ARMY & NAVY: At Manassas

ARMY & NAVY

Pessimistic old General Winfield Scott said it would take three years and 300,000 men to put down the rebellion. But Washington socialites thought otherwise. On the morning of July 21, 1861 they climbed in their carriages, rolled 30 miles south to a hilltop above Manassas, Va. to watch the Union troops under McDowell smash through the Confederate lines in the War’s first major engagement, march on to Richmond and a swift end of Secession.

That evening socialites and Union troops were swarming back to Washington in a panic. For five hours the battle had rolled back & forth across the valley and shallow, twisting Bull Run. Falling back with his Georgia brigade, General Barnard Bee had glanced up at Henry House plateau where an obscure Virginia officer named Thomas Jonathan Jackson was holding his ground against Union assaults, created an immortal nickname by crying “Look at Jackson! There he stands like a stone wall. Rally behind the Virginians!” In mid-afternoon a fresh contingent of Joe Johnston’s troops trotted up, charged with “Stonewall” Jackson’s infantry and “Jeb” Stuart’s cavalry. The tired, untrained Yankees broke and ran. Next day the North knew it was in for a real war.

Last week, on the 75th anniversary of the battle which the South calls First Manassas and the North calls First Bull Run, a Stonewall Jackson again rode the field at Manassas. He was lean, Kentucky-born Major Stonewall Jackson of the 12th U. S. Infantry, no kin to his famed namesake, commanding a “Confederate” force of 1,000 Army men and R.O.T.C. boys in a re-enactment of one of the South’s proudest battles. A thousand Marines from Quantico, in special blue fatigue uniforms, took the part of Union troops.

Again, many a Washingtonian had ridden down to the same hilltop to join a crowd of some 40,000 cheering, rebel-yelling spectators. Five thousand automobiles were parked around the field. Through loudspeakers, Dr. Douglas Southall Freeman, editor of the Richmond News Leader and biographer of Robert E. Lee, began telling the story of the battle. Listeners grinned as this son of a Confederate veteran kept referring to the Southern forces as “our side.” In the stands sat Harry Wooding, 92, mayor of Danville, Va. since 1892, who had fought under Longstreet at Manassas. Also present was General Longstreet’s son, Colonel Robert Lee Longstreet.

Officers with stopwatches stood ready to make every movement of the sham battle coincide with the original. At 2:30 p. m., amid a great booming of cannon, pinging of rifles and tooting of bugles, began a Confederate retreat under General Bee. Grinning combatants banged their blank cartridges, poked at each other with sheathed bayonets, rolled over and puffed cigarets when they were supposed to be dead. Furnishing a running account of the fight, Editor Freeman read from General “Stonewall” Jackson’s report: At 3:30 p. m. the enemy’s position was such as to call for the use of the bayonet. I called for the charge. “In just a few minutes,” said Commentator Freeman, looking at his watch, “it will be 3:30 p. m. and we will see whether history will repeat itself.” Sure enough, sharp at 3:30 p. m. Major Stonewall Jackson’s men charged down from Henry House. Out of a nearby wood galloped “Jeb” Stuart’s cavalry, and the fight was as good as over.

At Manassas in 1861, 847 men lost their lives. Last week’s only fatality brought the name of a still earlier U. S. military hero into the news. In mid-battle Private Zachary Taylor’s horse threw him, jumped over a roadside fence, was killed by a truck.