DK - The American Civil War

resulted more in bewilderment than

anything else. Foreshadowing problems

that would persist throughout much

of the war, Union forces struggled to

coordinate their assaults, and instead

of amassing their strength to take a

position, the individual units (in

this case, single

regiments) made

their attacks

piecemeal. Even

so, the battle went

well for the Union

forces in the early

part of the day, as

they pushed past Matthews Hill down

toward Henry Hill, threatening to turn

the Confederate left.

In the end, however, all the delays

and lack of coordination allowed

the Confederates to man a powerful

defensive position on Henry Hill, where

the battle finally reached its climax. It

was here that Brigadier General Thomas

J. Jackson earned his nickname,

“Stonewall,” for his well-handled

and vital defense of the position.

Federal disorder

Johnston, having only recently

arrived, fed Confederate troops into

this crucial site, and the Union side

continued to waste its strength

in badly organized assaults.

Two Union batteries held

important positions on the

hill, but one was mauled

by a Confederate

regiment that a senior

Union officer had

misidentified as

friendly. This problem

stemmed from the

confusing variety of

clothing worn by early Civil

War regiments, before blue

and gray became standard

uniform colors. The Union

infantry supports had also

performed poorly.

The Confederate

capture of the two Union

batteries on Henry Hill

became the turning

point of the battle,

and one last Federal

attempt to turn

the Confederates

at Chinn Ridge,

west of Henry

Hill, failed.

Beauregard’s units. Unfortunately for
the Union side, Patterson proved to be
too timid a commander for even this
relatively modest objective. The
Confederates made good use of the
railroads to concentrate their forces at
Bull Run in opposition to Brigadier
General Irwin McDowell’s advance on
Manassas Junction.

Union plans—and weaknesses
McDowell conducted his attack on
Beauregard’s position partly in response
to the heavy political pressure exerted by
overconfident and overeager Northern
politicians. The Union commander fretted
that “for the most part our regiments are
exceedingly raw and the best of them,
with few exceptions, not over steady in
line.” Although the Confederate army
was smaller (McDowell commanded
35,000 men), it fought on the
defensive—a potent advantage when
considering two ill-disciplined,
indifferently trained, and inexperienced
armies. Nevertheless, McDowell’s battle
plan also had merit, as he hoped to
turn the Confederate left flank by
ordering two divisions to cross
Bull Run Creek at points
upstream from the bulk of
Confederate strength near
Blackburn’s Ford.

First clashes
The battle itself was
a close-run affair.
McDowell’s flanking
movements were
delayed by defective
staffwork and
inexperience, while an
aggressive defense by
Confederate units on
the left flank bought
the Confederates
crucial time to
ward off the Union
commander’s attempt to
turn them.
Beauregard at first
dreamed of a Confederate
offensive, but confusing
orders and poor staffwork

Defeat chastened the North, while the

Confederates anticipated that further

successes would soon follow—a dangerous

assumption, as it turned out.

NORTHERN PLANS

Northerners had expected a swift win, and they

found themselves rudely disabused of the idea

that their moral superiority would lead to an

easy victory. Many recognized the necessity of

improved discipline and organization.

A WASTED WINTER

While the North began to

mobilize its substantial

material resources, the

Confederacy rested on

its laurels. This nearly

led to the disastrous

defeats in the spring of

1862 with Johnston’s

early setbacks in the

Peninsula Campaign

116 –17 ❯❯, and much of

Tennessee lost.

THE FIRST BATTLE OF BULL RUN

When Confederate forces counter-

attacked at the ridge, strengthened by

two brigades newly arrived from the

Shenandoah Valley, the Federals

panicked and retreated in disarray.

They were joined in their retreat

by fleeing Union civilians from

Washington—

spectators who

had attended the

battle expecting it

to be an outdoor

stage where

treason would be

justly chastised.

While the Northern volunteers had in

many ways fought well, their lack of

experience and discipline showed.

However, chaos also reigned among the

victorious Confederates—likewise a

product of their inexperience—and this

would allow Union troops to return to the

safety of the fortifications surrounding

Washington, despite the frantic disorder

accompanying their retreat.

The battle served as a fitting

herald for the start of the war, and

Confederate President Jefferson Davis

himself traveled to the site before the

combat ended. He afterward wrote

the telegram reporting the victory

to the Confederate War Department

in Richmond. The Confederacy had

survived, and the battle would ensure

that the new nation would not be

crushed in one demoralizing blow at

the beginning of the war.

Confederate credibility

The new nation gained instant credibility

both at home and abroad. Nevertheless,

the inability of the secessionists to force

the Union to concede defeat after the

first battle, or to mount an effective

“Let us determine to die

here, and we will conquer.

Rally behind the Virginians.”

ATTRIBUTED TO BRIGADIER GENERAL BARNARD E. BEE, CONFEDERATE ARMY

General’s epaulets

Beauregard shared

command responsibilities

with General Johnston at

Bull Run. After the battle,

at the recommendation of

Johnston, Beauregard

was promoted to full

(four-star) general.

Union Brigadier General McDowell
McDowell was an able military
administrator who was less suited
to senior combat command. He
served in more junior roles after
Bull Run but was dismissed in 1862.

AFTER

TECHNOLOGY

The Union Army’s Balloon Corps was formed

in the summer of 1861 at the request of

Lincoln who, after a demonstration by

aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, hoped to

be able to use balloons both to conduct

surveillance and to communicate with the

commanders on the battlefield. The

technology was used by McClellan during

the Peninsula Campaign for observations

and mapping, where balloons were

connected to a military telegraph.

OBSERVATION BALLOONS

GENERAL JOSEPH

E. JOHNSTON

military pursuit of the broken Union

army, foretold the long and grinding

nature of the larger conflict.

Both armies needed time to recover,

and the Union would redouble its

efforts in the wake of its crushing

defeat. Meanwhile, the Confederacy

would become rather complacent and

too easily saw the battle as a vindication

of its belief that the average white

Southerner was more warriorlike than

any money-grubbing Yankee.

Most regiments elected their own officers,

reflecting Jacksonian America’s traditional

suspicion of hierarchy and technical

proficiency. Nevertheless, the volunteers’

enthusiasm showed the ensuing conflict

to be truly a “people’s contest.”