The First Battle of Manassas

This was the first land battle in the Civil War. It occured on July 21, 1861. Manassas is a town in northern Virginia. Right near the Manassas battlefield is a stream called Bull Run. Regular folk thought that this battle might be the only battle in the Civil War. Thus, they packed lunches and went to picnic right near the battlefield hoping to see how well the Union army fought. Abraham Lincoln, the Union's president, appointed brigadier general Irvin McDowell to be the leader of all Union commanders at Manassas. There where Union firefighter volunteers wearing red and everyone was confused because there where some Union troops wearing gray, the color of Confederate uniforms and there where some Confederate troops wearing navy blue, the color of Union uniforms. Irvin McDowell was commanding a brigade of 35,000 troops. McDowell knew that since the Union was winning throughout the morning, he would have to hold on to that lead in the afternoon. He commanded his troops to go up the Sudley Road so they could ambush Confederate soldiers taking the same route. Unfortunatly for Irvin McDowell, while he and his brigade where going up the Sudley Road, some Confederate soldiers spotted them and found out what they where up to. The Confederates then told their generals about what McDowell was plotting. Then, some Confederate brigades went up the Sudley Road as well but this time they went through the woods and also used Bull Run to scan their defense and hide. The Confederates then went around the Union soldiers under McDowell's command an ambushed them instead. McDowell now knew that the Union could not keep the lead they had earned in the morning. The Union army retreated from the battlefield as Confederate cannons kept firing at them. The people picnicking near the battlefield also ran for their lives because they thought the Confederacy was out to get them as well as the Union army. The Union army fled all the way to Manassas where they regrouped and reorganized. Also, during the battle around noon, a woman living in a house on the battlefield was killed when a Confederate cannon open fired trying to kill Union soldiers. Instead, the cannon shell blew up the old woman's house and killed her too. Oh yeah, and one more thing, since McDowell lost at the First Manassas, president Lincoln relieved him from command.