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Civil War History *Narrated by Mac*
Topic Started: Jan 31 2016, 04:12 PM (117 Views)
MacMillan
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Had to write this for USHAP and I thought some of you may like to read it as well.

The First Battle of Manassas
Introduction

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General Irvin McDowell

The First Battle of Manassas, also known as the First Battle of Bull Run, was the first large battle of the war. Union officials looked to an easy victory that would crumble the South's willingness to resist; Southerners looked to show they could defend their vast territory. The Confederate forces dug in along a small stream called Bull Run near the town of Manassas, Virginia, protecting a vital rail connection there.

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General P.G.T. Beauregard

The Battle was set more for political than military reasons. Confederate leaders, eager to prove their mettle against the more industrial North, had moved the capital of the Confederacy to Richmond, Virginia, greatly angering Northern politicians. Meanwhile, the press and the public were loudly pushing for the Union to move "on to Richmond." More importantly, by the time the battle was set, many of the 75,000 Northern volunteer recruits were nearing the end of their ninety-day enlistment and were getting ready to go home.

Battle Plans

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Union general Irvin McDowell's strategy was simple: approach the Confederate forces, crush them, and push on to Richmond. Opposing him was Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard, already a Southern war hero for his role in the fall of Fort Sumter. Beauregard reasoned that a Confederate victory might impress upon the Union the strength and fortitude of the Confederate army and result in a truce and an early peace.

Both the North and the South had three armies in the area. McDowell had 36,000 troops along the Potomac facing 20,000 Confederate soldiers under Beauregard. Union general Robert Patterson had 18,000 men facing 12,000 Confederates under Joseph E. Johnston near Harpers Ferry. And Union general Benjamin Butler commanded 10,000 men in Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia peninsula, guarded by a small unit of Confederates under John B. Magruder, although neither Butler nor Magruder would play a role in Manassas.

McDowell left Washington for Manassas Junction on July 16, 1861, but did not arrive until July 18. His large army was slowed by a huge number of supply wagons and the carefree attitude of the neophyte soldiers, who often broke rank to gather berries or rest in the shade. Union reconnaissance troops sent to feel out the enemy were met and driven back by Confederate forces at Blackburn's Ford, a small Confederate victory that demoralized the green Union troops.

The Fighting Commences

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McDowell meant to drive Beauregard from Manassas Junction by feigning an attack on the Confederate center, then clobbering the Confederate left. Patterson was to keep Johnston from join Beauregard, giving McDowell a decided advantage in numbers. However, Johnston gave Patterson the slip and was able to come to Beauregard's aid.

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"Steady, men. Hold your fire until they're on you. Then fire and give them the bayonet. And when you charge, yell like furies!" - Colonel Thomas J. Jackson to him men at the First Battle of Manassas

The Battle itself began on July 21. Beauregard's grand plan to attack McDowell, based on Napoleon's strategy at Austerlitz, was a dismal and immediate failure. His troops were simply too inexperienced. McDowell's army gained an early advantage thanks to it's greater numbers, and it appeared the Union would win; several Confederate units were defeated as Union infantry advanced on a small plateau called Henry House Hill. It was here that "Stonewall" Jackson earned his nickname.

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Just when a Union victory seemed assured, Johnston's army arrived from Harper's Ferry to reinforce Beauregard. Fighting aggressively, the Confederate forces caused the Union line to crumble. Retreat was called, and the Union soldiers, most of whom had never been in battle before, began to race to the rear as the Confederates continued to shoot. The retreat turned into rout as officers abandoned their troops, terrified soldiers fled in panic, and the entire Union supply train became a horrible, tangled mess of carts. Chaos reigned, and the situation was made worse by the presence of hundreds of sightseers, many with picnic baskets in hand, who had arrived from Washington in carriages and buggies to watch from a grassy slope a few miles away. Federal loses totaled 2,896 men dead, wounded, or missing. Confederate losses totaled 1,982.

