50 Fun Facts About Battle of Bull Run

Washington civilians rode out in carriages with opera glasses to watch First Bull Run, earning it which nickname?

The picnic battle got its name from the baskets of food the sightseers packed for an easy Union win. Their fleeing carriages then jammed the roads back to the capital.

Which nickname did Confederate general Thomas J. Jackson earn for standing firm under fire at First Bull Run?

Stonewall stuck after a fellow general pointed to Jackson's Virginians holding their line while others fell back. Whether the remark was praise or a complaint is still argued.

Judith Henry, an 85-year-old widow killed at First Bull Run, was where when Union shells hit her house?

In her own bed is where she lay, too frail to be carried to safety. Union gunners turned on the farmhouse because they believed rifle fire was coming from it.

Out of ammunition at Second Bull Run, Confederate defenders of an unfinished railroad cut threw what at Union attackers?

Rocks were all some of Thomas J. Jackson's men had left after firing off their cartridges. A few surprised New Yorkers picked them up and threw them back.

Union gunners at First Bull Run held their fire on the 33rd Virginia because the Confederates wore which color?

Blue coats on the 33rd Virginia convinced a Union artillery officer that they were his own supports. The Virginians walked up, fired a volley and captured the guns.

Which Union brigade commander at First Bull Run wore whiskers so famous that a facial hair style took his name?

Ambrose Burnside wore thick whiskers running from his ears into his moustache, with a bare chin. The style was first called burnsides before the two syllables were flipped.

Which entertainment giant scrapped plans in 1994 for a history theme park five miles from the Bull Run battlefield?

Disney dropped the park, to be called Disney's America, after historians and activists protested that it would bring sprawl to the edge of the battlefield.

New York congressman Alfred Ely rode out to watch First Bull Run and ended the day as what?

A prisoner of war, he spent about five months in a Richmond prison before he was freed on Christmas Day. He was the only member of Congress captured among the spectators.

Senator Henry Wilson fled First Bull Run on which animal after a Confederate shell wrecked his buggy?

A stray mule carried him back toward the capital. Another senator in the crowd barely avoided capture and vowed never to go near a battlefield again.

First Bull Run came three months after Confederate guns opened the Civil War by shelling which federal stronghold?

Fort Sumter was shelled on April 12, 1861, but the fighting only began in earnest at Bull Run, some 25 to 30 miles from Washington.

The Northern public before First Bull Run clamored for the Union army to march at once on which Confederate capital?

Richmond lay only about 100 miles south of Washington, and many in the North believed that taking it would end the war quickly.

Which future Union hero of the March to the Sea led a brigade as a colonel at First Bull Run?

William T. Sherman led a brigade of three-month volunteers in what was his first command of the war, and was then transferred to the western theater.

Which Confederate general coined a famous nickname for Thomas J. Jackson at First Bull Run and died the next day?

Barnard Bee was mortally wounded soon after rallying his men behind the Virginians. He was one of the first generals of the war to be killed.

A Union shell fell down Wilmer McLean's chimney before First Bull Run and ruined which Confederate general's dinner?

P. G. T. Beauregard was using the McLean farmhouse as his headquarters when the shell landed in the kitchen fireplace. He later called the loss of his meal a comical effect of the fight.

Which Union commander at First Bull Run was told by Abraham Lincoln that both armies were equally green?

Irvin McDowell had argued that his raw volunteers were not ready and marched against his better judgment. Four days after the defeat he was relieved of command.

Which general did Abraham Lincoln summon to Washington days after First Bull Run to rebuild the beaten army?

George McClellan was called from western Virginia, where his small wins were the only good news the North had. He soon rose to general-in-chief of all the Union armies.

Which Confederate leader reached the First Bull Run battlefield in time to see Union soldiers in retreat?

Jefferson Davis urged his generals to chase the beaten army, but their own troops were too disorganized by victory to follow it up.

