Steven Harrell

First Bull Run

Jul 8, 2011 Updates

The Confederate Congress was scheduled to meet around the 25^th of July, 1861, in Richmond.  Pressure mounted on the commander of the Union Army in Virginia, General Irvin McDowell, to launch an attack on Confederate forces in the area.  Two small armies defended northern Virginia at the time.  General P.T. Beauregard had command of 20,000 Confederate troops near Manassas.  General Joe Johnston had command of 12,000 Confederate troops near Winchester, Virginia.

On July 20, 1861, General McDowell’s army of 30,000 men marched to Centreville, Virginia.  Alarmed that superior Union forces were gathering at his front, General Beauregard sent for help from General Johnston.  General Johnston loaded his men onto the cars of the Manassas Gap Railroad, and his men arrived on the night of the 20^th to reinforce Beauregard’s men.

On the morning of the 21^st, 20,000 Union soldiers began a flank attack on the Confederate left flank.  Captain Edward P. Alexander, from his wig-wag station, sent Colonel Nathan ”Shanks” Evans a wig wag message that his left flank was about to be turned.  This was the first use of the new wig-wag system in combat.  Steady attacks by the troops of Colonel William T. Sherman and Major George Sykes forced the Confederate troops back, where they gathered in defense of Henry House Hill.

Confederate General Bernard Bee saw the Virginia brigade of Colonel Thomas J. Jackson standing at the crest of Henry House Hill.  He then uttered the words that would immortalize Jackson.  “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. . .Rally behind the Virginians.”  Bee soon received a mortal wound, but his brigade and other Confederate troops rallied around T.J. Jackson’s brigade.  Jackson’s men soon fixed their bayonets and charged down the slope of the hill, yelling like furies.

As the Union troops were pushed off Henry House Hill, they began a disorganized retreat that turned into a panic.  Guns and wagons were abandoned in the Federal flight back to Washington.  Members of the U.S. Congress and their wives and ladies had traveled with the army to view a Union victory.  They were also caught up in the disorganized retreat, and the confusion and panic of the Union soldiers that were fleeing north.

The only unit left on the field that retreated in any order was the regular army brigade of Colonel William T. Sherman.  The day was lost for the Union.  Union casualties totaled 460 killed, 1124 wounded, and 1312 missing or captured.  The Confederates lost 387 killed, 1582 wounded, and 13 missing.  This Confederate victory guaranteed a protracted war and a bloody struggle with larger numbers of troops over battlefields around the South.