A PICNIC INTERRUPTED BY DISTANT THUNDER

by Guy Miller, Vice Chair Emeritus, Chennault Aviation and Military Museum

Aday in the country with a cooling breeze under the shade of the trees would be a good temporary escape from the city heat of summer. Taking a picnic lunch along could make it a pleasant outing. With the news full of reports that our home team will be meeting up with its rival just thirty miles away, this is the perfect opportunity to plan that picnic in the country.

Of course just because it sounds good doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Especially when the home team is a bunch of green recruits who had volunteered to serve 90 days in the Union Army and the rival is the Confederate Army fighting on its home turf.

The first land battle of the War

Between the States was fought on July 21, 1861 near the Manassas railroad junction by the stream known as Bull Run. At the time of the battle many Unionists believed the war would be short and relatively bloodless. Manassas Junction was only a seven-hour carriage ride away from Washington. It was Sunday and everybody seemed to have taken a general holiday. John Tidball, a captain in the Union Army described seeing a crowd of men eager to watch the battle with the only women being a few who had brought “pies and other edibles” to sell. The Virginians living in the area would not be disposed to providing assistance of any kind to enemy civilian sightseers so a few women decided to drive out in carts to sell food to those who were there for an adventurous excursion.

As Captain Tidball later reported, the “throng of sightseers” approached his battery near the town of Centreville; coming “in all manner of ways, some in stylish carriages, others in city hacks, and still others in buggies, on horseback and even on foot. Apparently everything in the shape of vehicles in and around

Washington had been pressed into service for the occasion. ... All manner of people were represented in this crowd, from the most grave and noble senators to hotel waiters.” Out of Tidball’s sight the Washington visitors apparently did include other women and even children. London Times correspondent William Russell reported, “On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex .... The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood —‘That is splendid, Oh my! Is not that first rate? I guess we will be in Richmond tomorrow.’” Most of the information filtering back from the actual battlefield was over an hour old at best but for some reason a Union officer rode up and told the cheering crowd, “We have whipped them on all points.”

From the Centreville vantage point of the spectators, all that was known of the battle was gunsmoke above the distant treetops and intensifying musket and artillery fire in the same direction. With the initial favorable reports, Russell and a few of the politicians decided to move closer to the battle around mid afternoon. Among the men pushing forward were senators Ben Wade (Ohio), Henry Wilson (Massachusetts), Jim Lane (Kansas), Lafayette Foster (Connecticut), and congressmen Alfred Ely (New York) and Elihu Washburne (Illinois). A notyet-famous photographer named Mathew Brady also accompanied the congressional group.

The men with Russell eventually caught up with a group who had moved closer earlier in the day. Future New Jersey politician John Taylor, Judge Daniel McCook of Ohio and a half-dozen reporters had been the only civilians who had been watching from a field hospital behind Brigadier General Daniel Tyler’s division.

Although the Union army had performed well in the morning by early afternoon the Confederate reinforcements arrived and drove the inexperienced Union troops back. Around 4 PM the Union generals had no choice but to call a retreat. Hearing this call, frightened soldiers threw down their weapons and ran from the battlefield.

A group of senators eating a meal looked around to see the road filled with soldiers, horses, and wagons all headed in the wrong direction. Frightened soldiers ran past the senators screaming “Turn back, turn back, we’re whipped!” Senator Zachariah Chandler (Michigan) tried to stop the retreat by blocking the road. Senator Wade picked up a discarded rifle and threatened to shoot any soldier who ran. Congressman Washburne vainly tried to rally the panic-stricken mob of soldiers near Centreville. A Confederate artillery shell destroyed Senator Wilson’s buggy and Senator James Grimes (Iowa) barely avoided capture. Confederate cavalry attempting to block the Union retreat mortally wounded Judge McCook’s son who had left his unit to visit his father.

Most of the civilians joined, if not led, the wild retreat back to Washington and escaped unharmed. Congressman Ely was a notable exception because he had gotten too close and was captured by the 8th South Carolina Infantry. He spent the next five months residing at Libby Prison in Richmond. Only one civilian was killed in the battle- an aged widow whose home was in the midst of the fighting.

The Union army’s defeat at Bull Run shocked and sobered the Union. It was painfully clear that the war would last much longer than 90 days and be harder fought than expected. It certainly would be no picnic.