The First Battle of Manassas would foreshadow a great many other battles in which outmanned and outgunned Confederate forces would defeat the Union army through skill, bravery, and sheer battlefield tenacity. It also proved to Lincoln and others that the short, or missing, clean war they had hoped for was not going to happen.
Edited by MacMillan, Jan 31 2016, 04:12 PM.
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The Peninsular Campaign Begins:

In Washington, General George McClellan, then in charge of all Union armies, looked at his maps and decided there was a better way of capturing the Confederate capital, Richmond, and thus ending the war. Instead of marching against of sizeable Rebel army in northern Virginia, roughly seventy miles from Richmond, he would transport the Union Army of the Potomac down Chesapeake Bay to near the mouth of the James River, on which Richmond was situated. He would then proceed up the north bank of the James River, past the Revolutionary War battlefield of Yorktown and the old Virginia capital at Williamsburg to Richmond. There, with superior numbers, he planned to besiege and capture the Confederate Capital

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General George B. McClellan

This plan won begrudging approval in Washington. President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton were fearful that with the Army of the Potomac gone, a swift Confederate army could overrun Washington, a triumph that might well lead to the ultimate victory of separation the Confederacy wanted. Lincoln and Stanton gave approval to McClellan's plan only if he left enough troops in front of and around Washington to protect the city.

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Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

Additionally, McClellan's duties were rearranged. He would no longer be in charge of all Federal armies, only its largest, the Army of the Potomac. In the west, Lincoln and Stanton put General Henry Halleck in charge.

The Start of the Campaign

McClellan began his campaign to the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay in good form. He was disgruntled that the Army of the Potomac would have only 90,000 soldiers for the job, not the 130,000 he had planned on; much of the remainder was left guarding the capital under the command of General McDowell, leader of the Union forces at the First Battle of Manassas. He landed his army at Fort Monroe on the tip of the peninsula between the York and the James rivers. At the same time, Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his chief commander of the region, Joseph Johnston, concluded that they were spread top thin in northern Virginia and should pull Johnston's army back to Richmond.

McClellan's Methods

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General John B. Magruder

McClellan was a methodical commander. He did not like to move before all his preparations were made and all of his supplies and soldiers on hand. Eventually he got his men moving up the peninsula, in what would later be known as the Peninsular Campaign, toward Yorktown where the Southerners were establishing defensive lines. When McClellan saw these lines he stopped. In reality, there were not many Confederates there, but they all fell under the command of General John Magruder (See 1st Manassas post), who had some theatrical experience before the war. Magruder marched his men in and out of trees and made such a fuss that McClellan believed he was facing a far larger force than he was. He stopped his march and called for heavy siege guns to be brought up. All of this and other preparations would take a month, until early April.

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The Battle of Shiloh:

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Grant's victories at Forts Henry and Donelson opened the Tennessee and Columbia rivers to Union gunboats and control. Grant made swift use of his advantage, sending Federal troops to take Nashville on the Columbia. He also sent Foote's gunboats up the Tennessee River. Confederate general Albert Sydney Johnston saw no alternative but to retreat to the important rail junction of Corinth, Mississippi, where the railroad running from Memphis to the eastern Confederacy crossed the railroad running north-south between Mobile, Alabama, and the Ohio River valley. There he would collect as many Southern soldiers as he could and stop Grant's drive south.

Grant, too, was eager for a fight. If he could defeat the Southerners in Corinth, Memphis would likely fall into Union hands, and important goal in winning the Mississippi River from the north all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Grant advanced with 42,000 troops to a place called Pittsburg Landing on the west side of the Tennessee River near the Mississippi border. He remained there for nearly a month, waiting for the arrival of Don Carlos Buell's army, which had been in central Kentucky and then Tennessee. Once Buell's men arrived, Grant planned to advance on Corinth and defeat the rebels there.

Southerners Strike First

Johnston saw the danger of Grant reinforced with Buell, however, and decided to strike secretly and swiftly. Johnston's second in command, Pierre G.T. Beauregard, liked the idea at first but then changed his mind; he felt that marching 20,000 Confederate soldiers twenty miles from Corinth to Pittsburg Landing would be too easily detected and that Grant would be reinforced before they arrived.

But Johnston persisted and when his army arrived on the outskirts of Pittsburg Landing on April 6, they found no signs of Buell's arrival. Nor was there much awareness that a large force of Rebels was so close by. Although pickets warned William T. Sherman of a Rebel presence he believed the soldiers were just "jumpy" and ignored the warnings. The Confederate forces had succeeded in catching the Union troops off guard, they sprung and within the opening minutes William T. Sherman had suffered a bullet wound to his right hand and fled the scene. After three hours of brutal, bloody fighting, they managed to overrun divisions commanded by William T. Sherman and Benjamin Prentiss near Shiloh Church. The battle cough have turned into a rout, but Johnston's army lost its momentum when his soldiers started rummaging through the overrun Union camps looking for food and supplies. An officer came up to Johnston and gleefully called attention to his armful of trophies. "None of that, sir; we are not here for plunder!" Johnston sternly replied. He then picked up a tin cup and said: "Let this be my share of the spoils today."

