The First Battle of Manassas claimed the lives of approximately 878 soldiers and wounded another 2,489. With a battlefield stretching nearly five miles, 15,000 Union and 14,000 Confederate soldiers clashed for four fateful days, many of them young and terrified and receiving their first taste of a long and bitter war. Their courage, military skill, and brute strength were tested, leading some brigades and many individuals to receive reputations that followed them into history.
Now, for the first time, this extraordinary work brings the Battle of Bull Run to life by featuring over two hundred photographs of the individual soldiers and forty-five highly detailed maps. Written by a noted military historian, it provides all the necessary background information to understand the minutiae of the military action, yet it also personalizes the horrors of those few destructive days. Through poignant, often disturbing, excerpts from diaries and letters, this book offers readers a rare glimpse at the tragedy of war. Moreover, it portrays with realism and compassion the significance of the first battle of the bloodiest war in American history.