irvin mcdowell

First Manassas: The Battle of Bull Run

By Earl Echelberry

On March 4, 1861, with war clouds threatening the land, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated the 16th president of the United States. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

By David Alan Johnson

“But for you, there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.” When Confederate President Jefferson Davis made that blanket statement in the summer of 1862, he was not addressing Pierre G.T. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Stonewall Jackson & Nathaniel Banks at Cedar Mountain

By William E. Welsh

Following the completion of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s unsuccessful Peninsula campaign earlier in the month, General Robert E. Read more

irvin mcdowell

American Civil War Timeline: Piecemeal Operations

by William E. Welsh

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln had no military experience and discarded most of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott’s so-called Anaconda Plan, which critics deemed too conservative. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Stalemate at Seven Pines

By David Norris

On the last day of May 1862, heavy gunfire rumbled and thundered in the distance beyond the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Brawl at Brawner’s Farm: Jackson’s Bloody Stalemate at Second Manassas

By John Walker

The ground around Manassas, Virginia, was not auspicious for Union Army forces in the first two years of the Civil War. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Return to Manassas

By John Walker

Sent into north-central Virginia to threaten Richmond on a second front, McDowell had managed to get lost in the woods near Gainesville and lost touch with his command for 12 full hours. Read more

irvin mcdowell

Stonewall Jackson’s Hard Defeat At The Second Battle of Manassas

By Todd S. Berkoff

As the bright red sun was slowly setting over their shoulders on the balmy evening of August 28, 1862, Union troops marching east along the Warrenton Turnpike knew nothing of what awaited them. Read more