Marching on Manassas

McDowell's map of Northern Virginia from July 1861 (LOC)

"McDowell marched on the afternoon of July 16th, the men carrying three days’ rations in their haversacks," recounted James B. Fry, the assistant adjutant general and chief of staff for the Army of Northeast Virginia. "Provision wagons were to follow from Alexandria the next day." As the top staffer for Brigadier General Irvin McDowell, leader of the army sent by the Federal Government to crush the rebels around Manassas Junction, Fry would barely have slept the night before as he ensured every one of the five division commanders perfectly understood how their men were to get to the rally point at Centreville.

"One day... we received our first order to march to a field of battle," remembered Francis Fiske, the lieutenant colonel (thus second in command) of the 2nd New Hampshire Infantry Regiment in Ambrose Burnside's brigade. Orders traveled from Fry who interpreted McDowell's will, to Second Division commander Colonel David Hunter, whose staff interpreted it into new orders suitable to get his two brigades moving. Those orders then reached Burnside and his Second Brigade, whose staff further refined them for the four regiments. One of these regiments was the 2nd New Hampshire, whose colonel, Gilman Marston, then had his staff further refine them for his companies (as a former Congressman, Marston probably had aides that were volunteers, but the poorer or less famous colonels wrote the next set of orders themselves). Lt. Colonel Fiske received the orders with the company commanders and other officers of his regiment.