The reconstructed old stone bridge over Bull Run, where the first volleys were fired in what the advanicng Union Army called the Battle of Bull Run and what the victorious Confederate Army called the First Battle of Manassas. Photo by Nina Sichel.
by Mark Silva
MANASSAS, Va. -- With all the inaugural talk of the Lincolnesque train ride, the Lincoln Bible and President Barack Obama's own "team of rivals," we started thinking about the real thing, the union that Lincoln saved at a cost of hundreds of thousands of American lives.
A solid sheet of ice has taken hold on Bull Run above the reconsructed old stone bridge where the first shots were fired in the Battle of Bull Run, as the advancing Union Army would term the first major land battle of the Civil War on July 21, 1861, or the First Battle of Manassas, as the Confederate Army, which carried the day, would call it.
Kids were playing hockey with makeshift sticks on the ice.
A cold breeze blew across the expansive hilltops of the national park that honors the dead and wounded of that battle. A dark statue stands on one of the highest hills in the memory of Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, who earned the name "Stonewall'' on the day that the Virginians stood as an impenetrable stone wall against the Union forces.
It became, in these parts, only one early chapter in a War Between the States that would grow far bloodier than the toll of 5,000 dead and wounded taken by one day's battle in the hillsides of Bull Run.. It was, in the annals of the worst conflict this nation had ever known, only the beginning of the end of a way of life that a nation founded on the priniciple that all men are created equal could not countenance.
The modern-day allusions to the protection of that "more perfect union'' which the latest presidential inauguration have mustered seem like so many words, little more than a speechwriter's conceit, in comparison to the battle that was joined in these hills.
The statue to Thomas J. Jackson, who stood as "a stone wall'' on these hills. This and the fenceline photo at Manassas Nationaal Battlefield Park by Mark Silva.
Comments
The headline reads "Bull Run: 5,000 casualties for the Union".
Not true. 5,000 is the total casualties for BOTH sides, Union and Confederate. The Union loss was about 3,000.
Posted by: Bruce | January 26, 2009 11:40 AM
Actually, yes, we're aware that 5,000 is the combined casualty figure for both sides in the conflict-- close to 1,000 deaths on both sides combined. The point is that 5,000 casualties were suffered in the pursuit of a cause, the preservation of the union. The Confederate side clearly was fighting for another goal. But if the president had allowed the South to secede, nobody would have died or been wounded. 5,000 suffered at Bull Run I, many many more down the road,and the union eventually was preserved.
Posted by: Mark Silva | January 26, 2009 1:29 PM
Mark Silva 1
Civil War Guy 0
Maybe Mark Silva should write a book about the Civil War and teach the less educated like Bruce.
Posted by: Swamp Scoreboard | January 26, 2009 11:01 PM