy. That is going to keep the enemy off-balance and buys time for Jackson and his five Virginia regiments to reach Henry Hill. He isn’t Stonewall yet, and his command isn’t yet the Stonewall Brigade. By the time Jackson arrives about noon things are coming rapidly unglued for the Rebels. But for the better part of an hour Bee’s, Bartow’s, and Evans’s brigades had carried the fight to the enemy.
Sudley Ford, shown here in 1862, was a key crossing point for Federal troops attempting to turn the Confederate left during the Battle of First Manassas, or Bull Run.
Who are the Yankees involved in this fight? There is Ambrose Burnside’s brigade, they have Andrew Porter’s brigade, and it’s getting worse for the Rebels, because Col. Samuel P. Heintzelman’s division is arriving, with Brig. Gen. William B. Franklin’s First Brigade leading the way. That is bad news for the Eighth Georgia over on the extreme right of the Confederate line, because they are assailed by the First Minnesota, and those boys are going to shoot the daylights out of the Eighth Georgia. Bartow, who is nearsighted, doesn’t recognize whether they are Yankees or Rebels out there in the woods. To the right and rear of the Confederates fighting for Matthews Hill, Sherman leads his men across Farm Ford, upstream from the Stone Bridge. He heads eastward following the sound of the guns. Also coming up are the cannoneers, using whips and spears on the teams, Capt. Charles Griffin’s and Capt. James Ricketts’s batteries. They unlimber their 12 guns on Dogan Ridge, on either side and fronting east of the John Dogan house. The cannon are supported by William B. Franklin’s two Massachusetts regiments. Col. Orlando Wilcox’s New Yorkers and Michiganders now come up to further increase the odds against the Confederates.
The Rebels see Yankees to their front and Yankees in heavy numbers to their right rear. They pull back. The Confederate regiments are disorganized and fall back in confusion. But what have they done? They have gained two hours. Two hours in the fight for Matthews Hill. Some will say that in the confusion Bee looked back and saw Jackson standing on Henry House Hill, and muttered something about him standing as still as a stone wall. At least that’s a South Carolinian’s version. Col. Wade Hampton’s “Legion,” barely 600 strong, arrives on the field and makes a brief stand along the Warrenton Turnpike.
Col. Erasmus D. Keyes, who had crossed Farm Ford behind Sherman, advances his brigade toward Henry House Hill. Three of his four regiments had the best weapons on the battlefield. The First, Second, and Third Connecticut are partially armed with Sharps breech-loading rifles—the same weapon with which Col. Hiram Berdan will arm his elite First U.S. Sharpshooters. He also has the Second Maine. A force of 2,500 men moves against Wade Hampton’s 600 South Carolinians. Hampton’s men break. About this time Keyes arrives at the foot of Henry House Hill, near the Robinson House. In the woods behind Jackson’s Virginians, milling around and regrouping are Hampton’s, Bartow’s, Bee’s, and Evans’s people. What an opportunity for Keyes—there’s Jackson’s right flank inviting attack. But opportunity knocks only once, and Keyes fumbles his opportunity.
Coming on the field, Irvin McDowell senses impending victory for the North. Rather than pressing on to seize Henry House Hill, however, he pauses to reorganize his command under the hot July sun. McDowell waits for more than one hour before resuming his advance. By this time he has more than 18,000 men under his control. The beleaguered Confederates have been given a chance to realign their forces, disturbed only by an unsupported attack near the Robinson House by two of Erasmus Keyes’s regiments, the Third Connecticut and Second Maine.
Awaiting the Federals on Henry House Hill is the Virginia Brigade of Thomas J. Jackson. Beauregard and Johnston use the lull to shift more brigades north to meet the Union threat.
