who led confederate troops in the first battle of bull run
First Battle of Bull Run Just months after the start of the war at Fort Sumter, the Northern public clamored for a march against the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, which was expected to bring an early end to the rebellion. Yielding to political pressure, Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell led his unseasoned Union Army across Bull Run against the equally inexperienced Confederate Army of Brig. Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard camped near Manassas Junction. McDowell's ambitious plan for a surprise flank attack on the Confederate left was poorly executed by his officers and men; nevertheless, the Confederates, who had been planning to attack the Union left flank, found themselves at an initial disadvantage.
First Battle of Bull Run Three months after First Bull Run Union forces suffered another, smaller defeat at the Battle of Ball's Bluff, near Leesburg, Virginia. The perceived military incompetence at First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff led to the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a congressional body created to investigate Northern military affairs. Concerning the Battle of First Bull Run, the committee listened to testimony from a variety of witnesses connected with McDowell's army. Although the committee's report concluded that the principal cause of defeat was Patterson's failure to prevent Johnston from reinforcing Beauregard, Patterson's enlistment had expired a few days after the battle, and he was no longer in the service. The Northern public clamored for another scapegoat, and McDowell bore the chief blame. On 25 July 1861, he was relieved of army command and replaced by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who would soon be named general-in-chief of all the Union armies. McDowell was also present to bear significant blame for the defeat of Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia by Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia thirteen months later, at the Second Battle of Bull Run.[54][62]
Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War In January 1863, McClernand and Sherman's combined XIII and XV corps, the Army of the Mississippi, defeated the Confederates at Arkansas Post. Grant made five attempts to capture Vicksburg by water routes; however, all failed. With the Union impatient for a victory, in March 1863, the second stage to capture Vicksburg began. Grant marched his troops down the west side of the Mississippi River and crossed over at Bruinsburg. Adm. David D. Porter’s navy ships had previously made a run past Vicksburg's batteries on April 16, 1863, enabling Union troops to be transported to the east side of the river. The crossing succeeded due to Grant's elaborate series of demonstrations and diversions that masked his intended movements from the Confederates. After the crossing, Grant maneuvered his army inland, and after a series of battles, the state capital, Jackson, Mississippi, was captured. Confederate general John C. Pemberton was defeated by Grant’s forces at the battles of Champion Hill and of Black River Bridge and retreated to the Vicksburg fortress. After two unsuccessful and costly assaults on Vicksburg, Grant settled in for a 40-day siege. Pemberton, unable to combine forces with the army of Joseph E. Johnson, which was hovering in central Mississippi, finally surrendered Vicksburg on July 4, 1863.[16] The capture of Vicksburg was a turning point for the Union war effort. The surrender of Vicksburg and the defeat of Confederate general Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg were stinging defeats for the Confederacy, now split in two by the Union's domination of the Mississippi River. President Lincoln promoted Grant to the permanent rank of Major General in the Regular Army. Vicksburg marked the second surrender of a Confederate army (the other being Buckner's surrender to Grant the year before). During the Vicksburg siege, Grant dismissed McClernand for publishing to the press a congratulatory order that seemed to claim it was McClernand's corps that was winning the campaign. McClernand appealed the dismissal to his personal friend, President Lincoln, but to no avail. Grant had ended the rivalry on his own terms. The Union army had captured considerable Confederate artillery, small arms, and ammunition. Total casualties, killed or wounded, for the final operation against Vicksburg that started on March 29, 1863 were 10,142 for the Union and 9,091 for the Confederacy.[16]
American Civil War Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive from 1861â€“1862. Later, in 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal.[20] To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, and seized New Orleans. The 1863 Union Siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg. Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to the sea. The last significant battles raged around the Siege of Petersburg. Lee's escape attempt ended with his surrender at Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 1865. While the military war was coming to an end, the political reintegration of the nation was to take another 12 years, known as the Reconstruction Era.