by James Wyllie
Confusion will reign all around, but keep your eyes on the King, who will call to the rebel army to follow him, and with his bodyguard will ride off in the direction of Clerkenwell Field; after some indecision, much of the rebel force will follow him. Later on in the afternoon, MAYOR WALWORTH will return to Clerkenwell at the head of a small army of mercenary officers who will quickly surround the now demoralised and confused rebel forces. On Richard’s order, and in the face of the newly arrived troops, you will see the rebel army slowly melt away, with much of the Essex contingent heading for home. If you can get close enough to the royal retinue at this point, you should be able to see Richard confer knighthoods on Mayor Walworth and three other aldermen: Nicholas Brembre, Robert Launde and Ralph Standish.
MEDIEVAL COMIC BOOK CAPERS. RICHARD II WATCHES LONDON MAYOR RALPH STANDISH KILL WAT TYLER, AND TALKS TO THE PEASANTS AT THE SAME TIME.
DEPARTURE
We recommend that you make this your last port of call on this visit. Try and resist the urge to follow the Essex rebels home, or to explore the waves of rebellion and then counterterror that will ripple out across the country over the coming weeks from Bridgeport in Somerset to Cambridge and York.
First Battle of Bull Run
21 JULY 1861 WASHINGTON D.C. & VIRGINIA, US
JOIN THE ELITES OF THE UNION AT THE first major battle of the American Civil War. Dine at WILLARD’S HOTEL, the centre of Washington D.C.’s social life and smell the hubris; take a carriage to CENTREVILLE, Virginia where the Union army of the Potomac is massing; sample the atmosphere on the CENTREVILLE KNOLL, where journalists, politicians and the curious gather. For the intrepid, see and hear the battle from forward positions. But be warned: the devastating retreat and then rout of the Union army is to come … and you’ll be just ahead of the pack skittering up the Warrenton Turnpike and back to Washington.
BRIEFING: EXPECTING A SWIFT VICTORY
In the early days of the American Civil War, the Union’s politicians and press were calling for a quick and decisive victory over the rebel confederacy in northern Virginia, paving the way for an assault on their capital in Richmond.
Under political pressure, and with some reluctance, given the untried nature of his forces, GENERAL IRVING MCDOWELL manoeuvred the UNION ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, 35,000 strong, southwest of Washington. There, the CONFEDERACY FORCES led by PIERRE GUSTAVE TOUTANT BEAUREGARD had massed at Manassas railway junction, on the far side of the BULL RUN RIVER.
The Washington political elite thought they were going to send the Confederacy packing at BULL RUN. Hundreds of civilians travelled the thirty miles from the capital to join General McDowell’s army around the hamlet of CENTREVILLE, expecting a swift victory.
It won’t quite work out that way. McDowell, due to a mixture of poor scouting, inexperience and bad luck, will find himself unable to concentrate his larger forces at the decisive moments of the battle. In particular, the great flanking movement of two of his divisions on the west of the battlefield will be slowed to a snail’s pace by treacherous conditions. By contrast, Beauregard will be able to turn the tide of the battle when reinforcements arrive by rail. When the Union’s line breaks at around 5pm the discipline of this very inexperienced and now brutalised army will crack. Thousands of men will pour back to Centreville and when harried by Confederate artillery and cavalry it will become a rout.
A UNION ARTILLERY UNIT ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF BULL RUN.
Both armies are desperately naive and ill co-ordinated. All are shocked by the scale of the slaughter and by the harsh psychological and emotional conditions of battle. After Bull Run, it will become clear to all that the war will be long, gruelling and costly.
THE TRIP
You will be arriving in WASHINGTON DC in late afternoon, Saturday 20 July 1861. The weather will be warm and the air humid as you step out onto the south-east corner of the junction of PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE AND 14TH STREET. Please return here by midnight on Monday 22 July for departure.
Washington, despite its apparent grandeur, is a new, small and desperately underdeveloped city. Garbage disposal and sanitation are particularly poorly provided for – a situation made worse by the marshy and mosquito-ridden landscape on which the new capital has been constructed. Sniff the air. The rotten aromas of the city’s putrid drainage canal, a quarter of a mile away, will be unmistakable.