The Confederates by accident have come up with a good system of command when Johnston arrives at Manassas Junction. Superior in rank to Beauregard, Johnston is to be overall commander. But he is new to the area, so Beauregard calls the shots on the field. With Beauregard commanding on the battlefield, Johnston will manage the flow of manpower and reinforcements to points of danger and opportunity. Beauregard is a student of Napoleon and probably knew more about the French commander’s tactics than anyone else on the field. And seeing himself as an “in gray” Napoleon, he anticipates a battle of annihilation. If you read Bonaparte closely, he doesn’t fight many battles of annihilation. Johnston is a cautious man; a military engineer like many officers in the Civil War, he has moved from a staff position to being a decision-maker in command of an army. At a critical moment on Sunday, July 21, Johnston makes a key decision that changes the flow of the battle as he exclaims, “I ride to the sound of the guns.” Beauregard accompanies Johnston, who takes the lead. Beauregard overtakes him before they arrive with their staffs on Henry House Hill, overlooking the Stone House. Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson has already formed his men in the edge of the timber. Upon reaching here, the two senior officers again divide their responsibilities. Johnston backtracks to what became his field headquarters at Portici, also known as the Lewis House for its owner, Francis Ware Lewis. There he’s better positioned to send arriving reinforcements to either Henry House Hill or Chinn Ridge, as warranted. Beauregard remains on Henry House Hill. Here he not only sends the newcomers where they are most needed, but also on occasion leads them into battle. Beauregard is arguably the most important man on Henry House Hill. His is an inspiring presence. But unfortunately for Beauregard, Jackson overshadows what he does. In contrast, Union commander Irvin McDowell is out of touch with much of his army; he is too far forward to exercise effective command of his force. It’s left to his subordinates to do the best they can on their own.
Fierce fighting raged around the Stone House, which became a makeshift refuge for wounded soldiers. It is one of the few remaining Civil War-era structures standing at Manassas today.
After a hiatus of more than an hour the Federals are ready to resume the fight. They find that the Confederates have not abandoned the area. Jackson has come up this wood road from near Blackburn’s Ford, passing Portici en route. When he gets to the edge of the woods, he forms his five regiments into a line that extends from the ravine southeast of the Robinson House, overlooking Warrenton Turnpike southwest nearly to Sudley Road. They furl their colors; then lie or kneel down. Here they rest. Thirteen guns take position to their front. They include the Rockbridge Artillery, commanded by William Nelson Pendleton. These guns are still at VMI. Too bad they did not then note their serial numbers or the weights so we would know which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. That is what Pendleton named his four guns. He was the rector in Lexington, Virginia.
McDowell directs Chief of Artillery Maj. William F. Barry to advance two batteries up onto Henry House Hill. They are commanded by Charles Griffin and James B. Ricketts, both crusty Regular Army veterans. Ricketts’s Company I, First U.S. Artillery, is armed with ten-pounder Parrott rifles. Now, it’s a bad idea to advance rifled cannon to within 350 yards of smoothbore Confederate guns. You’re taking a weapon that has accuracy and range, but you’re putting it within canister shot of smoothbore guns. Ricketts and Griffin protest the decision to advance their guns, and they ask, “Will we have infantry support?” Yes, they are told. They unlimber their guns within dangerous proximity to Rebel infantry they cannot see and 13 smoothbore enemy cannon. Worse, the Federals are going to lose one gun crossing Young’s Branch. Griffin comes up with only five guns of his Company D, Fifth U.S. Artillery—two Howitzer smoothbores and three Parrott rifled guns.
Earlier in the day, the widow Judith Carter Henry, who lives in the house on the hill that bore the family name, had been taken to the springhouse by one son and her only daughter. Mrs. Henry’s husband had been a surgeon on the U.S.S. Constellation in the quasi war with France in 1799 and 1800. But she soon asks to be taken back to her house. An artillery duel is on in the vicinity; the Federal cannoneers are unhappy and wonder, “Where is our infantry? Why haven’t we had any infantry sent up to support us?” The Confederates have sharpshooters deployed in and around Mrs. Henry’s house. And they are going to make a bad mistake. They fire on Ricketts’s gunners. Ricketts orders two of his guns to wheel to the left and fire on the Henry House. They set it afire; a shell goes off and all but severs one of Mrs. Henry’s feet. So Mrs. Henry becomes a fatal war casualty. Not by malicious intent, simply because the Confederates are using those buildings to shelter their sharpshooters.