Which Washington socialite ran a spy ring that passed Union marching plans to the Confederates before First Bull Run?

Rose Greenhow wrote her notes in a 26-symbol cipher and was thanked afterward by the Confederate command. Detective Allan Pinkerton soon had her house searched.

Joseph E. Johnston's Confederates reached First Bull Run by train after slipping away from which Virginia valley?

Shenandoah Valley brigades gave a Union force the slip and rode the Manassas Gap Railroad east, most of them arriving on the eve and the day of the battle.

Which 75-year-old Union general-in-chief, too infirm to take the field at First Bull Run, devised the Anaconda Plan?

Winfield Scott wanted to squeeze the South by blockade and by taking the Mississippi, a plan the press ridiculed. The public wanted a quick march south instead.

Which Confederate flag looked so like the Union's at First Bull Run that a new battle flag was adopted?

Stars and Bars was the Confederacy's first national flag, and soldiers on the field confused it with the Union's. The famous battle flag with its diagonal cross was adopted as a result.

How did Professor Thaddeus Lowe scout Confederate positions around Manassas Junction in the days after First Bull Run?

From a balloon named Enterprise, he saw no enemy massing to attack Washington. He then came down in Confederate territory and had to be rescued overnight.

Which Rhode Island major, mortally wounded at First Bull Run, wrote a farewell letter to his wife featured by Ken Burns?

Sullivan Ballou wrote to his wife Sarah a week before a cannonball tore off part of his leg. The letter is said to have been found in his trunk after he died, and she never remarried.

What mocking name did the Southern press give the Union army's panicked flight from First Bull Run?

The Great Skedaddle saw soldiers pour toward Centreville, throwing away their arms and equipment, and no rear guard could rally them.

Northerners named the 1861 battle Bull Run after which feature of the Virginia battlefield?

A stream called Bull Run winds through the battlefield. Southerners called the same fight Manassas, after the closest town.

Which Confederate cavalry colonel, later a celebrated general, charged New York infantry at First Bull Run?

J. E. B. Stuart led his Virginia horsemen into the flank of the 11th New York, then joined the pursuit. Northern papers soon ran wild stories of a dreaded black horse cavalry.

The 11th New York, scattered by Confederate cavalry at First Bull Run, was recruited from which New York City workers?

Firefighters from the city's volunteer companies filled the regiment. Weeks before the battle, in Washington, they had helped put out a blaze at the Willard Hotel.

Before the Civil War and First Bull Run, Thomas J. Jackson spent ten years teaching at which college?

Virginia Military Institute employed him from 1851 until war broke out in 1861. He was still a relatively unknown brigadier when the battle began.

Which future cavalry general, fresh from finishing last in his West Point class, carried messages at First Bull Run?

George Custer had graduated only weeks earlier and was detailed to carry messages to the army's commander in the field. He ended the war a general at 25.

Which Confederate general won Second Bull Run by splitting his outnumbered army and striking the Union flank?

Robert E. Lee sent half his army on a long march around the Union flank, then reunited it on the battlefield. Four days after the victory he began his next campaign.

Which Union general, brought east after successes in the West, lost Second Bull Run and was relieved within two weeks?

John Pope was banished to Minnesota to command troops in the Dakota War, far from the main fighting. His beaten army was merged into another and ceased to exist.

Whose 25,000-man counterattack at Second Bull Run was the largest simultaneous mass assault of the Civil War?

James Longstreet had argued for a day against attacking too soon. When his five divisions finally went in, they crushed the Union left and drove the army back to Bull Run.

Which black-hatted Midwestern unit fought Thomas J. Jackson to a draw at Brawner's Farm, opening Second Bull Run?

The Iron Brigade traded volleys at close range for over two hours against a larger force. Its men wore tall black army hats instead of the usual blue caps.

Which one-armed Union general was killed at Chantilly, the final clash of the Second Bull Run campaign?

