today we're looking at the First Battle of Bull Run hello welcome to the day of a bell ringer
please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at the questions down in the description also I'd
love to see your answer to question number five in the comments below so after the first shot
occurred at Fort Sumner in April of 1861 both the Union in the Confederacy were recruiting
volunteers and training troops to prepare for battle and really the opinion in the nation was
that one big battle and this whole war would be over and so they were all kind of just waiting
for this you know one big battle that was gonna take place so in July of 1861 we have that first
major battle just happened south of Washington DC near the little town of Manassas Junction
Virginia so President Lincoln ordered a Union General Irvin McDowell to take his troops in
advance towards Richmond which was the Confederate capital less than 100 miles away from Washington
DC and at Manassas Junction there was an important railroad Junction or a strategic railroad junction
that would basically open the door to getting to Richmond so on July 16th McDowell began to
move his army of nearly 35,000 troops out of Washington DC towards Manassas Junction in the
meantime Confederate spies in Washington had passed information to Confederate general PGT
Beauregard who had about 20,000 Confederates under his command and they were camped along
Bull Run Creek near Manassas Beauregard was able to organize his army and call for reinforcements
to prepare for this attack because of that information he got from the Confederate
spies and so on Sunday morning July 21st Union troops began to cross Bourne Creek and attack the
Confederates so about 32,000 Union troops versus somewhere around 28,000 Confederates and so now
here's a little quick confusing aspect of Civil War battles many times you'll hear that you know
there's two different names for one single battle and it really depends on who you were talking to
of what the name of the battle was Union troops generally named battles after the closest body of
water or stream so in this case Bull Run Creek Confederates on the other hand would name it
after the closest town so in this case Manassas so that's why this battle you'll hear sometimes
called the Battle of Bull Run or first Manassas now hopefully you're also catching on that there
will be another battle that will happen at the same site since I'm saying first because there
will be a second later on but back to the battle um interestingly at this battle spectators from
Washington DC had ridden out with picnics and their carriages and everything to watch the
battle as if they were watching a football game you know they thought this was gonna be the big
battle that was gonna decide it all so they really wanted to be there to see it so the battle itself
was a disorganized mess from the beginning troops on both sides were not really well trained or well
prepared to fight in this battle in fact many of the Confederates were actually wearing blue
uniforms because you got to think about a lot of these guys when they went off to war they just
picked up whatever uniform they had and if they had served in the military before they had a blue
uniform so we have instances where Confederates march right up on Union troops without being
fired on because the Union troops thought they were where Union troops and it it's just a big
huge mess here at Manassas early in the battle Union troops push the Confederates back into a
foot wave really a full retreat but one problem Union commanders were having was that their men
were stopping and picking up souvenirs so instead of pursuing the Confederates they were stopping to
pick up little things like you know belt buckles or guns or things like that because again they
thought this was gonna be the one big battle so they wanted proof that they were there so as they
push them back they push them up this position called Henry house Hill on the battlefield and
by the afternoon that Confederate reinforcements had arrived and among those reinforcements were
Virginians under the command of General Thomas Jackson there so they're on Henry House Hill
Thomas Jackson and as Virginians begin to stand firm against this Union advance and so another
Confederate commander who was trying to rally his troops famously said there is Jackson standing
like a stone wall rally behind the Virginians well that nickname stuck with Jackson and so he becomes
known as Stonewall Jackson from that day forward and so the Confederates begin to push back and
you know for the first time we hear the rebel yell being yell the battlefield and actually this push
turns into a complete rout of Union troops and so these Union troops begin to run for Washington DC
and it's become such a disorganized mess that the civilians who had come to watch the battle
actually getting mixed up into the Union retreat and so in all there are around 3,000 casualties
killed wounded or missing for the Union 2,000 casualties for the Confederates this was a huge
number for one battle at the at this time in this time period people were shocked and and began to
make many realize this was gonna be a very bloody war and so for the next few days there was a
stream of demoralized Union troops that were you know trickling into Washington DC going right past
the White House and Lincoln looking out his front window seeing all these troops you know retreating
back into Washington and there were fears that the Confederates might possibly try to march on
Washington DC but they were such a disorganized army as well they couldn't get organized enough
to launch an attack on Washington so Lincoln removed McDowell as as commander of the Union
troops and he places a new general in command named George McClellan now although the Battle
of Bull Run seemed horrific at the time things were just going to get worse from there during
so as the Civil War raged on so hopefully you learned something there and thanks for watching
you