The bombardment continues. Chief of Artillery Barry tells Captain Griffin to take two 12-pounder howitzers beyond Ricketts’s Parrotts and put them into position where he can enfilade the left of Jackson’s line. He again reassures Griffin that he will be supported by infantry.
Ricketts’s rifled guns are ineffective against infantry at this range, and most of the shells sail over their heads into the trees, providing showers of wood but causing no real damage to Jackson’s people.
While the artillery duels, senior Confederate officers in the woods behind Jackson’s Virginians rally and offer their units. Bartow, Bee, Evans, and Hampton bring some order out of chaos. Reinforcements continue to arrive. Bee rides over to one regiment and says, “What unit is this?” They say, “Sir, don’t you recognize your own men? The Fourth Alabama!” He says, “Follow me to where the fighting is.” “We will follow you, sir, but where is that?” This is when he says the famous line “Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall. Let us go to his assistance.” After the war “rally around the Virginians,” is added and a legend is born. In the ensuing action Bee, as well as Bartow, is mortally wounded at the head of his men, as he leads them forward.
As fighting rages along the Henry House Hill front, Griffin and Ricketts finally receive their first infantry support from the 11th New York Fire Zouaves, decked out in their newer blue uniforms. Due to the heat they are not wearing their blue jackets, making their bright red fireman’s jackets visible.
The 11th New York is an elite regiment. It had been led by Col. Elmer Ellsworth. He was the mid-19th-century equivalent of the leader of a popular rock band. That was what drill teams like his were thought of then. He had been a law clerk and is known to Lincoln, having been on the February 11 train from Springfield that carried the President-elect to Washington for his Inauguration. The New Yorkers are hell-raisers. Having put out a fire in Washington’s Willard’s Hotel, they will be designated by none other than Lincoln to spearhead the units sent to occupy Alexandria on May 24. There Ellsworth is killed. Having pulled down a Confederate flag from atop the Marshall House tavern, he becomes a martyr to the cause, complete with a White House funeral. The Fire Zouaves are now led by Lt. Col. Noah L. Farnham. As they advance near Sudley Road, to take position on the western slope of Henry House Hill in support of Ricketts’s guns, they are charged by what the Yankees dub the “Black Horse Troop” or the Fourth Virginia Cavalry, Company H. The Zouaves are mistaken, their antagonists are two companies of Jeb Stuart’s First Virginia cavalry. Many of the Zouaves break and flee. Griffin and Ricketts fire away at the Confederate line, impatiently waiting for more of their promised infantry support.
“Yell like furies,” VMI instructor Thomas Jonathan Jackson commanded his men as they charged at First Manassas, thus sounding the first “Rebelyell”
Up on Henry House Hill, taking position in the woods is Jackson’s left flank regiment, the 33rd Virginia, led by Col. Arthur C. Cummings. They wear blue uniforms. They form in the woods and start coming across a rail fence to the right front of Griffin’s two howitzers that had unlimbered to enfilade the left flank of Pendleton’s gun line. Behind the Federal guns Maj. John G. Reynolds is bringing up his U.S. Marine battalion to support the artillery. But they have not yet arrived. Neither has the 14th Brooklyn nor the 1st Minnesota. So Griffin’s two guns are terribly alone, backed up by a handful of shaken Zouaves and marines. Suddenly the Confederates cross the fence en masse and form into line of battle. Griffin looks to the right toward Cummings’s people.
