Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Live Blogging 150th Anniversary of the Battle Near Manassas Junction

Whether you call it Bull Run or Manassas (I will use the NPS names as house style), tomorrow starting at 1 am I'll be "live blogging" the battle (and through the magic of historical events and scheduled postings won't miss a wink of sleep). The posts will be considerably shorter than usual and attempt to capture what was happening from the perspective of the people who experienced it. For the bird's eye view of the battle, a lot of folks have put in a lot of hard work at Wikipedia, and I recommend you check there, particularly for the great maps.

To make the project manageable, the reader will have to be on his or her own for links, so here's a few resources in case you get your Burnsides and Beauregards confused. To fully understand the ins and outs of the hierarchies of the three armies, check out the "orders of battle" available for the Union and the Confederacy. For folks more interested in the average man than the officer elite, friends from the United Kingdom have collected bits and pieces from every regimental history.

Here's the cast of characters for tomorrow (with their responsibility on July 21), whose points of view will be providing the narrative:

Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell, USA (Army of Northeastern Virginia)
Bvt. Capt. James B. Fry, USA (Assistant Adjutant General and Chief of Staff to Gen. McDowell)
Major John Bayard, USA (Chief Engineer, Army of Northeastern Virginia)
Col. Ambrose Burnside, RI Militia (Second Brigade, Second Division)
Lt. Col. Francis Fiske, NH Militia (Second in Command, 2nd NH Regiment, Second Brigade, Second Division)
Capt. Charles Griffin, USA (West Point Artillery, First Brigade, Second Division)
Col. William Tecumseh Sherman, USA (Third Brigade, First Division)
Col. Israel Richardson, MI Militia (Fourth Brigade, First Division)

Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, CSA (Army of the Potomac)
Capt. E. Porter Alexander, CSA (Chief Engineer, Army of the Potomac)
Brig. Gen. Milledge Bonham, CSA (First Brigade)
Brig. Gen. James "Pete" Longstreet, CSA (Fourth Brigade)
Col. Jubal Early, CSA (Sixth Brigade)
Col. Nathan "Shanks" Evans, CSA (Demi Brigade)
Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, CSA (Army of the Shenandoah)
Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson, CSA (First Brigade)

Hope you enjoy.

No comments:

Post a Comment