Staff Ride Guide
CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY
First Printing-CMH Pub 35-2-1
The U. S. Army has long used the staff ride as a tool for professional development, conveying the lessons of the past to contemporary soldiers. In 1906 Maj. Eben Swift took twelve officer-students from Fort Leavenworth's General Service and Staff School to the Chickamauga battlefield on the Army's first official staff ride. Since that time Army educators have employed staff rides to provide officers a better understanding of past military operations, of the vagaries of war, and of military planning. A staff ride to an appropriate battlefield can also enliven a unit's esprit de corps-a constant objective in peacetime or war.
To support such Army initiatives, the Center of Military History publishes staff ride guides, such as this one on the Battle of First Bull Run. This account is drawn principally from contemporary after action reports and from the sworn testimony of participants before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a congressional entity created to investigate the Union defeats at First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff.
A First Bull Run staff ride can offer significant military lessons. Revisiting this battle through the "eyes" of the men who were there, both leaders and rank-and-file soldiers, allows one insights into decision making under pressure and the human condition during battle. The campaign contains many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, logistics, the accommodation of advances in weapon technology, and mobilization in the absence of universal military training.
First Bull Run was a first battle-a major engagement after a prolonged period of peace. For some it constitutes a metaphor of the price paid for military unpreparedness. Hopefully, this volume will prove a useful tool for those conducting a staff ride to First Bull Run.
Ted Ballard has been a historian with the U. S. Army Center of Military History since 1980 and a part of the Center's staff ride program since 1986. Battle of First Bull Run joins his other battlefield guides to Ball's Bluff, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Wilderness/Spotsylvania. In addition to being the author of numerous articles on military history, he was a contributor to the Center's publication, The Story of the Noncommissioned Officer Corps; the author of Rhineland, a brochure in the Center's series commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of World War II; and a contribution to the U. S. Army Training and Doctrine Command publication, American Military Heritage, and to the Virginia Army National Guard publication, The Tradition Continues: A History of the Virginia National Guard, 1607-1895.
On 16 July 1861, the largest army ever assembled on the North American continent up to that time marched from the vicinity of Washington, D.C., toward Manassas Junction, thirty miles to the southwest. Commanded by newly promoted Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, the Union force consisted of partly trained militia with ninety-day enlistments (almost untrained volunteers) and three newly organized battalions of Regulars. Many soldiers, unaccustomed to military discipline or road marches, left the ranks to obtain water, gather blackberries, or simply to rest as the march progressed.
Near Manassas, along a meandering stream known as Bull Run, waited the similarly untrained Confederate army commanded by Brig. Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard. This army would soon be joined by another Confederate force, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston.
After a minor clash of arms on 18 July, McDowell launched the first major land battle of the Civil War by attempting to turn the Confederate left flank on 21 July. A series of uncoordinated and sometimes confusing attacks and counterattacks by both sides finally ended in a defeat for the Union Army and its withdrawal to Washington.
The Battle of First Bull Run highlighted many of the problems and deficiencies that were typical of the first year of the war. Units were committed piecemeal, attacks were frontal, infantry failed to protect exposed artillery, tactical intelligence was nil, and neither commander was able to employ his whole force effectively. McDowell, with 35,000 men, was only able to commit about 18,000, and the combined Confederate forces, with about 32,000 men, committed only 18,000.
A First Bull Run staff ride can provide many lessons in command and control, communications, intelligence, weapons technology versus tactics, and the ever-present “fog” of battle. Hopefully, participants will see how decisions made by the various commanders can influence tactical outcomes, how terrain shapes engagements, and how technology, tactics, and organization interact in a battlefield setting.
Several persons assisted in the creation of this staff ride guide. At the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Linda F. Moten and Diane Sedore Arms of the Editorial Branch edited the manuscript, and in the Graphics Branch Teresa K. Jameson designed the final product. S. L. Dowdy turned sketch maps into finished products. John J. Hennessy, Assistant Superintendent, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park,
was kind enough to review the narrative for historical accuracy. My thanks go to all. In the narrative the names of Confederate personnel and units appear in italic type, Union personnel and units in regular type. Any errors that remain in the text are the sole responsibility of the author.