by James Wyllie
THE BATTLE
From the vantage points of either the Stone Bridge or Bull Run Ridge, visitors will be able to glimpse only elements of the battle: the Union troops of TYLER’S DIVISION pouring across the Stone Bridge in mid-afternoon, skittish lines of troops crossing fields, plumes of smoke from the copses that dot the hillsides. Nonetheless, from these limited signals you should be able to put together the key choreography.
In the morning – from around 9.30am to 11.30am – Union and Confederate forces will clash on MATTHEWS HILL. You should be able to make out BRIGADIER GENERAL NATHAN EVANS’ SEVENTH BRIGADE shift position from in front of the Stone Bridge to the west side of Matthews Hill, where the the main body of Union troops are beginning to arrive via Sudley Ford. Be alert to the advance of COLONEL SHERMAN’S SECOND BRIGADE, over Farm Ford a few hundred yards north of Stone Bridge. This pincer movement from the Union forces will, by around 11.30am, force the Confederate lines on Matthew’s Hill to break. Visitors will be able to see them make their RETREAT south onto Henry House Hill.
Over the next hour or so, expect a steady ARTILLERY DUEL between the Union forces now massing on Matthew’s Hill and the reassembling Confederate lines on Henry House Hill. Between 1pm and 3pm, repeated UNION ATTACKS will be beaten off, including the now famous, but probably apocryphal, moment when Virginian COLONEL JACKSON’s regiment stands firm at the centre of the Confederate lines ‘like a stonewall’.
IF THE BATTLE LOOKS LIKE THIS TO YOU (AND YOU’RE LOOKING HERE AT A UNION ATTACK), THEN YOU’RE PROBABLY TOO CLOSE. PLEASE RETURN TO THE BULL RUN RIDGE.
It will not be immediately apparent from your vantage points, but after 3.30pm the TIDE OF BATTLE WILL BEGIN TO TURN. The Union’s troops, many of them completely exhausted by their long march and lack of food and water, are beginning to wilt. At the same time a large number of CONFEDERATE REINFORCEMENTS will arrive from the Shenandoah Valley by train. When they are thrown into the battle the UNION LINES WILL BREAK, first on the CHINN RIDGE on the eastern edge of the battlefield and then in the centre at the foot of Henry House Hill. By 5.00pm the Union army will be in HEADLONG RETREAT. Some will head north back to Sudley, but above all they will be flowing east over the Stone Bridge and back up the Warrenton Turnpike.
FEDERAL CAVALRY AT SUDLEY FORD AFTER THE BATTLE.
SENATORS ZACHARIAH CHANDLER AND BENJAMIN WADE.
THE RETREAT
The first signs of THE RETREAT will become apparent on Bull Run Ridge around 5pm. Fleeing soldiers will cry, ‘Turn back, turn back, we’re whipped!’ At this, expect SENATOR ZACHARIAH CHANDLER to respond by attempting to singlehandedly block the road, demanding that soldiers stop retreating. SENATOR BEN WADE will train a rifle on his troops, but in vain. It is now imperative that you get beyond the CUB RUN BRIDGE, a mile up the road, by 6pm; after that, Confederate fire will reach the bridge and induce the greatest moment of panic. A wagon on the bridge will swerve and turn over, blocking the path and forcing the streaming mass of people into the creek. At this point the retreat will become a ROUT. Soldiers will abandon their weapons, haversacks and even uniforms, leaving a trail of ammunition boxes, hay bales and bags of oats. Shells will be bursting overhead. Troops will clamber aboard ambulances, wagons, captured mules and stray horses. Officers and men alike will be running pell-mell for Centreville, yelling with rage and fear; it is best not to get in their way.
Safety lies another mile up the turnpike, where COLONEL BLENKER’S GERMAN BRIGADE – three infantry regiments plus cannon – will be covering the Union retreat and enforcing a modicum of order on the road. Some troops will be heading home, some will be heading to Washington, most will go to their camps in Centreville and grab what they can before beginning the thirty-mile walk back to the capital. General McDowell will order a COMPLETE RETREAT at midnight. If you can’t get a carriage or a mule and have to walk, you might want to try and hook up with the Rhode Islanders who will maintain the best morale and the best singing on the way back. It may be very gruesome; expect the walking wounded to include recent amputees, soldiers with severed tongues and holes in their thighs and scrotums. As with the rest of the day, fresh water remains much in demand and in desperately short supply.
Past, present & future reading
Alongside their own on-the-spot investigations and observations, WAG TIME INSPECTORS have made use of work by scholars and participants unable to access ChronoswooshTM technologies. We can attest to the fidelity of the following books despite fixity in their own time–space continuum. They are all recommended pre-holiday reads – but should, of course, on no account be carried in your hand luggage.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold
Glenn Richardson The Field of Cloth of Gold (2013).
The Great Exhibition
Michael Leapman The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation (2001).
VE Day
Russell Miller | VE Day: The People’s Story (2007).
Woodstock Festival
James E. Perone Woodstock: An Encyclopaedia of the Music and Art Fair (2005).
Joel Makower Woodstock: An Oral History (1989).
The Execution of Charles I
Ben Coates The Impact of the English Civil War on the Economy of London 1642–50 (2004).
Charles Spencer Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I (2014).
C.V. Wedgwood A King Condemned: The Trial and Execution of Charles I (1964).
The Women’s March on Versailles
George Rudé The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959).
Simon Schama Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989).
The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
Christopher Clark The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (2012).
David James Smith One Morning in Sarajevo: 28 June 1914 (2008).
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
Mary Elise Sarotte The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall (2014).
The 235th Olympiad
Nigel Spivey The Ancient Olympics: A History (2005).
Shakespeare’s Globe
Peter Ackroyd Shakespeare: The Biography (2005).
James Shapiro 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005).
The Birth of Bebop
Stanley Crouch Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Times of Charlie Parker (2013).
Ira Gitler Swing to Bop: An Oral History of the Transition in Jazz in the 1940s (1985).
Robin D.G. Kelley Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2010).
The Beatles in Hamburg
Mark Lewisohn The Beatles: All These Years – Volume 1, Tune In (2013).
The Rumble in the Jungle
Norman Mailer The Fight (1975).
In Xanadu with Marco Polo
Marco Polo The Travels (1299).
John Man Xanadu: Marco Polo and Europe’s Discovery of the East (2009).
Captain Cook’s First Epic Voyage
Peter Aughton Endeavour: The Story of Captain Cook’s First Great Epic Voyage (2002).
James Cook The Journals of Captain Cook (1768–71).
Frank McLynn Captain Cook: Master of the Seas (2011).
The Eruption of Vesuvius
Mary Beard Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town (2008).
The Peasants’ Revolt
Judith Barker 1381: The Year of the Peasants’ Revolt (2014).
Dan Jones Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (2010).
First Battle of Bull Run
David Detzer Donnybrook: The Battle of Bull Run, 1861 (2004).
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