The First Battle of Bull Run, fought on 21 July 1861 near Manassas, Virginia1, was the first major land battle of the American Civil War2 and a Confederate victory. A Union army advanced expecting a quick win, but Confederate reinforcements, and a stubborn stand that earned Thomas Jackson the name 'Stonewall,' turned the day into a Union rout back toward Washington. It ended any illusion of a short war.
In the summer of 1861 crowds rode out from Washington to watch the army win the war in an afternoon. By evening the picnickers and the soldiers were fleeing back together, and the North understood for the first time what it had begun.
Part of The greatest battles of the Civil War · Before: Battle of Fort Sumter · Next: The Battle of Fort Donelson
On to Richmond
Three months into the war, public pressure for a quick blow drove the Union army1 under Irvin McDowell toward the Confederate capital at Richmond. His raw troops marched on the rail junction at Manassas3, where a Confederate army waited behind a stream called Bull Run.
The armies meet at Bull Run
McDowell's plan to turn the Confederate flank began well, pushing the defenders back. But Confederate reinforcements under Joseph E. Johnston arrived by rail, one of the first times railways decided a battle4, and the fighting swung back and forth across the hills.
Stonewall Jackson's stand
On Henry House Hill a Virginia brigade under Thomas Jackson held firm against the Union attacks. A fellow officer rallied his own men by pointing to Jackson standing like a stone wall4, and the nickname Stonewall stuck to Jackson for the rest of his life.
The rout
As fresh Confederate troops pressed the attack, the exhausted and inexperienced Union army broke and streamed back toward Washington, tangling with the civilian sightseers who had come to watch1. The retreat turned into a panicked rout, though the Confederates were too disorganised to pursue1.
Why Bull Run mattered
The defeat shocked the North out of its confidence and showed both sides that the war would be long and bloody5. It sent the Union to build a real army, the Army of the Potomac, and it made Stonewall Jackson a legend. The reckoning came the next year at Antietam.