First Battle of Bull Run

Wars and Battles, Manassas Junction*

In the summer of 1861, both sides were extremely confident of a quick and easy victory. President Abraham Lincoln had ignored Scott’s Anaconda Plan and asked only for 90-day enlistments from state militia forces. Southerners, equally optimistic, assured one another that the war would be over by Fall.

Lincoln dispatched General Irvin McDowell with an inexperienced army of 30,000 men to move directly on Richmond, the Confederate capital. The immediate target was a Confederate force of 22,000 men under General P.G.T. Beauregard.

Meanwhile, to the west in the Shenandoah Valley, a Union army under General Robert Patterson was assigned the task of keeping Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederate forces in check. Johnston’s soldiers were able to elude Patterson, however, and piled onto eastbound trains.

The initial major battle of the Civil War occurred on July 21, 1861 near a creek called Bull Run, about 30 miles south of Washington. Union forces charged the opposition lines several times and nearly broke through. The Confederates were bolstered by the courageous leadership of General Thomas J. Jackson, who stood like a “stone wall,” oblivious to enemy fire. The arrival of Johnston’s soldiers enabled the Confederates to mount a charge that broke the Union lines. Northern forces fled toward Washington, D.C. over roads clogged with politicians, newspapermen, and picnicking men and women who had turned out to witness the fray.

The encounter at Bull Run ended all thought in the North that the war would be short and easily won. Southerners were elated, believing that their hopes of a quick victory might be realized.