Nearly as
many lives were lost in the Civil War (April 12, 1861-May 9, 1865) as there
were lost in all other wars combined, the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812,
the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean
War, and Vietnam War. The tally of the dead in the Civil War was 622,000; all
other wars, 638,000 soldiers have lost their lives.
The first
battle of Manassas took place on July 21, 1861, on these pastures adjacent to
farms, teeming with fauna and flora. Butterflies surrounded us as we walked
through paths surrounded by wildflowers or through freshly mowed parcels.
Brothers
fought against brothers across the fertile agricultural fields and in the woods
nearby. Their blood soaked the fragrant ground. One of the casualties was
Captain James B. Ricketts of Company I, First U.S. Artillery. He was
shot in the thigh while commanding his battery, captured by the Confederates,
and recuperated at the nearby Portici plantation before his imprisonment in
Richmond.
The soldiers who survived the Civil War erected the Bull Run monument on Henry Hill which took three weeks to build and was finished and dedicated on June 11, 1865. It is one of the oldest extant monuments on any Civil War battlefield. The soldiers also honored those who fell in the Second Battle of Manassas and built a similar monument near the Deep Cut.
According to park archives, one of the nearby farms, Spring Hill farm, now simply known as Henry Hill, was overgrown and abandoned in the summer of 1861 because its owner was 84-year-old Judith Henry. She had a small vegetable garden and orchard around the old frame house. She was bedridden, too old to work the land owned by her family for over a century. Her daughter Ellen lived with her and with a hired teenage slave, Lucy Griffith, who helped with domestic chores.
Sadly, the First
Battle of Manassas (Bull Run, named after the nearby creek) descended on her
property. Federal artillery fired on Confederate sharpshooters, unaware that
civilians were inside the home. Cannon fire hit the house and mortally wounded
the elderly widow, the only known civilian casualty. At the end of that fateful
day, July 21, 1861, the matriarch was dead, and her house ruined. By March 1862
there was very little left standing from the Henry House.
The 7th
Georgia Infantry lost its leader, Colonel Francis S. Bartow, killed at First
Manassas; he was a Georgia politician who defended slavery and states’ rights. According
to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, Bartow “was rendered one of the
South’s earliest military martyrs.” His original monument, a stone shaft
erected where he fell, disappeared and the current marker dates to 1936.
A white monument is dedicated to General Bernard Elliott Bee of South Carolina, commander of the 3rd Brigade Army of the Shenandoah who was also killed on July 21, 1861. He is said to have rallied his scattered troops by giving the command, “Form, form, there stands Jackson like a stone wall, rally behind the Virginians.”
The three-day battle of Second Manassas began on August 28, 1862, as a twilight battle
near the Brawner farm. Brigadier General Rufus King’s division was looking for
the “elusive” Stonewall” Jackson in the direction of Centreville. Jackson was
behind the Union line with half of the Confederate Army. As Gen. King’s columns
passed the village of Groveton, the Confederate artillery emerged from the
woods and surprised the Federals. Union troops responded and a fierce battle
ensued.
Archeological digs at the Brawner Farm unearthed thousands of artifacts about those who lived and fought in this now quiet corner of the Manassas Battlefield. Artifacts from the August 1862 three-day battle included dropped bullets, military buttons, and the sabot and base from a 3-inch Dyer artillery shell.
The Brawner
Farm sustained so much damage from the battle on August 28, 1862, that the
family abandoned the property and the antebellum house that stood on the site.
The area was
devastated when, for the second time in thirteen months, war came to the
Manassas community. Civilians chose to flee the area in advance of the troop
arrivals, but others decided to stay and hid in cellars and outbuildings.
The occupying
soldiers confiscated grain, killed livestock, burned fence rails for firewood,
and killed chickens for food. Homes were used for field hospitals. Photographs
from that time show that the devastation of the area during the Second Battle
of Manassas far surpassed the destruction during the First Battle of Manassas.
Ann Strobel
wrote in her diary, “All who come down represent Prince William County as a
perfectly desolated waste, without food in it for man or beast, and the few
houses that are left standing as without occupants.”
The Battle
of Second Manassas counted 23,000 casualties, with nearly 3,300 soldiers dead. Makeshift shallow graves on the battlefield
contained soldiers from both armies. They were not buried properly until the
end of the Civil War.
The Federal government removed the Union dead to Arlington National Cemetery. The Manassas Ladies’ Memorial Association, founded in 1867, assisted in the interment of 500 Confederate dead in Groveton Cemetery. Only two fallen soldiers were actually identified and have individual headstone. Some soldiers may still remain buried in unmarked graves on the battlefield.
