Confederate Victory at Civil War’s First Major Battle: 1st Bull Run (Manassas)
Shortly after the Civil War began with the Confederacy firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Northern politicians, the public, and the press started demanding that the Union army invade Virginia and make a move on Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. The Union responded enthusiastically to President Lincoln’s call for the nation to mobilize, supplying men, arms and equipment, forming a Northern army to suppress the Southern rebellion. Now pressure was mounting on the president and his military advisers to take action. On July 21, 1861, the North got the battle it wanted—but not the result—when the Confederacy won the Civil War’s first major battle: 1st Bull Run (Manassas). Read more…
I understand that when writing a blog, it’s necessary to show a picture and say a few words about yourself, so that people don’t think a nameless, faceless committee or advisory board is running the show. Here I am, a real person. My name is Tony Pettinato, and I live in Deerfield, Mass. I did my undergraduate studies in English at Oberlin College, my graduate work in Journalism at UC Berkeley, and have been a reporter for six newspapers. For the past twelve years I have worked at NewsBank, the last six as a managing editor for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set project – NewsBank’s acclaimed effort to digitize and index twelve million pages of primary source documents – that gratified my life-long interest in American history. And that has led me to this blog!