Directly opposite you, however, is the beautiful curving corner of WILLARD’S HOTEL, a five-storey Beaux Arts concoction that serves as the capital’s most prestigious visiting address. Home to President Lincoln before his inauguration earlier this year, and the site of the last desperate and failed peace conference before the war, it is now the centre of Washington’s political and social life. Its salons and dining rooms are filled with politicians, lobbyists, senior military officers, journalists and businessmen, not to mention, as the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who will be visiting Willard’s in 1862, put it, ‘office seekers, wire pullers, inventors, artists, attachés of foreign powers, long-winded talkers, contractors and railway directors’. Note the small patches of smoke and water damage on the building’s walls. Just two months prior to your arrival, a fire in a small barber’s shop next door threatened to engulf the hotel. A battalion of New York firemen, enlisted in the Union army as the 11th New York Zouaves (whom you will be meeting later), came to the rescue, forming human pyramids to carry water and hoses.
This is a good opportunity to take a look at the WHITE HOUSE just to your west and the WASHINGTON MONUMENT, five minutes’ walk due south along 14th Street. CAPITOL HILL is a few minutes’ ride by carriage or the regular omnibus service southwest along Pennsylvania Avenue.
You may be surprised by the architectural mayhem of the street. Broad and lined with alianthus trees, it is populated by a mixture of grand marble town houses, official buildings, rough wood-plank commercial premises and tumbledown plots. The Capitol building itself is undergoing major works, its roofline covered with half-finished marble towers, ironwork and cranes; the old dome on the building is being supplanted by a new and much bigger dome.
When you are ready to eat, head back to Willard’s, walk into the lobby and look for the dining rooms – reservations are not necessary. We recommend that you eat heartily while you can, as dining at Bull Run will be a much more haphazard affair. The menu features baked pike in claret sauce, roasted leg of mutton with capers, and broiled quails. For those with a sweet tooth, try the Lady Cake, cream pies and jelly tart. As you will see from your fellow diners, PICNIC HAMPERS, SANDWICHES AND BEER can also be ordered here for your journey.
We recommend you call for your carriage no later than midnight and preferably much earlier. Those who wish to see the Union Army’s pre-dawn mobilisation should be gone by 7pm.
CENTREVILLE
Your carriage will be taking you west through GEORGETOWN and then south across the Potomac River before heading for CENTREVILLE in Prince William County, Virginia; it is about 30 miles – a seven-hour drive. Centreville is a tiny place, tired-looking at the best of times. On the morning of 21 July you will find the town a great ragged military encampment.
To its east are three UNION DIVISIONS commanded by COLONELS HUNTER, HEINTZELMAN and MILES. To the west, about half a mile from town, is the division led by BRIGADIER GENERAL TYLER. The two encampments are connected by the Warrenton Turnpike, which serves as the town’s main street. There are shutterboard houses, a small hotel and a chapel but little to trouble the visitor. The Union’s commander-in-chief, GENERAL MCDOWELL, is camped close to the town on the west side. You might, while wandering near the camp, hear the general vomiting; he will be struck by a violent episode of food poisoning this evening.
Around 2.30am you will begin to hear the army stir: expect bugles, drum rolls and beats, and hundreds of campfires bursting into flame. Breakfast for most of the troops will be grim boiled coffee, pressed beef, hard tack biscuits and tobacco. Wagons will creek into action, horse harnesses will jangle, troops will be checking their weapons and then
there will be a rising crescendo of barked orders and movement. It will already be a pleasant temperature and will be considerably warmer by early morning. At the peak of the battle later in the day, it will be searing and many soldiers on both sides will suffer from severe dehydration. Now is the moment to make sure you have plenty of water supplies.
UNIFORMS
As the army mobilises, you will notice that there is no single, common uniform among the troops. Although the UNION has broadly opted for NAVY BLUE and the CONFEDERACY for GREY, there will be plenty of soldiers in both colours or the opponents’ colours, for neither side has established centralised quartermasters operations or imposed a common uniform. This sartorial irregularity is made worse by the fact that regiments are often kitted out by their city or state patrons, and offi cers have to buy their own uniforms. In any case, there will be so much dust, smoke and mud at Bull Run later in the day that it will often be impossible to know who is who.
THE ZOUAVE LOOK AS MODELLED BY A UNION SOLDIER.