Up rides Chief of Artillery Barry. He confers with Griffin. Through the smoke they see hundreds of blue-uniformed people come over the fence. Are they friend or foe? Barry thinks they are friends; Griffin argues they’re enemy. Rank is going to have its privilege until the Confederates are about 25 yards off. It’s too late when Barry realizes he is wrong and Griffin is right; the Virginians fire a volley, shooting down most of the artillery horses, and charge and capture the guns. Then all hell breaks loose, and that sets off an advance along the entire Rebel line. The rest of Jackson’s brigade surges forward. Men of Bartow’s, Bee’s, and Hampton’s commands, who have re-formed, join in the charge. They capture Ricketts’s six rifled Parrotts and Griffin’s other three Parrott guns but are driven off by Federal infantry that comes up too late to blunt Jackson’s initial surge. Fighting for the Federal guns rages as the First Michigan, of Wilcox’s brigade, and two Massachusetts regiments of Franklin’s brigade join in the fray but are driven back in turn.
Once again the Yankees recover their lost guns, led by some of Sherman’s men, including the 2nd Wisconsin and the 13th, 69th, and 79th New York. Had Sherman committed his entire brigade at the same time, he might have carried the day, but he commits it piecemeal, one regiment at a time. The Sixth North Carolina, the fourth regiment in Bee’s brigade, arrives in time to spark a second attack that gives the guns back to the Confederates. Then the Yankees retake them. And then the Rebels’ return is spearheaded by a battalion of the 49th Virginia led by Col. William “Extra Billy” Smith. The cannon change hands again five times in two hours. If they change hands five times you know who ends up with them—the Confederates. The fight for Henry House Hill ends with the Confederates victorious.
As both sides wrestled for control of Henry House Hill, additional Confederate reinforcements arrived on the field. Two regiments of infantry under Philip St. George Cocke moved up on Jackson’s threatened left, followed by two of Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham’s South Carolina regiments. Finally Jubal Early’s brigade joined the weight of Confederate infantry massing on the Federal right and moving onto Chinn Ridge, a low ridge extending to the southwest of the intersection of the Warrenton Turnpike and Sudley Road.
The last of Johnston’s Shenandoah brigades to reach the battlefield was that of Brig. Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith. Kirby Smith’s men detrained at Manassas Junction about noon and marched through the blazing July heat toward Henry House Hill. As they passed Johnston’s Portici headquarters, the general shouted, “Go where the fire is hottest.” By 4 p.m. Kirby Smith had moved his men to Bald Hill, to the southwest of Henry House Hill, across and west of Sudley Road.
Confederate reinforcements are rushed to Chinn Ridge to counter the arrival of Howard’s sweat-lathered New Englanders. Howard’s three Maine and one Vermont regiments had huffed and puffed more than eight miles by way of the roundabout route pioneered hours earlier by McDowell’s flanking column. They cross Sudley Ford to reach Chinn Ridge.
I am not a great admirer of Oliver O. Howard. I am going to tell this story on him. Howard writes his mother almost every day while he is at West Point. Nothing wrong with writing to your mother. But you don’t really want your mother to save all of the letters. He graduates in 1854. Who is superintendent of the military academy in 1854? Robert E. Lee. Howard writes momma saying, “I would be number one in the class if not for nepotism.” He complains he would be number one in his class except for the presence of Superintendent Lee’s son Custis. If this is true, Howard should graduate number two, shouldn’t he? But he graduates number four.
The Confederates extend their flank westward, seeking to get in the rear of the Henry House Hill Yankees. Howard’s regiments rush to Chinn Ridge to keep that flank from being enveloped. But the Confederates bring more men to bear. They call up Jubal Early with three regiments. Edmund Kirby Smith, delayed by a derailment on the Manassas Gap Railroad, arrives, detrains, and pushes his men from Manassas Junction up the Sudley Road, which runs between Chinn Ridge and Henry House Hill. As they come up, Kirby Smith is wounded, and Col. Arnold Elzey assumes command. Also arriving is Col. Joseph Kershaw with the Second and Col. E. B. C. Cash with the Eighth South Carolina, and Capt. Delaware Kemper’s Alexandria Artillery from Mitchell’s Ford, and he puts them in position to the left of Philip St. George Cocke astride Sudley Road. The Confederates build up a formidable force west of Henry House Hill. To reach Chinn Ridge, Howard had pushed his men hard. Some have dropped out, a few die of sunstroke; no time to refill canteens. They deploy along Chinn Ridge facing across the valley of Chinn Branch.
