![]() Late in the afternoon, Confederate reinforcements under Col. Bernard Bee calls encourages his own brigade to rally with Jackson, who, he declares, is standing like a “stone wall.” Although he is killed in action, Bee's statement lives on, and from that moment Jackson is known as “Stonewall.” Sometime during the fighting, Confederate Brig. A contest between infantry and artillery erupts, causing havoc and accidentally killing Judith Henry in the crossfire as she hides in her home. Union infantry regiments soon become targets of Jackson’s nearby artillery. He places two rifled artillery batteries on the western side of Henry Hill within 300 yards of Jackson’s guns. Consolidating his own forces, he moves more divisions across Bull Run and occupies Chinn Ridge, west of Henry Hill. Jackson forms the scattered Confederate artillery into a formidable line on the eastern slope of the hill with his infantry hidden in the tall grass behind the guns.Īs the Confederates reinforce their lines, McDowell pauses his attack. The Federals have the upper hand throughout the morning as they drive Confederate forces back from Matthews Hill. The retreating Confederates rally on an open hilltop near the home of the widow Judith Henry, where a brigade of Virginia regiments led by Brig. Beauregard sends three brigades to handle what he thinks is only a distraction, while planning his own flanking movement of the Union left. McDowell’s early morning advance up Bull Run Creek to cross behind Beauregard’s left is hampered by an ambitious plan that requires complex synchronization. Constant delays on the march by the green officers and their troops, as well as effective scouting by the Confederates, give McDowell’s movements away. Later that morning, McDowell’s artillery shells the Confederates across Bull Run near a stone bridge. Two divisions finally cross at Sudley Ford and make their way south behind the Confederate left flank. Meanwhile, Johnston’s men in the Valley manage to elude the Federals and board trains headed for Bull Run. The inconclusive fight causes McDowell to revise his attack plan, which requires three more days to implement. On July 17, both sides skirmish along Bull Run at Blackburn’s Ford near the center of Beauregard’s line. McDowell’s plan is to make quick work of Beauregard’s force before Johnston can join him. Johnston operates in the Valley and is poised to reinforce Beauregard. The railroads there connect the strategically important Shenandoah Valley with the Virginia interior. They aim to block the Union army advance on the Confederate capital by defending the railroad junction at Manassas, just west of the creek. The Confederates under Beauregard, equally green, are positioned behind Bull Run Creek west of Centreville. On July 16, the Union 90-day volunteer army under McDowell-around 35,000 troops with great enthusiasm and little training-sets out from Washington, D.C. The Federals retreated to Washington, where the Lincoln administration retooled for a war that would be waged at great human and financial cost McDowell to embark on a campaign to capture the Confederate capital in Richmond, but McDowell’s troops were stopped at Bull Run by Brig. Under public pressure to end the war in 90 days, President Lincoln had pushed the cautious Gen. In contextĪlthough the Civil War officially began when Confederate troops shelled Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the fighting didn’t commence in earnest until the Battle of Bull Run, fought months later in Virginia, just 25 miles from Washington D.C. McClellan, who set about reorganizing and training what would become the Army of the Potomac. ![]() Irvin McDowell, the commander of the Union Army of Northeastern Virginia, was relieved and replaced by Maj. After this stinging defeat for the Union, Brig. The fierce fight there forced both the North and South to face the sobering reality that the war would be long and bloody.
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