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Indiana University 
southward by Fredericksburg, because this route would cover 
Washington and at the same time threaten Richmond.^^ Man- 
assas Junction was quite important to the Confederates be- 
cause it is the point of intersection of the Orange and Alex- 
andria Railroad and the Manassas Gap Railroad, the latter 
leading into the Shenandoah Valley. McDowell with about 
30.000 Union soldiers marched toward Manassas Junction, 
which was defended by Beauregard, who had a force of 21,900 
men south of the stream called Bull Run. The Federal com- 
mander agreed to make the attack upon the Confederates, 
provided that Joseph E. Johnston, who was in the Shenandoah 
Valley with 9,000 men, could be prevented from joining 
Beauregard at Manassas. To prevent such a juncture General 
Patterson was sent to the Shenandoah with approximately 
20.000 men, but utterly failed to carry out his part of the 
scheme.^- 
When the Confederate authorities saw that Richmond was 
threatened, they ordered Johnston to join Beauregard if prac- 
ticable.-^ Tho sixty miles from Manassas, the latter easily 
eluded Patterson and started on his journey. It took his 
troops nearly ten hours to march from Winchester to the Shen- 
andoah River, a distance of thirteen miles, and their com- 
mander almost despaired of reaching his destination on time. 
However, at Piedmont he secured trains for his infantry on 
the Manassas Gap Railroad and arrived at Manassas Junc- 
tion with his troops fresh and vigorous at noon Saturday, 
while, if they had been compelled to march the thirty-four 
miles yet before them, they could hardly have hoped to reach 
the scene of conflict before Sunday evening and would not 
have been in condition to participate in a strenuous battle.^® 
The cavalry and artillery continued on the wagon road and 
arrived in time to take part in the battle.^® 
As nearly every schoolboy knows, the First Battle of Bull 
Run began about ten o’clock on Sunday morning, July 21, 
with an attack upon the Confederate position, and at first the 
Long and Wrig’ht, op. cit., 104, 105. 
"Rhodes, in his History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, 37, estimates Patterson’s 
forces to have been between 18,000 and 22,000. 
See Rebellion Records for middle of July, 1861. 
Long and V/right, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee, 110. 
Joseph E. Johnston, Narrative ayid Military Operations during the Late War 
between the States (New York, 1874), 36. Longstreet, in his history From 
Manassas to Appomattox, 43, tells substantially the same story. 
"^^Autobiography of Oliver O. Hoioard, I, 151. 