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The Confusion of Battle

The battle became increasingly disorganized, and soldiers on both sides scrambled to find their correct units. One major battle turned into numerous smaller skirmishes, with both sides taking heavy casualties. In many cases, confused Confederate troops dressed in both blue and gray fired on their own men, and hundreds of panic stricken soldiers on both sides ran from the battlefield in terror.

When Grant arrived on the scene, he ordered his remaining men to hold their positions in a dense thicket at all costs. With Grant barking orders and doing his best to rally them, the Union soldiers managed to repel more than a dozen confederate charges. Johnston (still leading with his tin cup), who was directing the assaults, took a bullet in the thigh. When examined the doctors could not find any blood or a wound, this was because the blood was draining into the general's boot. When the doctor's finally found his wound Albert Sydney Johnston had died from blood loss with a tourniquet in his pocket. In the early evening, the 2,200 defenders of the thicket, which became known as "the Hornets Nest" because of constant gunfire, were ordered to surrender as they came under attack from Confederate artillery. But it was growing dark and had started to rain, so Beauregard, who assumed command upon Johnston's death and had fallen off his horse injuring his neck leaving him over 3 miles from the battlefield, decided to delay the final assault until the next morning. The decision would cost him greatly.

Grant Fights Back

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During the night, Buell's army began to arrive and Grant positioned them for a morning attack. The Union also had control of the river which allowed them to bring up their gunboats which poured howitzer rounds onto the ground all night, not allowing the Confederate forces to sleep. Fighting resumed around 7:30 A.M. except the Confederates were facing a force twice as strong as before, this allowed the Union forces to recapture almost all the ground they had lost the previous day. The Confederates made one counterattack but were pushed back. Late in the afternoon, Beauregard ordered a withdrawal back to Corinth, covered by Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry.

Thus Grant's army won the battle, but Grant was strongly rebuked for being caught off guard. Halleck, Grant's superior officer, accused Grant of being drunk at the time. It was a false accusation, Grant had been away from the front to have a leg injury treated, but it was typical of Halleck. Halleck also blamed Grant for the large number of Union casualties. In fact, the casualties for both armies, still full of untested volunteers, were horrendous.

More than 13,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded or missing in the battle, compared to 10,694 on the Confederate side. This loss included more than twice the number of dead than all the previous engagements of the war combined.

Shiloh crushed any hope that the Confederacy could reverse the losses of territory inflicted by the defeats at Forts Henry and Donelson any time soon. And it inflicted cruel casualties that the South would have difficulty making up. the battle also shocked Northerners. It was the largest, bloodiest battle ever fought in America to that date, and it was clear that the Confederacy was not going to give up its struggle for independence with a few simple setbacks; rather, it was going to commit its young men to fighting no matter the cost in lives and money until they won or were decidedly crushed.
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The Valley Campaign:

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Before the war, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson had been an eccentric instructor at the Virginia Military Institute in the upper part of the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson was given command of a force in the Shenandoah Valley with the objective of keeping it clear from Union forces. In late March, he attacked Federal troops at Kernstown, believing they were heading out of the valley to reinforce General McDowell closer to Fredericksburg. Jackson misjudged the number of Union men against him and he was repulsed. Washington figured that if Jackson could attack at Kernstown, he must be stronger than they had supposed and they had better keep even more men in northern Virginia to protect the capital. Lincoln and Stanton shuffled troops accordingly, depriving McClellan of troops he was counting on. Both Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee took note.

When McClellan began building up his army on the peninsula throughout April of 1862, Lee and Jackson devised a plan by which Jackson would wreak as much havoc as he could in the valley, tying up Federal forces there so they could not reinforce McClellan. Throughout the next few months Jackson would only have a maximum of 17,000 troops as his disposal, but would be victorious in holding 50,000 Federal troops from moving to attack Lee. In early May, just as McClellan was finally moving past the Yorktown lines, Jackson and his small force faced three larger Federal forces in or near the Shenandoah Valley. Union general John Fremont was just to the west in the West Virginia mountains. General Nathaniel Banks was at the lower part of the valley, and McDowell was to the east of the valley with various divisions he could send west to reinforce Federal forces.

