First Bull Run Why didn't the Army of the confederacy walk on Washington after the victory of Manassas in 1861 ?

Feologild Oakes

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Why didn't the Army of the confederacy walk on Washington after the victory of Manassas in 1861 ?


Did the south ever try to walk on Washington D.C during the civil war ?
 
Why didn't the Army of the confederacy walk on Washington after the victory of Manassas in 1861 ?

Because if you mean the 1st battle of the Bull Run - the Union army was still generally intact after the battle (disorganised, but not destroyed). Quite a lot of both Union and Confederacy troops weren't actually even engaged during this battle, and generally both sides have no clues about "how we are supposed to command such big armies?". The battle was a victory for Confederacy, but it wasn't complete&total victory, that could clear the way to the capital.
 
Jubal Early did march on Washington, pretty late in the game. It is possible that a vigorous advance after 1st Bull Run might have succeeded. Or failed at heavy cost.

If I'm not mistaken, both sides considered 1st Bull Run as bilateral exercise in incompetence, with generals, who have no idea how to actually control such big armies, officers, who have no clue how to execute orders in real conditions, and soldiers, who have too little trainings to be effective fighting force.
 
Wanting to follow up a victory with a pursuit is easy to say or want to do, but it is very difficult to do even with veteran troops. Jackson spoke of his desire to do so at 1st Bull Run. After 2nd Bull Run he had the chance, resulting in the violent battle of Chantilly. The pursuit was a failure. At Chancellorsville, Lee pushed after the retreating Hooker. The result was that Lee was content with Hooker going back across the river. There were some successful pursuits. They are few and far between. Others know of these better than I.
 
At First Bull Run (First Manassas) the vast majority of soldiers on both sides were just learning how to fight. The veteran's mindset of following up a defeated enemy to complete its destruction had not yet taken firm hold. My pet theory as to why the Confederates won the battle is rooted in the superior training of their individual regiments, which was provided by a large cadre of qualified drillmasters, many of whom were cadets or recent graduates of the Virginia Military Institute. The Army of Northern Virginia was ahead of their opponent on the learning curve with regard to training, at least initially.
 
My pet theory as to why the Confederates won the battle is rooted in the superior training of their individual regiments, which was provided by a large cadre of qualified drillmasters, many of whom were cadets or recent graduates of the Virginia Military Institute. The Army of Northern Virginia was ahead of their opponent on the learning curve with regard to training, at least initially.

Frankly, I think they were just lucky. Those early battles generally tended to be a mess.
 
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Wanting to follow up a victory with a pursuit is easy to say or want to do, but it is very difficult to do even with veteran troops. Jackson spoke of his desire to do so at 1st Bull Run. After 2nd Bull Run he had the chance, resulting in the violent battle of Chantilly. The pursuit was a failure. At Chancellorsville, Lee pushed after the retreating Hooker. The result was that Lee was content with Hooker going back across the river. There were some successful pursuits. They are few and far between. Others know of these better than I.

I am not certain about this. 2 up and coming Generals were killed there which was at that time a great lose for the Union Army.
 
I do not believe that the Confederacy had a real chance to capture D.C. after the First Battle of Bull Run. My issues are that the sizable Union reserves in Centerville would have needed to be dealt. The real problem I see is by the time the Confederacy arrived there and deploy, it would have been dark. I just can not bring myself to believe that the Confederate Army was trained well enough to fight a major battle during the night and then pursue the defeated enemy during the rest of the night. The second part of the issue would be to capture the bridges across the Potomac River intact. At this point the Confederate engineers did not have pontoon boats to build a bridge across such a wide river. The Confederate could have moved up river until the could capture a bridge, but now we are adding one or more days to the attack on D.C. The Confederacy did not have the rations available to feed the troops for another two days and would have had to either get their marching army supplies of food or let the troop forage for food.
 
Of the five divisions in McDowell's force, two didn't go south of Bull Run and so barely engaged; they were fresh and well organized. Most of a third was in good shape as well, so that's probably 20,000 troops right there.

The Centreville position was occupied, and would have had required another set piece attack, at dusk at the earliest; then another towards Washington, and there were fortifications south of the river at this point, with another 5,000 fortress troops; then there's Patterson's three divisions from the upper Potomac, who were fresh and were well positioned to march to Washington.

All in all, as MB suggests, the rebels just did not have the capacity to do it.

Best,
 
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I don't know if they were in place at the time of 1st Manassas but let's not forget Washington's formidable ring of defenses Fort Foote, Battery Carroll, Fort Greble, Fort Rickett, Fort Stanton, Fort Davis, Fort DuPont, Fort Chaplin, Fort Mahan, Fort Bunker Hill, Fort Totten, Fort Slocum, Fort Stevens, Fort DeRussy, Fort Reno, Battery Kemble, Fort Bayard, and Fort Marcy.
Not to be sneezed at!
 
After Bull Run, both armies were so disorganized that while the Union was pretty much running back to Washington for their lives; trying to get the Confederates to follow them with any kind of organization would have been like herding cats. And as Hitler and Napoleon found out attacking some place and taking it are two different things. Besides, if they had captured Washington, what would they have done with it and I doubt that the North would have just given up. Washington became the most heavily fortified place in the world because of Bull Run, so that ended any idea of the South just walking in and taking it.
 
I don't know if they were in place at the time of 1st Manassas but let's not forget Washington's formidable ring of defenses Fort Foote, Battery Carroll, Fort Greble, Fort Rickett, Fort Stanton, Fort Davis, Fort DuPont, Fort Chaplin, Fort Mahan, Fort Bunker Hill, Fort Totten, Fort Slocum, Fort Stevens, Fort DeRussy, Fort Reno, Battery Kemble, Fort Bayard, and Fort Marcy.
Not to be sneezed at!

Stonewall wanted to make a rapid move and take Baltimore and was turned down. He believed Washington would have capitulated and the fighting would be over.
 
Stonewall wanted to make a rapid move and take Baltimore and was turned down. He believed Washington would have capitulated and the fighting would be over.
TAKE BALTIMORE???!!! As a proud Baltimoron, I will tell you the British tried that in 1814 and it didn't work out quite the way they planned. (see Battle of North Point, General Robert Ross)
Also, the fort on Federal Hill had big guns trained on the city (thank you Benjamin Butler for exceeding orders) and the Federals were just itching to drop a few rounds on Rebel sympathizing Mob Town.
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Stonewall wanted to make a rapid move and take Baltimore and was turned down. He believed Washington would have capitulated and the fighting would be over.

The rebels couldn't operate north of the Potomac for much more than a week in 1862 and 1863, as it was, with a year or two more of experience and organization; how, exactly, are they going to get from south of Bull Run, around Washington's defenses, past McDowell's army on the middle Potomac and Patterson's corps on the upper Potomac, and then get to Baltimore and besiege it?

Even today, the most direct route from the Bull Run battlefield to Baltimore is 70 miles by road, and runs through Washington, which was defended and on the north/east side of the Potomac - and Jackson et al didn't have a bridging train, much less siege artillery...

Baltimore may as well have been on the far side of the Moon.

Best,
 
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But what if the Union does not surrender after the fall of Baltimore? I mean the Union might surrender and then again they simply might not surrender. A large Confederate army can not just stay in Baltimore forever. The Union Navy would prevent resupply by sea, the Confederate army could forage, but this would become harder and harder over time and they could not get ammunition resupply. Eventually they would have to breakout and fight their way back south or surrender.
 
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