If you push troops, even veteran troops, you are going to lose a lot from straggling. The Confederates have had to go some distance too, but the farthest any of them had to hurry is six miles. Howard, after a pause, moves against Elzey. But with Early’s brigade on the field, supported by four cannon of the Culpeper Artillery, there are too many Confederates for Howard to master. The Rebels overlap Howard’s right flank. Howard seeks to advance again, and the Confederates counterattack. Howard gives way and retreats into the valley of Young’s Branch. Maj. George Sykes’s Regulars cover Howard’s retreat.
What at midday had seemed like an overwhelming Union victory had turned into a disaster. Outflanked on Chinn Ridge, their center at Henry House Hill driven back, by 4:30 p.m., the Union’s dispirited soldiers began leaving the field in sullen groups and retreating in disorderly fashion along the Sudley Road and across Matthews Hill. Soon the retreat was general as mobs of beaten men trudged back to Sudley Ford or across the Stone Bridge and Farm Ford to Centreville.
When the Yankees retreat later that afternoon, almost everybody goes back the way they came in. Fighting Bob Schenck retires across Stone Bridge. Sherman and Keyes go back across Farm Ford. Those brigades who’ve come the long way round by way of Sudley Ford go back via that route. When the Federals approach the Cub Run suspension bridge, the Confederates have their cannon positioned, on the ridge separating the Cub Run and Bull Run watersheds, and are firing on them. A wagon tips over and blocks the span, and what had been a disorderly retreat becomes a rout.
Ruins of the Stone Bridge, one of several Bull Run crossings employed by retreating Federal troops.
Here you see three powerful United States senators who had come out to witness a Union victory heading for the rear. They are exhausted. Jim Lane of Kansas, hated by Missourians; he’ll commit suicide in 1866. Then you see Ben Wade of Ohio, future head of the Committee on Conduct of the War. Had the Republicans convicted the impeached Andrew Johnson in 1868, they may have gotten Wade as President of the United States. He hates the South. And there was Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, rumored to be the person who told Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow about the Union orders to march.
As visitors who had flocked to the Virginia countryside to see the battle hurriedly boarded their carriages and mounted their horses in haste to get away, Confederate President Jefferson Davis arrived on the field and conferred with his generals as to what to do next. However, the victorious Confederates were almost as exhausted as the defeated Yankees, and there was no serious attempt at a pursuit. As it was, the Rebels had inflicted almost 3,000 casualties (killed, wounded, and missing), while losing just under 2,000 of their own men.
Beginning early on July 22 dispirited Federal troops began to straggle back into their old camps around Washington and Alexandria. Within five days Winfield Scott had replaced McDowell with a young and vigorous engineer officer—Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. The new commander’s mandate was to reorganize, train, and refit the battered Federal forces and organize the tens of thousands of recruits answering “Father Abraham’s” call for more volunteers. In just the 18 days following the battle, 91,000 had responded, and by November the Union Army exceeded its original strength by more than 500,000. In the wake of the battle, Union resolve stiffened, as it became evident that this war would take longer than expected.
In the South, jubilation knew no bounds. Johnston and Beauregard were promoted to full general by order of President Davis, and the Confederacy’s press hailed Beauregard as the new Napoleon. Once the weeks of rejoicing ended, however, the realization sank in that the size and ferocity of the Battle of First Manassas—or Bull Run, as it was known in the North—portended more and greater battles to come.