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American Civil War

The land war > The war in 1861
Map/Animated:The main area of the western and Carolinas campaigns, 1861–65. Use left sidebar to control …
The main area of the western and Carolinas campaigns, 1861–65. Use left sidebar to control …
Map/Animated:The main area of the eastern campaigns, 1861–65. Use the left sidebar to control the speed of …
The main area of the eastern campaigns, 1861–65. Use the left sidebar to control the speed of …
Map/Still:The main area of the eastern campaigns, 1861–65.
The main area of the eastern campaigns, 1861–65.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

The first military operations took place in northwestern Virginia, where non-slaveholding pro-Unionists sought to secede from the Confederacy. McClellan, in command of Federal forces in southern Ohio, advanced on his own initiative in the early summer of 1861 into western Virginia with about 20,000 men. He encountered smaller forces sent there by Lee, then in Richmond in command of all Virginia troops. Although showing signs of occasional hesitation, McClellan quickly won three small but significant battles: on June 3 at Philippi, on July 11 at Rich Mountain, and on July 13 at Carrick's (or Corrick's) Ford (all now in West Virginia). McClellan's casualties were light, and his victories went far toward eliminating Confederate resistance in northwestern Virginia, which had refused to recognize secession, and toward paving the way for the admittance into the Union of the new state of West Virginia in 1863.

Meanwhile, sizable armies were gathering around the Federal capital of Washington, D.C., and the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. Federal forces abandoned positions in Virginia, including, on April 18, Harpers Ferry (now West Virginia), which was quickly occupied by Southern forces, who held it for a time, and the naval base at Norfolk, which was prematurely abandoned to the enemy on April 20. On May 6 Lee ordered a Confederate force—soon to be commanded by P.G.T. Beauregard—northward to hold the rail hub of Manassas Junction, Virginia, some 26 miles (42 km) southwest of Washington. With Lincoln's approval, Scott appointed Irvin McDowell to command the main Federal army that was being hastily collected near Washington. But political pressure and Northern public opinion impelled Lincoln, against Scott's advice, to order McDowell's still-untrained army forward to push the enemy back from Manassas. Meanwhile, Federal forces were to hold Confederate soldiers under Joseph E. Johnston in the Shenandoah Valley near Winchester, Virginia, thus preventing them from reinforcing Beauregard along the Bull Run near Manassas.

Photograph:Catharpin Run, Sudley Church, and the remains of the Sudley Sulpher Spring house, Bull Run, …
Catharpin Run, Sudley Church, and the remains of the Sudley Sulpher Spring house, Bull Run, …
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-B8171-0314 DLC)

McDowell advanced from Washington on July 16 with some 32,000 men and moved slowly toward Bull Run. Two days later a reconnaissance in force was repulsed by the Confederates at Mitchell's and Blackburn's Fords, and when McDowell attacked on July 21 in the First Battle of Bull Run (in the South, First Manassas; see photograph), he discovered that Johnston had escaped the Federals in the valley and had joined Beauregard near Manassas just in time, bringing the total Confederate force to around 28,000. McDowell's sharp attacks with green troops forced the equally untrained Southerners back a bit, but a strong defensive stand by Thomas Jonathan Jackson (who thereby gained the nickname “Stonewall”) enabled the Confederates to check and finally throw back the Federals in the afternoon. The Federal retreat to Washington soon became a rout. McDowell lost 2,708 men—killed, wounded, and missing (including prisoners)—against a Southern loss of 1,981. Both sides now settled down to a long war.

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