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Harry imagined himself standing on the banks of a creek, watching a small advance party of Union cavalry. The meadow and fields behind them was the scene of the First Manassas Battle the year before in 1861, and would soon become a bloody battlefield again . . . |
In the battle of Bull Run, 123 men from the 5th New York, died in the first five minutes of battle. It was the greatest loss of lives in a single infantry regiment in any battle of the Civil War. The terrible battle, lasting only one day, took the lives of nearly 5,000 brave men.
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Two years after the battle of Bull Run, General Jackson was accidentally shot by one of his own men. He was forced to leave the field of command. While in the field hospital, they had to cut off his arm. Doctors thought he would recover, but he contracted pneumonia and died two weeks later.
Harry closed the book, and sighed. "I wonder if the war would have ended differently if Stonewall Jackson had survived to lead his troops to the end," he thought. "How cruel that such a skilled field officer had to die by friendly fire. And General Lee, that magnificently brilliant man, went on to terrible defeat at Gettysburg that turned the tide of the war."
the Mannassas Battlefield Park Website.
Another site to learn more about the Civil War
is the Civil War Center.
Re-enactment Photo Credit
