First Bull Run at 150

With the 150th anniversary of the battle of First Bull Run or First Manassas fast approaching on 21st of July, I was leafing through the pages of a coffee table Time-Life book about Second Manassas (linking to the companion volume about First Manassas Voices, which I do not own. The Second Manassas volume is well made, with plenty of wonderful artifacts. The attribution of the "voices" leaves too much off the table, such as not identifying Robert G. Shaw as the Glory guy.). Looking at the map of Second Manassas, creates a new bigger context for the fighting around Henry Hill.

As far as battle studies are concerned, I believe that the definitive account still has to be written. There is William C. Davis' short classic but aging Battle at Bull Run. Donnybrook is supposed to feature a good text but not a single map. As a map junkie, I find this offensive. Content-wise, this can be cured by The Maps of First Bull Run, whose aesthetic choices I do not like. It neither follows NATO standards nor presents units in linear formation, opting instead for chunks. YMMV. I prefer the slim style used by the Civil War Trust on First Manassas.

Those interested in the battle should watch the Civil War Trust's First Manassas video and look at there other resources. Don't miss the video of John Hennessy explaining Stonewall's actions on the spot. Both videos have high production values (probably achieved on a budget) that blows away the typical History Channel docudrama hyperventilations. At least the internet comes to the rescue.

While it doesn't allow you to leave the road, Google Maps can give you a good impression of the rolling country and some landmarks such as the Stone Bridge seen from Lee Hwy. Google's overcast weather doesn't match the Virginia summer sun.

Apart from the heat, what touched me on the spot was the tiny size of the crucial area. An area that only became crucial because of the misplacement of the Federal artillery. Only highly mobile and trained units are able to act as Napoleonic style offensive artillery. Having turned the Confederate position by their flank attack, the Federals could have only waited either for a disjointed Confederate attack or watch them retreat. The latter a likely outcome given Joe Johnston's later track record. How the Federal artillery could have been better used, one might compare how their Federal counterparts were used in the Swiss Civil War of 1847 (see the excellent study of A very Civil War) which managed to knock out the anti-Federal forces in a number of swift limited campaigns, largely relying on their advantage in Federal firepower (an advantage any government in control of the armed forces' arsenal has - painfully exposed now in Libya and a few years back during the break-up of Yugoslavia).

After this rambling introduction, I'd be interested in your views on First Bull Run and book recommendations about the battle.

"The Golden Book of The Civil War, Adpated for Young Readers from the American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War" has some of the best maps of Manassas and other battles. Unit positions are shown with small figurines, much like HO scale toy soldiers on a topographical tabletop.

To people familiar with maps, this book's maps add some topo feeling that most people don't really get with hachures or topo lines. To those unfamiliar with maps, it is a picture that is more expressive than a 2-dimensional map.

I also want to recommend "Rocks and War: Geology and the Civil War Campaign of Second Manassas" by Dr. E-an Zen and Dr. Alta Walker. It has a fine collection of maps of the area showing local geology as well as topology of the campaign areas.

Thanks for the tips. I'll add a copy of The Golden Book to my Centennial memorabilia.

Perhaps too many maps hinder the understanding of the ferocity and alienation of a Civil War battle? The wilderness of the wooded rolling hills of Virginia dissolved battles into disjointed local firefights, Red Badge of Courage like. Compared to the controlled Napoleonic battlefield commanded from a commander's knoll, Civil War actions were often anarchic after the initial deployment of forces.

Not a book on the battle, but I am reading The Civil War: The First Year Told by Those Who Lived It entries on the same (or near when not dated) day they were written 150 years ago. Today I read Mary Chestnut’s diary entries, having already read the other previous entries, including those of Charles Minor Blackford, William Howard Russell, Samuel J. English, Emma Holmes, Elizabeth Blair Lee and Walt Whitman. How it was seen by those on both sides of the conflict in the immediate aftermath of the battle is fascinating and quite enlightening. Mary Chestnut’s views are most interesting, as she has many keen observations about the battle and how it was being presented by both the North and South.

I also have the The Maps of First Bull Run which I am going through (as NATO didn't exist at the time and I don't mind chunks, I don't have an issue with it ;-)).

I'd recommend John Hennessy's First Battle of Manassas: An End to Innocence July 18-21, 1861. Overall a good book, with useful maps, although if I recall correctly, it could have used a few more.

I am reading An Unfinished Revolution: Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln and in one of Marx's dispatches he writes that the defeat at Bull Run was largely due to the Unionists acceptance of a three month enlistment term which put untried troops at the front of the battle. He claims that the armies in the west, where the troops were being battle hardened in smaller skirmishes would prove more effective however, he granted that the eastern armies were now performing much better.