Two distinctive uniforms to look out for, however, are:
11TH NEW YORK INFANTRY (aka Ellsworth or First Fire Zouaves). The zouaves are distinguished by red cuffs and trim on their navy jackets as well as a red fi reman’s undershirt. They will be wearing a mixture of blue and red fezes and blue and red kepis.
14TH NEW YORK MILITIA (aka 14th Brooklyn or Red Legged Devils). The devils team their blue chasseur jackets with red pantaloons, a red-and-blue-banded kepi and havelocks – white cloth-neck and head covers.
The ARMY’S MANOEUVRES, which will begin at about 4.30am, are simple in design but, as you will see, enormously complicated and fraught in practice. HUNTER AND HEINTZELMAN’S DIVISIONS – nearly 12,000 men, are camped equidistant form the turnpike but start marching simultaneously, leading to a terrible bottleneck of troops, horse and equipment on the main street of Centreville. Worse, by the time the leading columns reach the west side of town, they will butt up against the rear of TYLER’S DIVISION still making its way down the Warrenton Turnpike to the STONE BRIDGE, having been delayed by fierce skirmishing along the path. Around 5.30am the jam will be cleared when General McDowell and his staff put in an appearance at the rickety wooden CUB RUN BRIDGE and order Tyler’s remaining troops to get off the road and let Hunter and Heintzelman’s divisions through.
For those visitors who want to experience SUDLEY FIELD HOSPITAL (see below), join the rear of Heintzelman’s division as it turns off the Warrenton Turnpike a few hundred yards beyond the Cub Run Bridge. The march to Sudley Ford North and then back south through Sudley to the western edge of MATTHEWS HILL should take about five hours. Another two hundred yards along the turnpike you will find a blacksmith’s, which has been turned into GENERAL MCDOWELL’S FORWARD FIELD HQ.
THE CENTREVILLE KNOLL
The GRASSY KNOLL to the south of Centreville is the main point at which civilian visitors to the battle will gather during the day. As you arrive in the early morning, a small number of journalists, politicians and their retinues will already have staked out positions. Over the next five hours, numbers will swell as carriages, city hacks and wagons roll in, joined by more visitors on horse or on foot. Amongst the early arrivals to look out for are WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL, correspondent for the Times of London, and the photographer MATTHEW BRADY, identifiable by his straw hat, long linen duster and the large wooden box (his camera) strapped to his back. From Capitol Hill, look out for SENATORS HENRY WILSON (Massachusetts); ZACHARIAH CHANDLER (Michigan); BEN WADE (Ohio); JAMES GRIMES (Iowa); JIM LANE (Kansas); LAFAYETTE FOSTER (Connecticut); and from the House of Representatives, ALFRED ELY (New York); SCHUYLER COLFAX (Indiana); and ELIHU WASHBURN and ISAAC ARNOLD (Illinois). Senator Wilson and his servants will be handing out freshly made sandwiches to troops for much of the morning. Do try and stay clear of his buggy and horses; they will be struck by a Confederate shell late in the afternoon, forcing the Senator to escape back to Washington on a mule.
Other characters passing through the knoll will include JUDGE DANIEL MCCOOK of Ohio and the leading abolitionist W.P. THOMASSON, who is notable for his extremely high black silk top hat. Later in the day he will pick up a rifle and join the 71st New York in battle, as will CONGRESSMAN OWEN LOVEJOY of Illinois. Two young Bostonians with a cart will pull up looking for the corpse of their brother – a Union soldier killed in a skirmish at Blackburn Ford, just south of the knoll, three days earlier. There are at least two dozen women on the knoll as well, including mothers of soldiers, wives of senators, and PIE AND SELTZER SELLERS. Look out for MISS AUGUSTA FOSTER, the adopted daughter and regimental mascot of the 2nd Maine.
In actual fact you will see very little of the battle from here. Though the sound of cannon fire and the smell of gun smoke will be prevalent all day, the main action on MATTHEW’S HILL and HENRY HOUSE HILL is almost five miles away. At various points during the day, especially late morning and lunchtime, Union officers will ride up with good news from the front line – ‘We’ve whipped them at all points’; please do try not to give the game away. If you do decide to spend all day here, we suggest that you and your carriage are on the road out of Centreville by 6.30pm before the rout makes horse-drawn traffic impossible.