Philip Kearny rode into Confederate lines by mistake during a severe thunderstorm and was killed. He had lost his left arm after a cavalry charge in the Mexican War.

The Confederate win at Second Bull Run opened the way for a first invasion of the North, ending at which battle?

Antietam was fought eighteen days after Second Bull Run ended, when the Confederate invasion was stopped along a Maryland creek on the bloodiest single day of the war.

The Stone House, still standing on the Bull Run battlefield, served what purpose during both battles?

A field hospital filled its rooms both times, and two wounded New Yorkers carved their names into an upstairs floor in 1862. The carvings can still be seen today.

Which future founder of the American Red Cross tended wounded soldiers close to the fighting at Second Bull Run?

Clara Barton handed out supplies, dressed wounds and served food near several 1862 battlefields. Such work earned her the name Angel of the Battlefield.

Which Union brigadier at Brawner's Farm, opening Second Bull Run, was later wrongly credited with inventing baseball?

Abner Doubleday sent two regiments into the fight on his own initiative. The Mills Commission later named him the inventor of baseball, a claim he never made and historians have debunked.

Which name, later famous on the Union side, did the Confederate force at First Bull Run fight under?

Army of the Potomac was the short-lived name of the Confederate force camped at Manassas Junction, and First Bull Run was its only major action under that title.

Which pioneering photographer got so close to the fighting at First Bull Run that he barely avoided capture?

Mathew Brady made his first popular war photographs there, and later came under direct fire at Petersburg and Fredericksburg too.

Which Union brigade commander at First Bull Run later founded a Washington university that still bears his name?

Oliver O. Howard was colonel of a Maine regiment when he took over a brigade for the battle. He later promoted higher education for freed people and was the university's president.

Colonel James Cameron, killed leading the 79th New York at First Bull Run, was the brother of which cabinet member?

The Secretary of War, Simon Cameron, lost his brother in the first major battle of the war. The 79th had offered James its colonelcy as a prominent man of Scottish descent.

What blocked the bridge over Cub Run and turned the 1861 Union retreat from Manassas into a panic?

An overturned wagon, tipped by Confederate artillery fire, jammed the Cub Run bridge on the road back to Centreville. An orderly withdrawal broke down and men threw away their gear.

Which brightly uniformed New York regiment lost almost 300 of its 500 men in ten minutes at Second Bull Run?

Duryée's Zouaves, the 5th New York, stood in the path of the Texans who led the great Confederate attack. One Texan wrote that the fallen in red and blue looked like wildflowers in bloom.

Thomas J. Jackson cut which railroad, the Union army's supply line, in the march that set up Second Bull Run?

Orange & Alexandria trains fed the Union army from a massive depot at Manassas Junction. Jackson's men struck the line at Bristoe Station, then captured and destroyed the depot.

Which elderly Union general let Joseph E. Johnston's army slip away from Winchester to fight at First Bull Run?

Robert Patterson, aged 69, wired Washington that he was holding the enemy in place an hour after they had marched off. He was widely blamed for the defeat.

Which Ohio senator, a spectator at First Bull Run, grabbed a rifle and threatened to shoot fleeing Union soldiers?

Benjamin Wade picked up a discarded rifle as the retreat swept past. Months later he was chairing the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Thomas J. Jackson, who held his left arm skyward under fire at First Bull Run, was wounded where?

A finger on his raised hand was hit by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel, costing him a little bone. He refused medical advice to have it amputated.

Confederates leaving Centreville months after First Bull Run hid their retreat with fake cannons made from what?

Painted logs, usually blackened to pass for real barrels, were nicknamed Quaker guns. Joseph E. Johnston left them in his earthworks in March 1862 so the lines still looked occupied.

Peter Hains, who ordered the first Union cannon shot at First Bull Run, returned to active duty at 77 in which conflict?

World War I brought him back in September 1917 as a chief engineer. He was likely the only person to serve on active duty in both that conflict and the Civil War.