Today we're here at the Manassas National Battlefield Park in Northern Virginia.
It was here on July 21st, 1861 that over sixty thousand men from the North and the South
fought in the first major battle of the American Civil War.
The battlefield at Manassas, Virginia is just a short way from a small river called Bull
Run.
On July 21st, 1861, this quiet little community in Northern Virginia became the first large
battle scene in the American Civil War.
Where we stand is approximately 30 miles west of Washington DC.
The Federal troops involved in this battle had made that long march beginning several
days before.
The General on the Union side, Irvin McDowell, had planned to swing around counterclockwise
on the Confederate left and at first McDowell's plan worked.
But later in the day the Southern command under General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard,
had received reinforcements, and by late afternoon on July the 21st, the battle had begun to
swing in favor of the Rebel forces.
General McDowell's plan had President Lincoln's full approval.
The massive movement of 35,000 men was intended to serve as a crushing blow to the upstart
Confederate force.
And McDowell might have been the hero of the day had his plan worked.
McDowell was a West Point graduate, class of 1838, who'd been in the Mexican War.
But each time he was to pitch battle at Manassas, first in July of 1861 and then later in August
of 1862, his efforts would meet with failure.
Manassas, it seems, was a jinxed ground for McDowell's generalship.
At first Bull Run, McDowell's opponent would be Beauregard.
Beauregard was also a graduate of West Point and in the very same class as McDowell.
PGT Beauregard, a native of Louisiana, had been in charge of the force that secured Fort
Sumter only three months prior to this action at Bull Run.
Beauregard’s task at Manassas was greatly mitigated by the arrival of reinforcements
at a critical point during the battle, and also by the brave stand of Thomas Jackson
with his troops on Henry House Hill.
It was there that Jackson, yet another West Point graduate, class of 1846, stood with
his troops to face down a Northern advance, earning Jackson the nickname Stonewall. Jackson’s
stand here would be legendary, as would the tales of the Northern retreat to Washington.
Walt Whitman, one of the great chroniclers of the American Civil War, would write of
this retreat, calling it “A horrible march of twenty miles, returning to Washington baffled,
humiliated, and panic struck.”
Whitman would go on to say, “Where are the vaunts and the proud boasts with which you
went forth?
Where are your banners and your bands of music and your ropes to bring back the prisoners?
Well, there isn’t a band playing and there isn't a flag but clings ashamed and lank to
its staff.”
General McDowell's failure to secure an expeditious ending to a war that President Lincoln wanted
to be wrapped up quickly was also McDowell’s undoing.
Within one week after McDowell’s loss on this battlefield, President Lincoln replaced
him with George McClellan.