WaPo: Battle of Bull Run provided a surprising start to the bloody Civil War

[hootinholler]

William Howard Russell, the London Times war correspondent, went to the Battle of Bull Run in a rented buggy with a bottle of tea, a flask of Bordeaux and a container of brandy.

...

Washington Judge Daniel McCook, from the family soon to be known as “the fighting McCooks,” grabbed his rifle, some politician friends and a picnic hamper and went out to join his soldier son, Charles, 18.

Despite the stifling summer weather — never mind the prospect of bloody combat — scores of onlookers, with parasols and opera glasses, in carriages and on horseback, flocked from Washington to the fields near Manassas for the first big battle of the Civil War.

...

Instead, it became one of the most bizarre affairs of the long conflict — warfare as spectator sport, followed by a wild dash for safety — and it happened on July 21, 1861, 150 years ago Thursday.

More. Much more.

-Hoot

[csziggy]

1. The Smithsonian Magazine is publishing a series of articles

That will last the length of the Civil War. Each month's article pretty much covers what happened that month. Just in the first three articles, I have learned far more than I ever knew about the beginning of the war. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Battle-of-Bull-Run-The-End-of-Illusions.html

I subscribed recently because it was only $12 for a year's subscription. Very well spent money.

[Bragi]

4. Used to have a book called "The Civil War: Day-By-Day"

It was great. I gave it up with my other books, though, because they became too much of a burden. I'm now almost totally e-book based.

Anyway, if you see the day-by-day book in a used bookstore, it's a good one. I'm glad to see other new writers doing the same basic chronological treatment.

[Bragi]

2. It was indeed a strange thing

People did take carriages and picnics down to Virginia to watch the spectacle. It was as though they expected parade ground maneuvers, or a marching exhibition like you'd see today at a big civil war reenactment event. The gawkers got real war instead, with real carnage and death. Horrified, and I presume embarrassed, they headed back to Washington as quickly as possible on roads jammed to overcapacity with gawker traffic.

A strange way to start a war for sure.

[FourScore]

3. A good history lesson never hurt anybody. n/t

[Wraith20878]

5. My favorite story of Bull Run is the story of Wilmer McLean

His home was commandeered by Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard as a headquarters during the battle. At one point, a cannon ball wend down his chimney and exploded in the house, but no one was seriously hurt. He decided that he wanted to move his family away from the war, so he moved to a small sleepy town south and west of Richmond where he thought the war would never come to. The name of the town? Appomattox Court House. In April of 1865, Robert E. Lee would surrender to U.S. Grant in Wilmer McLean's home. McLean could rightfully say that the war began in his front yard, and ended in his front parlor.

Thanks for the link.

[csziggy]

7. My favorite was about the first Confederate commander killed in the war

At First Battle of Manassas, General Francis Bartow. The Florida town I grew up in was named for him. I always thought it was odd to name a town for a man most noted for dying first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_S._Bartow

[Condem]

6. The legend of how Thomas Jackson got his nickname.

General Barnard Bee had held the line for hours against the advancing Union Army. Jackson came up in his rear but stopped at the crest of the Henry House Hill. According to a few sources, Bee was beyond angry at Jackson's failure of support. The "Stonewall" part came because Jackson refused to move. Bee was mortally wounded and was said to be cursing Jackson with his last breath. But the legend was born. Great story.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Start?

I thought the Civil War started at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

[Wraith20878]

9. Fort Sumter is the first battle

But Bull Run was the first major battle. Fort Sumter was also a bloodless battle.

[Adsos Letter]

10. At the outset of the war LeRoy Pope Walker, the first Confederate States Secretary of War

opined that "all the blood that would be spilled in the coming Civil War could be wiped up with a pocket handkerchief."

As Shelby Foote noted in an interview segment of Ken Burns' The Civil War he always thought there was a PhD to be earned by some intrepid Grad Student who could determine the number of handkerchiefs thatt would finally be required to soak up all the blood spilled in that nightmarish war.