The more adventurous among the crowd, however, especially the senior republican senators and journalists, will be making their way closer to the battle field from 9am, heading for the WARRENTON TURNPIKE or the BULL RUN RIDGE (see below). More cautious travellers who would, nonetheless, like to get away from the knoll should explore BLACKBURN’S FORD and follow COLONEL DIXON MILES.
COLONEL DIXON MILES – HARD LIQUOR NOT DEPICTED.
On a ridge about a mile south and slightly west of Centreville on the road to Manassas, you will find CAPTAIN JOHN TIDBALL and his artillery battery. From here you will have a good view of Bull Run creek and the narrow Blackburn’s Ford at the bottom of the ravine. There will still be corpses and abandoned equipment here, left over from a skirmish on the previous Thursday. By lunchtime there will be a considerable crowd, with buggies and carts parked in an overflow field behind the artillery battery, and a throng around Tidball, questioning him, fruitlessly, about the progress of the battle.
For those able to track him on horseback, the peregrinations of COLONEL DIXON MILES make for an interesting afternoon. Placed in command of the reserves, the colonel can be found in the morning on the stoop of the CENTREVILLE HOTEL, which is serving as his HQ and as a field hospital. He will be sporting the bizarre but effective sun protection of two straw hats mashed together on his head, and he will already be a little the worse for wear on a combination of liquor and opiate-based medicines. Colonel Dixon Miles will be making his first visits to the artillery positions of Colonel Davies and Richardson in the morning but the afternoon return encounters will be the most colourful. Richardson in particular will refuse to accept Miles’s orders and will publicly accuse him of being drunk. Hang around long enough at Richardson’s position, and General McDowell himself will eventually show up and relieve Colonel Miles of his position.
BULL RUN RIDGE
Unquestionably the best vantage point from which to see at least some of the battle is the BULL RUN RIDGE just to the south of the Warrenton Turnpike. You can walk here across country but we suggest that you get on the turnpike and walk west. By late lunchtime the main reporters and senior senators will have gathered here with a view of a least parts of HENRY HOUSE HILL and MATTHEW’S HILL, where the main fighting will be concentrated. For the very intrepid, the best view of all can be gained another half a mile down the Warrenton Turnpike at the STONE BRIDGE over Bull Run.
Over the afternoon, JUDGE DANIEL MCCOOK will be lunching with one of his sons, serving that day on the battlefield, and tragically leaving with his corpse in his buggy after he is shot by a Confederate officer. CONGRESSMEN WASHBURNE, irate throughout the day, will be heading out on his reconnaissance mission in the afternoon. As ever, do make sure you are clear of the area by 5.30pm, when it will be overrun by the Confederate cavalry. CONG
RESSMEN ELY will be taken prisoner by an infantry brigade.
BATTLEFIELD MEDICINE
The battle, although a mere skirmish compared to the massive encounters yet to come in the American Civil War, will appear unbelievably bloody and horrific to participants and observers. By the end of the day there will be 460 Union deaths and 1,124 wounded, while the Confederacy will lose 387 men and suffer 1,587 injuries. Many of the dead and injured will end up at one of the field hospitals established on the day.
For the medically minded among our travellers, UNION FIELD HOSPITALS can be found at: the four-room farmhouse by Stone Bridge; the Lewis House to the north of this; and on the Warrenton Turnpike beyond Bull Run Ridge. However, by far the largest and busiest is at SUDLEY SPRINGS, the village through which Hunter and Heintzelman’s divisions marched in the morning.
Later in the day Sudley Springs cannot be approached across the battlefield, so you will have to follow Hunter and Heintzelman’s men on their pre-dawn march. Here you will find that the church will be rapidly converted into a field hospital. Its pews will be removed and placed in the oak grove next to the church, and hay will be spread on the floor as improvised operating tables are set up inside.
The first AMBULANCE WAGONS, with their distinctive white canvas covers, will begin arriving from 10.30am, blood dripping from the carts and gathering in a puddle outside the church door. Over the course of the afternoon the medics will commandeer two nearby houses and a wheelwright’s shop, but the churchyard will still fill to overflowing with the dead, the dying and the wounded. Alongside dressing wounds, staunching cuts and setting broken bones, the surgeons will be busy with amputations in an effort to save injured soldiers. Anaesthetics available include brandy, morphine and chloroform, but we do warn travellers that the sounds of the hospitals are even more fearsome than the sights and smells.