The First Battle of Bull Run

The First Battle of Bull Run

(First Manassas)

Evan Webb

The Civil War was one of the bloodiest (if not THE bloodiest) wars in American military history. In this war, 620,000 American lives were taken. That's a larger American death toll than World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, the Spanish-American War, and the Gulf War combined [civalwar.org( , )]. The Civil War all started at the Battle of Bull Run. This battle had a psychological effect on the Union or the rest of the war through the start of the "heat-up" period and the Union's prior confidence, the battle itself, and the suffering of the loss.

What was the cause of the Civil War in the first place? In one word: slavery. Where did the idea of slavery come from? It all started in 1619 when English settlers from the New World purchased some Africans to use as servants. These servants would be worked for a few years and then set free. This idea would be very soon manipulated so that when an African was sold, they became property that would work tirelessly under horrible conditions with little to no pay for their entire lifespan, and then their offspring's entire life, and so on. This idea would be carried through all the colonies and then through the Constitution, even.

As most know, though, wherever there is sinful behavior, there are going to be people against it. In February of 1688, Christians in Germantown, Pennsylvania stated in an organized protest that considering that Christians believe so strongly about not committing adultery, having a life-long marriage, and that murder is a horrible sin, they shouldn't force this upon others (those others being the slaves). These protestors talked about this because the slave traders would separate the men, and the women and children, which would break up marital bonds if a man would be sold to one buyer, and a wife to the other. Then, so the owners wouldn't have to buy more slaves, the owners would force their slaves to copulate with one another, and if either of those slaves were married and the owner didn't buy its husband/wife, the slaves would be committing adultery. Then the slaves would be worked to death, and in most cases the hard work would kill them, so the owners would be murdering [civil-war.net ( , )]. This protest got people to think about how slavery was wrong, but very few. Others had had slaves for a long time, and they saw slavery as a necessity to getting work done because they were so efficient in their work. They were probably so efficient because they were forced to work.

In Constitutional times, most would say that the founding fathers didn't know how to bring up the topic of slavery. That's why it wasn't really mentioned directly in the first draft of the U.S. Constitution. In that same time period, the U.S. was just forming the House of Representatives and the Senate. Slave states and non-slave states were forming during this time as well. This is where conflict started. Considering that the number of representatives in Congress (mainly the House of Representatives) was formed based on a state's population, which made the states federal power-hungry. One of the ways that slave-states tried to get power was they wanted the slaves owned to be counted in the census. But the states that didn't have as many slaves saw this as an unfair advantage. This now started a little bit of conflict which government had to fix. In reaction to this, the government set up what was called the three-fifths compromise. This meant that for every five slaves, it would count as three people in the census. This caused more conflictive thinking against this because in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence it states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness [earlyamerica.com ( , )]." They remembered that phrase, and saw a flaw in making the Three-Fifths Compromise. This started thinking as well.

Skipping ahead to the thirteenth president of the United States' "reign," Abraham Lincoln started really pondering the idea of slavery. Using the idea of that paragraph from the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln came to the conclusion that slavery should be abolished. This now started some craze. Seeing that people from the south had owned slaves for so long, it would seem like the people owning the slaves needed them because of how much productive and cheap work they do. This is when conflict started to become almost war-like. The debates on whether slavery should be abolished or not became extremely heated. It soon became so heated, that Abraham Lincoln had to declare war. It was announced in the April 27, 1861 issue of Harper's Weekly [sonofthesout.net ( , )]. This war was to be later called the Civil War, and it was fought against the Union, the non-slave war machine, and the Confederacy, the pro-slavery war machine.

For the war, Abraham Lincoln called to be the leader of the Union Ulysses S. Grant, and the Confederacy called General Robert E. Lee. The first battle of the Civil War (The Battle of Bull Run) was set to take place at the river Bull Run on July twenty first, 1861. It's strange that the battle was set at a certain time and date [clccharter.org ( , )] . Most military bodies would agree that the element of surprise was the best method. But, it was set to be held on that day there because that's where the Union troops following General McDowell out of Washington, DC were going to meet the confederate troops. This brigade left on July sixteenth, and the battle started on July twenty first. This battle was only taking place about forty miles away from where they started, which is just outside of Manassas, Virginia. So that took the troops a long time to get there.

The Union felt like this battle and this battle only would be the war, and that they would have an easy win. So they took their time with everything. Even getting there was slow and careless. The Confederacy almost saw them out of the war because of how long it took the Union troops to get to the spot of the battle. The Union felt this way because all they saw in the Confederacy were a bunch of poor, dirt-bag savages who haven't been trained as well. In fact, the Union was so confident in a win, the rich people of the Union went with the marching troops and watched the battle. [Book Bull Run ( , )].

When the Union troops finally got to the spot of the battle, McDowell instructed his inexperienced