On August 30, 1862, the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry, called “Duryee’s Zouaves,” sustained the heaviest loss, devastated by the massive Confederate counterattack. New York volunteers suffered 330 casualties in less than 15 minutes, 120 soldiers killed or mortally wounded. Two wounded members, Charles Brehm and Eugene Geer, hid in the Stone House and carved their names in the wooden floor and baseboard.
Duryee’s
Zouaves took their name from Abram Duryee, their first commander, and the “Zouave”
style uniform modeled after the French colonial troops of North Africa.
Built around 1825, the Stone House at the intersection of the historical Warrenton Turnpike and Manassas-Sudley Road was a witness to history during the First and Second Manassas. Inside the now restored house, some soldiers, seeking temporary shelter, left their carved marks in the baseboards. The Buck Hill on the right of the Stone House gives a good vantage point to the historic crossroads. During times of peace, the Stone House was a tavern and traveler’s rest.
During the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in July 1861, the Stone House was at the center of fighting and the wounded were brought in for shelter. There were so many wounded at one point that one soldier said, “the rattle of musket balls against the walls of the building was almost incessant.”
During the
Second Battle of Manassas in August 1862, Union General John Pope chose Buck
Hill by the Stone House as his headquarters. Wounded soldiers filled the Stone
House again and two of them who were upstairs, carved their names in the wood. Federal
surgeons, under truce, tended to the wounded here. Confederate soldiers used
the Stone House as a parole station for prisoners of war.
Further down the road, the Stone Bridge became the scene of the opening shots of the First Battle of Manassas and the retreat of the Federals from the Second Battle of Manassas. The reconstructed Stone Bridge over Bull Run creek is historically accurate.
So much
history in this part of Virginia is seldom visited by Americans who avoid their
history, good or bad, and events that shaped their country. Perhaps it is
because Virginia’s population is changing rapidly, with Democrat socialists in
power, and new arrivals from other countries who do not really care about
America’s history, its past, or the significance of the places they inhabit
now. They do not realize how much sacrifice has been made and how much blood
has been spilled in these two battles alone so that a strong union could be
forged. For better or worse, it has shaped the country into what it is today,
including the benefits they derive from living here.
Note: Color photos credit - Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh, August 28, 2022
Black and white photo - Manassas park archives
Living in Kansas most of my life (with the exception of about 4 years in Phoenix, Arizona), I knew little of Civil War history until I actually visited in Virginia when my sons served there with the Marine Corps. Kansas was not a state yet in the Civil War era, and raiders from border slave state Missouri would come in, known as "bleeding Kansas". We did learn about these border ruffians and about John Brown in Kansas. There is a statue to honor John Brown in the Quindaro area of Kansas City, Kansas. While serving at Ft. Lee in Virginia we visited our sons, who were training at the Quartermaster School there, and visited the great Quartermaster Museum. Across the street basically, appropriately named Crater St. if I recall, is the Battle of the Crater battlefield. My husband and sons, along with me, didn't learn this history in school. As I recall, Union soldiers were recruited from the mines of Pennsylvania to tunnel under the Confederate camp and fill it with explosives. When exploded, it killed and injured many Confederate soldiers and the huge crater is still visible today. Thanks for this story about the Manassas battles.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your story, Marijane.
DeleteFrom Denise G.:
ReplyDeleteWell done. I was fortunate to have had excellent teachers of history in middle and high school.
I never appreciated American history till I came to live in Virginia. Seeing the proximity of the great battles and such rich history brought it all more meaningful.
Thank you.
From A. J. in Kansas City, Missouri:
ReplyDelete"Ileana,
I have attempted to respond to Marijane but have been unable to do so. I met her, once, and a friend of mine is a friend of her, and her family. I believe he coached two of her sons.
Marijane may be interested to learn that many historians believe the Civil War began at the Battle of Black Jack, on June 2, 1856. The belattlefield is near modern-day Baldwin City, just South of Lawrence. Abolitionist John Brown led his forces against an encampment of a pro-slavery group, headed Henry Clay Pate.
The second armed engagement of the official Civil War, about a week after the attack upon Ft. Sumter, occurred near Liberty, MO. Confederate forces attacked and seized an armory. No one was shot, or injured. Liberty is located just North of Kansas City.
There were other battles in the area, and the fighting was pretty savage. The movie 'Outlaw Josey Wales' reflects upon the hatred between the Jayhawkers (KS) and the guerrillas or bushwhackers (MO), and many of the guerrillas/bushwhackers used the war, as a cover, to enrich themselves.
Of note, a hotel in Kansas City, The Pacific House, was involved with Quantrill's raid on Lawrence. At the beginning of the last century, my great grandparents acquired the hotel, and owned it for ~ 7 years, until my great grandfather's death. My great grandmother sold the hotel, but re-acquired it, with my grandfather, and they owned it for ~ 5-6 years. It is now an apartment building.
A. J.