Battles of Bull Run - Term Paper Example

Battles of Bull Run Introduction On July 21, 1861, the First Battle of Bull Run was witnessed in Prince William County, Virginia, at a close proximity to Manassas City, lasting for a day. The Confederate forces also referred to the First Battle of Bull Run as the “First Manassas.” The Battle of Bull Run was the first of its kind, a major American Civil War land-based clash. Even though the commander of the Union army, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, felt his camp was still unready for the confrontation, he yielded in to the huge pressure to commence the campaign. Consequently, the Confederate registered a stunning war victory, which put an end to the desire of the northern for a swift halt of the war. The second Battle of Bull Run occurred on August 29, 1862, lasting for two consecutive days.1 This paper explores the events of the Battles of Bull Run as an American Civil War landmark. Background of the First Battle of Bull Run and Manassas Military Gathering President Abraham Lincoln appointed Brigadier General Irvin McDowell as a commander of the Northeastern Virginia military. Upon becoming the commander of the army, Brigadier General Irvin McDowell became exposed to massive pressure from edgy politicians as well as civilians in Washington. These impatient politicians and citizens were very obsessed with the idea of the Northeastern Virginia military recording a quick triumph over their rivals, the Confederate Army, camping in northern Virginia. McDowell was a worried man about his troop’s inability to combat the Confederates army owing to the fact that the Northeastern Virginia military soldiers had received inadequate training. However, there was no retreat. This was not the time to recoil even if the raw facts bite to the bone marrow. To quell McDowell’s worry, President Lincoln told him: "You are green, it is true; but they are green, also; you are green alike."2 Brigadier McDowell had no choices, but to disown his correct opinion and pursue the interest of Mr. Lincoln together with impatient politicians and anxious civilians who wanted nothing, but victory. A year before, Thomas Jordan, an Army captain of the United States, initiated in Washington, DC, a pro-Southern undercover detective network. Jordan incorporated a popular socialite, Rose ONeal Greenhow, in the network and issued her with a communication code for crucial messages. Greenhow had numerous contacts, which would make her work as a detective much easier. When Jordan later quit the U.S army for the Confederate army, Greenhow became solely responsible for running the spy network, but would keep updating Jordan. In 1861, between ninth and sixteenth July, General P.G.T. Beauregard of the Confederate Army received secrete messages from Greenhow. This secret information conveyed to the Confederate General crucial information about the intention of McDowell, the Union General. It also contained important information of what would later be American Civil War conflict, the First Battle of Bull Run. Since 1861 spring, Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard was a busy man focused on amassing the Potomac Confederate Army at Manassas. He managed to gather around 21,800 soldiers. His main aim was to protect Manassas Junction railway station, which was a very crucial facility in the area. As such, Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard spread his soldiers along Bull Run. Even though General Joseph E. Johnston was his senior based on their ranks, he delegated the job to Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard because he was not accustomed with the territory. More so, General Joseph E. Johnston had only joined the army from Shenandoah Valley for a short period before the war began. Meanwhile, Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard prepared his Northeastern Virginia army consisting of approximately 3,500 men, including 28,400 effectives on July 16, 1861.3 The army was ready to launch attack from Washington on the Confederate camp based close to Manassas, Virginia. McDowell’s strategy was to approach the Confederate camp in three columns via the west. The Union intended to wage a discovery ambush at the Confederates Army planted along the Bull Run. While two of McDowell’s division approached via the west, one column moved to the south along the right of the Confederates. The main target of the Northeastern Virginia army was to drive the Confederate army away from their Manassas location, Virginia, the Northern capital to far interior. His prejudgment was that the confederates would recoil away from the Manassas Junction close to the capital into the region of Rappahannock River, taking off the underlying pressure. McDowell decided to let his army faction rest in Centreville after the second day of unhurried marching in scotching heat. After dispatching about 5,000 soldiers to safeguard the army’s rear under the leadership of Brigadier General Theodore Runyon, McDowell trimmed his troop to about 31,000 soldiers as he meditated about the best way to outdo the Confederates spread along Bull Run. The Union commander dispatched a military faction under the leadership of Brigadier General Daniel Tyler, through the Confederates right side. However, the division never succeeded in making it past Blackburns Ford because General Tyler‘s troop was assaulted when they reached Blackburns Ford. Under huge anxiety and disappointment, Brigadier General McDowell decided to launch an attack on the Confederates from the left side, as he thought this as the only viable option. McDowell’s plan was to launch the attack with Brigadier General Tyler’s faction camping at the Stone Bridge. At the same time, McDowell planned to dispatch to Sudley Springs ford two other factions of the Union under Brigadier General David Hunter and his counterpart, Samuel P. Heintzelman. From this location, they would launch the attack on the rear side of the Confederates territory. From Blackburns Ford, Brigadier General Tyler’s army