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Jackson on the Loose

As McClellan advanced toward Richmond, Jackson got under way. He marched slightly out of the valley near Staunton and defeated an advance guard of Fremont's, effectively ending advancement by Fremont from the area. Then he re-entered and struck a portion of Bank's command at Front Royal. Banks then had to retreat to Winchester , where Jackson attacked and defeated him on May 25. Panicked, Banks retreated all the way north of the Potomac, and the politicians in Washington grew exceptionally worried.

Jackson mad a bold pursuit but then turned back toward the valley once Banks had crossed the Potomac. Jackson had outraced Federal forces trying to cut him off at Strasburg by coming from both the east and the west. The Federals pursued the numerically inferior Confederate force south along the valley until in early June, Jackson turned and struck again first at Cross Keys and then at Port Republic. This halted two Federal armies out to defeat him.

Having tied up all of these Union troops - many of whom had been slated to reinforce McClellan - Jackson took his small army through Brown's Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains to join Confederate forces guarding Richmond.
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The Seven Days Battles:

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By late May, McClellan had managed to march his host of Federal soldiers up the peninsula between the York and James rivers to the gates of Richmond. He sent a portion of his army north of the Chickahominy River, the better to link up with portions of McDowell's army. The Chickahominy River parrallels the James for a way before flooding into it and was a difficult barrier for infantry and cannon to cross when flooded.

Confederate general Joe Johnston saw an opportunity to raise the Union siege of Richmond. On May 31, he took many of his troops out of their defenses and trenches guarding Richmond and struck that part of the Federal host south of the river. However subordinates misunderstood their orders or did things their own way, and ensued the fight, called Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, was basically a draw. Very significantly, however, Johnston was seriously wounded in the fight. President Davis replaced him with his military adviser, Robert E. Lee, who began his command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

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General Johnston leading his troops in his attack on Federal forces on May the 31st

Lee's New Plan

After the Battle of Seven Pines, the Southerners withdrew again into their Richmond defenses, but both Davis and Lee could see that the Union stranglehold would eventually capture Richmond. Like Johnston before him, Lee decided to take a huge risk by taking his men out of their defenses and attempting to defeat the Federal troops in open battle.

*When Lee withdrew his men from Richmond defenses south of the Chickahominy River, only 25,000 Southerners remained to face about 75,000 Federal troops south of the river. McClellan, however, did not understand his overwhelming superiority of numbers in this area.*

Lee conferred with Stonewall Jackson, then finishing his astonishing work in the Shenandoah Valley. The plan was to have Jackson slip away from the Union armies there, march to Richmond's north side, join with Lee's men coming out of their defenses, and fall upon the northern flank of McClellan's army. Done precisely, the attack would crumple McClellan's army from one wing to the other.

A Week of Fighting

It did not go exactly according to plan. Two of Lee's subordinate commanders, Generals James Longstreet and D.H. Hill, withdrew their troops from their entrenchments and marched them in stealth north of the Chickahominy. Jackson, however, was late. His tardiness was uncharacteristic and is sometimes blamed on exhaustion owing to his fevered Valley Campaign, but Longstreet and Hill went into battle without him on June 26. This became known as the Battle of Mechanicsville, the first of the so-called Seven Days Battles, a week of fighting that wrecked McClellan's hopes for capturing Richmond.

On this and the next day, McClellan might easily have battled his way into Richmond, but he severely overestimated the number of Confederates he faced. Instead, he pulled his right wing down toward the remainder of his army. The next day, Jackson still wasn't in position, but Lee kept pounding, a battle that became known as Gaines' Mill. The following day, McClellanb continued his retreat south toward Harrison's Landing on the James River, where Union gunboats could use their considerable artillery if need be to fire over the Union army in defense.

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The Irish Brigade at Gaines' Mill defending the heights they would soon have to retreat from.

Lee continued the offensive on June 29 in a battle called Savage Station and again on June 30, a battle called Fraser's Farm. Throughout the Seven Days, Confederate forces were smaller than Union ones, but McClellan always thought the opposite. He retreated to a prominence called Malvern Hill near Harrison's Landing. Only July 1, Lee believing one last blow would crush the Union host, sent his soldiers up Malvern Hill. But here Union artillery cut them down in large numbers. Lee had to stop, and the Federals were safe alongside their powerful gunboats.

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The 3rd Georgian Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Malvern Hill. By the end of the day they had suffered 45% casualties from Union artillery alone.

Richmond was liberated and McClellan's army was clearly beaten and demoralized. The Southerners had taken a terrible risk, but they had won and gained what turned out to be almost three more years of life for the Confederacy.



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