On Saturday, reenactors marked the 150th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War, the Washington Post reported, as "people again sought out the fields around Manassas, searching for insight."
The Post said there was no full-scale reenactment of the battle, "but reenactors participated in an artillery demonstration and other displays to mark the occasion."
One hundred fifty years ago this week, Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson - a hero of the First Battle of Bull Run - ordered his forces to attack the Union army on the Warrenton Turnpike in Northern Virginia on Aug. 28, 1862, opening the Second Battle of Bull Run, the Associated Press reported Friday.
The battle lasted for days as Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederates outmaneuvered and outfought the Union army, led by Gen. John Pope.
On the first day, furious fighting took place around the Brawner Farm, not far from the site of the First Battle of Bull Run, the AP added.
Pope, convinced that he had trapped Jackson, sent a large federal force to attack rebels on the farm.
"The opening day of battle reaches a crescendo in a 90-minute firefight between rival infantry lines spaced about 80 yards apart," the AP said. Sunset brought a pause and the first day of fighting subsided.
The next day, Pope initiated a series of assaults against Jackson's Confederates along an unfinished railroad bed. Heavy casualties resulted on both sides as Confederates held their position on the second day of fighting.
On August 30, 1862, Pope attacked again, but was apparently unaware that Confederate General James Longstreet had arrived with his forces. When Confederate artillery devastated a Union assault, Longstreet's wing of 28,000 men counterattacked in what has been described as the largest, simultaneous mass assault of the war.
The Confederate attack smashed the Union left flank, forcing them to retreat.
Pope managed to engage in an effective rearguard action, preventing a repeat of the disastrous first Battle of Bull Run, but was forced to retreat to Centreville.
The battle was a decisive victory for Robert E. Lee, as he took the battle to the Union, instead of simply defending the capital of Richmond.
"Now," the AP added, "the Confederate triumph at Second Bull Run shows Lee at the height of his powers. And when the battle is over, casualties on the Union side approach 14,000 while the Confederates report more than 8,000 killed, missing or wounded."
Emboldened by this victory, Lee launched an invasion of Maryland that would crest at the battle of Antietam two weeks later.
"Although the uninitiated might wonder at the scene — and at men who in some cases paid upward of $1,000 in total for exact replicas of wool uniforms and .54-caliber muskets — the reenactors said the details help them show who the soldiers were," the Post reported.
But Garry Adelman, the director of history and education at the preservation group Civil War Trust, told the Post that he draws "larger lessons from the Second Battle of Bull Run."
Adelman told the story of one Confederate soldier who discovered his son wounded and crying in a ditch, as he was looking for wounded soldiers.
"The boy didn't want his father to think that he was crying because he had been shot, Adelman said. So he told his father that he had been stung by bees," the Post added.
According to Adelman, the soldier died in his father's arms moments later.
"It speaks to the most elusive [of] Civil War concepts," Adelman said. "The concept of honor."
More of this series at Examiner.com can be found here.
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