would keep a close eye on the Confederates in order to stop them from upsetting the main attack by the Union. Patterson would squash Johnston’s attempt to move out of Shenandoah Valley so that the enemy troop would never have the chance of getting revamped. McDowell’s approach seemed quite a winning strategy, but why did the Union’s attack proved futile in the long run against Confederates Camp, which had a much inferior number? McDowell’s strategy was overridden with flaws, which gave the opponents an opportunity to successfully pursue the bigger Union army. McDowell’s plan was a sophisticated strategy that needed to be driven by expertise skills, which was deficient in his camp following inadequate training of his soldiers. Patterson’s failure to execute his role diligently adversely thwarted McDowell’s strategy. Further, McDowell himself was responsible for the failure of his strategy. Having taken longer than planned, Johnston’s valley force got the opportunity to travel by trains to Manassas from Piedmont Station, from where the army would link up with Beauregards faction. Eventually, Beauregards army division was reinforced, posing a great threat to the plan of McDowell squad. The Confederates line spread along Bull Run was greatly boosted by the arrival of Johnston’s Valley faction with the reinforcement taking place between July nineteenth and twentieth of 1861. Besides Johnston’s camp, Brigadier General Kirby Smiths troop was on the way too to bolster Brigadier General Beauregards army. Blackburns Ford, which was Brigadier General Tyler’s planned enemy harassment point, received the highest number of the new soldiers arriving to reinforce Brigadier General Beauregards division under the approval of Johnston, the senior officer of the Union’s opponent. The intelligence agents of McDowell were sending him misleading and conflicting information, which prompted him to call for inspection of the area using aircraft from Washington. It remains of great interest to think about what it would be like if both McDowell’s camp and the Confederates waged their attacks at the same time. The First Battle of Bull Run Kicks Off On July 18, Brigadier General Daniel Tyler’s Union section faced a scuffle upon reaching Blackburn’s Ford, Manassas surrounding. General Tyler was compelled to withdraw his troop following a loss of about 150 men in the battle. July 21 1861, McDowell’s Union forces launched the attack on the enemy, Confederates forces.4 McDowell dispatched Hunter’s as well as Heintzelman’s divisions consisting of approximately 1,200 men toward Sudley Springs. The army factions marched from Centreville to Sudley Springs through Warrenton via southwest end. At the same time, Brigadier General Tyler’s men moved straight to the Stone Bridge. For more than two hours, about 10,000 Federals slowly pressed and pushed back about 4,500 insurgents to Henry House Hill through Warrington turnpike5. Interestingly, onlookers, Congressmen as well as news reporters who had travelled from Washington to watch the historic battle from the countryside a few miles away from the battle field, began to prematurely celebrate the triumph of the Union. Clearly, they were oblivious of the fact that their much larger Union troop would suffer a complete rout in the hands of the smaller Confederate army. Despite having good coverage and superior number than the enemy, the Union troop started to experience logistical challenges, especially attributed to the extensive inexperience within the Union forces.6 Brigadier General Tyler’s men barricaded the major flanking column approach on the turnpike. The other Union army factions that arrived later maneuvered roads, which were unsuitable for getting to Sudley Springs. The narrow paths highly curtailed the movement of the Union troop. Brigadier General Beauregard was alerted of a possible planned attack by the ammunition fired from Brigadier General Richardson’s division, which hit the house of Wilmer McLean where he was eating breakfast. As a result, Brigadier General Beauregard ordered demonstration ambush to the north against the Union left. However, slipshod commands and communication deterred them from executing the attacks properly. The disunity within the Union costs it victory in the first battle.7 Clearly, inexperience was taking its toll on the Union divisions. On the left flank of the Confederate, a significantly reduce Confederate army of about 1,100 men under the guidance of Colonel Nathan "Shanks" Evans, was all that stood against 20,000 Union combatants.8 Colonel Evans had split some of his soldiers to go to the bridge and take care of Brigadier General Tyler’s division at the bridge. Captain Edward Porter Alexander, a signal officer of Beauregard, sent information to Colonel Evans about the main Union column advance via Sudley Springs. Alexander relayed to Evans the information "Look out for your left, your position is turned."9 Based on his experience and this knowledge, Colonel Evans suspected that Brigadier General Robert C. Schenck’s feeble attacks were mere attention diverter. He hurriedly moved 900 men in his division to a new area on Mathew Hill slope.10 While the Confederates moved back to Henry House Hill from their location at Mathews Hill, sections of Evans’s, Bees, as well as Bartows camps got cover from Captain John D. Imboden, who successfully kept the Union at bay, stopping their advance as the Confederates hatched a new plan of attack at Henry House Hill.11 This was the time for McDowell to usurp authority of the region by pushing the Confederates to the wall. Unfortunately, McDowell seemed not to have realized that he was at a better position to overthrow the enemy. He failed to seize the area, which was a great fortune to the Confederates. Both the Union and the insurgents attacked and counterattacked each other in the region of Henry House Hill. Johnston and Beauregard successfully ordered for reinforcements while the Union, because of inexperience, was struggling with harmonizing attacks by its different factions. The Bull Run “Rebel Yell” By late afternoon, both McDowell’s camp and the Confederates had approximately the same number of warriors left. Beauregard commanded for a counterattack along the entire Bull Run line, while he screamed as he and his men advanced toward Manassas. McDowell’s men recoiled haphazardly across Bull Run each trying to save his skin.12 Thomas J. Jackson, who was nicknamed “Stonewall” in the battle, joined the Confederates at a crucial moment and helped them safeguard Henry Hill ground, an important camping ground for the Confederates. Encouraging his men to fight on after suffering the wrath of the war, General Barnard Bee told his men to emulate Jackson who was “like a stone wall.”13 It is the new reinforcements among the Confederates who registered the triumph over the Union because the Confederates who were as disorganized as the Union never made any attack. On august 31, Beauregard was rewarded for the victory by getting a promotion to the rank of a full general. The First Battle of Bull Run Aftermath The cruelty of the attacks and high number of deaths at First Bull Run became a reality and an alarm to both the Union and the Confederates. After the war, McDowell was largely blamed for the rout with President Lincoln replacing him with George B. McClellan. McClellan would be in charge of reorganizing the Union troops to protect Washington. On the other hand, the Confederates were disorganized beyond imagination after the war in spite of winning the Bull Run battle. This made them incapable of pursuing the retreating Union troops to the last man. As such, wrangles emerged between Beauregard, Johnston, and President Jefferson Davis with each blaming one another for the failure to completely exterminate all the recoiling Yankees. The Second Battle of Bull Run Begins Despite the fact that the Confederates were victorious in the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861, the war was far from over. The Second Battle of the Bull Run began on august 28, 1862, following the firing at Union soldiers by Jackson’s army as they ware marching passed Brawner Farm.14 The Union soldiers decided to respond by firing back at the Confederates instead of running for their dear lives. The two camps engaged in heated exchange of ammunition until past midnight. As morning approached, John Pope, a newly appointed commander of Army of Virginia, assembled his dispersed troops, ordering numerous gradual attacks against Jackson’s camp along the rail road under construction.15 Even though Jackson’s troop was far less than Pope’s, he held on until he got reinforcements from Lee’s army. Pope was deceived into the idea that the Confederates were retreating as they were strategizing by changing their lines.16 This misjudgment mad Pope to relay a victory signal to Washington, D.C as he worked on pursuing the Confederates further. The Union pushed the rebels further, with Jackson’s men running out of ammunition and turning to stone throwing. However, General James Longstreet of the Confederate counterattacked violently on the opposite side of the battle flied. As the fight grew more violent near Henry Hill, Pope’s men were pushed towards Washington as they recoiled from the determined Confederates. By September 1, the Union had suffered greater life loss than their enemy. On September 4, Lee started to dispatch troops to Maryland, sending a chill within the Union. The Second Battle of Bull Run was however overshadowed by the events that followed and historians have since given it very little attention. Conclusion The Bull Run battles remain major element of the American Civil War. The Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) was the very initial massive land-based confrontation between two opposing camps, the Union and the Confederates, in the history of American Civil War. The Union, under the leadership of Brigadier General McDowell and the Confederates under the command of Beauregard, waged war against each other near Manassas Junction, a few miles away from the country’s capital, Washington. Even though the Union troops were more than the Confederates, the latter emerged triumphant owing to the fact that the Union soldiers had not been adequately prepared before the war. The insurgents threw the large Union fighting crew off the balance, forcing them to run for their dear lives. President Lincoln later replaced the Union leader, McDowell with a new general, George B. McClellan, who would restructure the union troop and defend the capital of the U.S. despite having won the battle, the confederates were also disorganized beyond expectation, making them fail to pursue the retreating union soldiers to their last man. This led to wrangles within the rebel camp. The cruelty of the war and high casualties forced realty into people’s minds and sounded an alarm. Today, American states operate with strong bonds joining them as a single nation rather then separate states. Bibliography Greenspan, Jesse. The Second Battle of Bull Run: A Civil War Sesquicentennial. Viewed on April 13, 2014 Howard, Blair. Battlefields of the Civil War - Volume I. West Palm Beach: Hunter Pub., 2009. Lassieur, Allison. The Battle of Bull Run: an interactive history adventure. Mankato, Minn.: Capstone Press, 2009. Luthin, Reinhold. The Real Abraham Lincoln. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1960. Mr. Lincolns White House. The Generals and Admirals: Irvin McDowell (1818-1885). Accessed April 13, 2013 National Park Service. The Battle of First Manassas (First Bull Run). Accessed April 13, 2014 Poland, Charles Preston. The glories of war. Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, 2004. Rafuse, Ethan Sepp. The First Campaign and Battle of Manassas. Wilmington, Del.: SR Books, 2002. Robertson, James I., Jr. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1997. Smithsonian Institution. Mary Henry: Eyewitness to the Civil War. Accessed on April 13, 2014 Vierow, Wendy. The Battle of Bull Run: Confederate forces overwhelm Union troops. New York: PowerKids Press, 2004. Read More