The First Battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861

As Shown In Vision to Ellen G. White

Eyewitness Account of W. W. Blackford:

“It was now about four o’clock and the battle raged with unabated fury. The lines of blue were unbroken and their fire as vigorous as ever while they surged against the solid walls of gray, standing immovable in their front. It was on that ridge earlier in the day that Jackson won the name of Stonewall. FBM 1.1

“But now the most extraordinary spectacle I have ever witnessed took place. I had been gazing at the numerous well-formed lines as they moved forward to the attack, some fifteen or twenty thousand strong in full view, and for some reason had turned my head in another direction for a moment, when someone exclaimed, pointing to the battlefield, ‘Look! Look!’ I looked, and what a change had taken place in an instant. Where those well-dressed, well-defined lines, with clear spaces between, had been steadily pressing forward, the whole field was a confused swarm of men, like bees, running away as fast as their legs could carry them, with all order and organization abandoned. In a moment more the whole valley was filled with them as far as the eye could reach. They plunged through Bull Run wherever they came to it regardless of fords or bridges, and there many were drowned. Muskets, cartridge boxes, belts, knapsacks, haversacks, and blankets were thrown away in their mad race, that nothing might impede their flight. In the reckless haste the artillery drove over everyone who did not get out of their way. Ambulance and wagon drivers cut the traces and dashed off on the mules. In crossing Cub Run a shell exploded on a team and blocked the way, and 28 pieces of artillery fell into our hands. FBM 1.2

“By stepping or jumping from one thing to another of what had been thrown away in the stampede, I could have gone long distances without ever letting my foot touch the ground, and this over a belt forty or fifty yards wide on each side of the road. Numbers of gay members of Congress had come out from Washington to witness the battle from the adjacent hills, provided with baskets of champagne and lunches. So there was a regular chariot race when the rout began, with the chariots well in the lead, as was most graphically described by the prisoners I captured and by citizens afterwards. We found, occasionally, along the road, parasols and dainty shawls lost in their flight by the frail, fair ones who had seats in most of the carriages of this excursion. Some of their troops north of Bull Run did not participate in the panic, and some did not throw away their arms, but the greater part must have done so, from the quantities we found. FBM 1.3

“Stuart was uncertain whether this was a general or a partial rout, at the moment, and told me to go as fast as I could to either General Johnston or General Beauregard, report what had happened and ask if he must pursue. He, like everyone else at that period of the war, did not feel the confidence in himself that we did a little later. I gave Comet the rein and struck a beeline to where he said I would probably find the generals, taking fences, ditches, and worse than all, some fearful gullies, as they came. FBM 2.1

“I found General Beauregard, who, of course, knew what had happened before I got there, for by that time all musketry firing had ceased, though the batteries were still pounding away at long-range at the disappearing fugitives.”—W. W. Blackford, War Years With Jeb Stuart. New York: Scribner and Sons, 1946, pp. 32-35. (W. W. Blackford was a lieutenant colonel, C.S.A.) FBM 2.2