Marx's comments reminded me of what another German said about American troops eighty years later, when Rommel said something to the effect that in their first battle American's were the worst troops on the field but in their second they were the best.

>4 LucasTrask: The nerdy trouble I have with the blobs is that they give a wrong impression about Civil War formations. The blobs look like Napoleonic columns not Civil War linear formations. On page 61, the 13 NY has a frontage of about 120 yards and a depth of around 80 yards. Given the regimental size of around 800 in four ranks, I'd accord them a bit more frontage (as parade ground precision would not be possible on the battlefield), say 160 yards and a depth of about 8 yards. The image in my mind is not of blobs but spaghetti: Long, narrow bendy lines impossible to keep straight (especially on sloping ground - "straighten that banana" was probably the most common comment during formation exercises during my military service).

>5 sgtbigg: I thought that Hennessy's book was out-of-print and a bit beyond my acceptable price point. Morningside Books currently lists it at 25 USD. Hmm, tempting.

>6 TLCrawford: Marx experienced the failure of the 1848 revolution volunteer formations that could not stand up against professional army soldiers. It was a failure of the Civil War generals to assign unsuitable missions to the green troops. Green troops can hold ground and can ambush. Green troops are magically drawn to barricades (early 15th century Hussite peasants behind their war wagons were suddenly capable to fight against knights). The commanders during the American Revolution understood this well at Concord and again at Guildford Courthouse.

While three months was clearly too short a time, the armies couldn't wait for the two years necessary to create professional soldiers (peak performance in 1863).

(Outside of Hollywood, the American battlefield track record isn't that stellar. Martin van Creveld's Fighting Power: German and US Army performance, 1939-1945 shows that US units, despite their technological and material superiority, underperformed compared to the Germans. A major reason for this under-performance is the class-based division of NCO and officers (inflicting inexperienced lieutenants and captains on their sergeants) and, in WWII and Vietnam, the arbitrary creation of units instead of regional regimental family types (the units that instilled shared values such as the Marines always performed better).

My explanation why US armies tend to perform better after the first battles is that it takes some time to deploy their technological advantage. In WWII Tunisia, the soldiers didn't suddenly turn in better performances. Their performance improved because their logistics and air cover started working. One interesting way to look at the performance of US doctrine without technological superiority is to watch the dismal performance of the US trained allies in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. To the objection that Americans would perform better in their place, one has to look at the performance during fire fights where the Americans lack artillery and air support. In many such situations, the Americans barely managed to hold on to their positions. If the US military performed better, it didn't need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined.)

I respectfully disagree, Jean-Claude. Any army which is fighting a defensive force has a much harder time. And during WWII in US vs German conflicts it was almost always the Germans on the defensive. In the best example of a German attack against American troops, The Battle of the Bulge, I think the US troops may have out performed the Germans. Did Martin van Creveld analyse that battle?

I'm just started reading reading Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India and in the first chapter Joseph Lelyveld briefly mentions the Boer War (or as he calls it the Anglo-Boer War). If he is to be believed (and my only knowledge of the Boer War is watching Breaker Morant) it took a British army of 450,000 to finally subdue the Boer militia, which he states never numbered more than 75,000 at any given time. There is also the American Revolution, where the professional British troops were sorely tested by the volunteer American troops in many battles.

>8 LucasTrask: Thanks, I don't expect anyone to absorb my musings by fiat nor not to contradict myself ...

Given the rule of thumb of 3:1 advantage in size need for an attack to succeed, I think a defense is naturally stronger. That is precisely why many Civil War generals thought to outflank their opponents (such as at Bull Run or most beautifully at Chancellorsville).

Another way to think about it is that a defender can concentrate on "fire" alone, while the attacker has to think about "fire" and "move" at the same time. A static defense can be weak if the other side has artillery or air superiority. Good generals react to this by opting for a dynamic defense.

As far as van Creveld is concerned, if I remember correctly they accounted for attack-defense conditions. I think that the battle of the Bulge, a mad German idea, actually confirms my point. The Americans only won once their technological superiority was restored.

Regarding your second point, we have to distinguish between tactics on the battlefield and the overall strategy. As the quip of the Vietminh general goes "The US might have won all battles, they still lost the war.", the British usually bested the American revolutionaries in battle (but could not replace the casualties necessary to do so). Winning a war of occupation is difficult without the complicity of the locals and can eat up a lot of manpower (this dilemma cost the US the Iraq War). The Union was afraid that the Confederate dead-ender would take up a guerrilla war which might have prolonged a futile war for decades (see Colombia).