First Battle of the Civil War

The armies met near Bull Run, a creek that gave the battle one of its names. All day, combatants washed back and forth over a hill in the middle of the battlefield. During a fierce Union attack, Virginia regiments under Thomas Jackson stepped up to reinforce the Confederate lines. Another commander encouraged his troops to follow Jackson’s example, shouting, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer." From then on, Jackson carried the nickname "Stonewall," and became the Confederacy’s most famous commander after Robert E. Lee.

After numerous attacks and counterattacks, the Confederate troops managed to gather enough strength to push forward. As the Union retreated, untrained turned the conflict into total chaos. "As we gained the cover of the woods the stampede became even more frightful, for the baggage wagons and ambulances became entangled with the artillery and rendered the scene even more dreadful than the battle," Rhode Island Corporal Samuel English wrote afterwards. Only the inexperience of the other side prevented a total disaster. "If [the Confederates] had begun an immediate attack, nothing in heaven's name could have saved us."

That night, thousands of Union troops jammed the road north to Washington, jostling with ambulances carrying the injured, supply wagons, artillery and the fancy carriages of spectators shocked by the bloody realities of battle. Fortunately for McDowell’s men, the Confederates were too tired and disorganized to pursue. As a result of the battle, 3,000 Federal troops were killed or wounded, and the Confederacy lost about 2,000.

The battle was small compared to later conflicts but helped set the course of the war. Lincoln realized the conflict would be a long and difficult one, and set out to recruit more troops and prepare for a long, drawn-out war. The South drew the opposite conclusion from what was essentially a lucky break and came away from the first Battle of Bull Run (troops would meet on the same ground 13 months later in another Union defeat) with a false sense of confidence.

Go back to the first part of this article, Battle of Run