BULLRUN
On a warm July day in 1861, two great armies of a divided nation clashed for the first time on the fields overlooking Bull Run. Their ranks were filled with exited young volunteers in colorful new uniforms, gathered from every part of the country. Confident their enemies would run at the first shot, the young recruits were thankful that they would not miss the only battle of what would surely be a short war. But any thoughts of colorful beauty was lost in the smoke, dirt and death of the battle. Soldiers on both sides were stunned by the violence an destruction they encountered. At days end nearly 900 young men laid dead on the fields of Matthews Hill. Ten hours of heavy fighting swept away thoughts of this being a quickly decided war.The first major battle of the Civil War was fought in Virginia, near the Manassas, Virginia railway junction, after which the battle is called(or the First Bull Run, named after a flowing stream on the battlefield). The armies in this first battle were not very large or well trained by late Civil war standards. The Union forces were under the command of General Irvin McDowell were organized into four divisions or about 30,000 men. These divisions were commanded
------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Confederate position was still badly outnumbered, eventually the weight of those numbers began to be felt. With Tyler's division treating the right flank and rear of the Confederate positioning after having forced a crossing at the Stone Bridge, and there left flank now being overlapped by Union reinforcements, the three Confederate forces broke to the rear, heading toward the cleared plateau of Henery House Hill. Unfortunately for the Union they were a little slow to follow up the hill and allowed the southern brigade commanders to rally the remains of their units behind Jackson's brigade witch had just arrived and formed a line of battle on the reverse slope of Henery House Hill. Interestingly enough, each commander had planned to imitate an attack on the other side with a feint attack on the enemies right flank and a massed attack on there opposite flank. If this was done simultaneously, and both been successful in there attack the two armies would have just pivoted around each other and ender in each others rear, able to march unopposed to Washington or Richmond, by Tyler, Hunter, Heintzelman, and Miles. The Confederate armies were a little less organized, including two armies with no division structure and 13 independent brigades under Bonham, Ewell, Jones, Lon
Some common words found in the essay are:
Bull Run, Rickett's Battery, Ford Confederate, Joseph Jonston, Stonewall Jackson, Colonel Bartow, Unfortunately Union, Stone Bridge, Matthew's Hill, House Hill, bull run, house hill, stone bridge, henery house hill, union army, brigade commanders, blackburn's ford, laid dead, civil war, henery house, tyler's division,
Approximate Word count = 915
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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