Bull Run: The Artillery and the Infantry

L. Van L. Naisawald is a graduate of V.M.I, and of the University of North Carolina. He has been with the office of the Chief of Staff and with the Office of the Chief of Military History. This article is one chapter in his projected book, "Grape and Canister ," a history of Union artillery in the Civil War. Bull Run: The Artillery and the Infantry L. VAN L. NAISAWALD A nation was at war, not with an ahen power but against itself. The crack in the union of the United States, plastered and patched many times, had parted too wide forminorrepair. The American CivilWar had begun with the shelling of Fort Sumter in April, 1861. President Lincoln prepared to take drastic action to repair the break. It was now July, 1861. The city of Washington sweltered under its typical humid, oppressive heat. For weeks the Virginia heights across the Potomac from the city had bristled with stacks of bayonetted muskets. Regiment after regiment of volunteers, many clad in gaudy red and blue zouave-type uniforms, pitched their tents in response to the President's caU for 75,000 volunteers. No one expected to be here but about ninety days—that was the length of service imposed by the President's caU; the "war" certainly would be over before then. Brigadier General Irvin McDoweU, an able but ill-starred regular, was struggling to ready a force of 30,000 Federals to move on Brigadier General G. T. Beauregard's Confederate troops encamped near CentreviUe, about twenty-five miles to the west. When that battle was over the Confederacy would be through and everyone could go home. ??-trained and unconditioned, McDoweU's troops eagerly struck their tents on July 16, 1861, and began the movement westward. The Federal general did not feel his men were ready, but his opinion had little weight in a nation where poUtical overweighed military authority. The cry was "On to Richmond," so McDoweU obeyed. 163 164L. VAN L. NAISAWALD The Federals reached Centreville on July 18 and found that their foe had fallen back south and west of a high-banked Uttle stream that few men in either army had ever heard of, known locally as Bull Run. One of McDoweU's generals, Dan Tyler, wandered southward toward Manassas to make a reconnaissance in force of the Confederate right. Tyler found Rebels there, in force too. McDoweU decided to turn the enemy's left instead. The plans were drawn; the Federals would strike at dawn July 21. It was 6:30 on the morning of July 21, 1861; the sun was up now. A sharp ringing report shattered the early morning quiet. A 30-pounder Parrott rifle, shrouded in smoke, was pushed back from its recoiled position . The ponderous rifle stood in the middle of the Warrenton turnpike. Its muzzle pointed ominously toward the Confederate positions west of the stone bridge over Bull Run. Federal artillerymen rammed another heavy projectile down the tube, and the gunner checked his sight Captain Edward P. Alexander, Beauregard's signal officer, heard the first report of the heavy Parrott and the explosion ofthe sheU. The Yankee gun boomed again. With the whirring of a startled pheasant the shell passed harmlessly through Alexander's tent and exploded in the field beyond .1 The first battle of Bull Run or Manassas had begun. On the high ground east of BuU Run the 30-pounder roared a third time. Tyler's division of McDoweU's attacking force started its demonstration in front of the stone bridge; the divisions of Colonels David Hunter and Samuel P. Heintzelman were swinging wide to the north to envelop the Confederate left anchored near the bridge. A motley coUection of artiUery pieces began to take up firing positions on the slopes with Tyler's infantry. Captain J. Howard Carlisle's Battery E, Second United States ArtiUery, with two 13-pounder James rifles and two old 6-pounder smoothbores, rolled into Une to the right of the road. The rifled section opened fire. Coming in behind these was Captain Romeyn B. Ayre's 6-gun coUection of 10-pounder Parrott rifles, 12-pounder howitzers, and 6-pounder guns...