And Yet Another

And here’s another piece on a letter to a newspaper from a Bull Run participant, this time from John Ellis of the 71st New York and on Scott Patchan’s blog. I’ll get this one from the 8/20/61 San Francisco Bulletin transcribed ASAP.

I intend to include all the letters and newspaper accounts coming to light now in the resources section of Bull Runnings, but in order to do so I must have as much information as possible. Ellis is a good example of enough information. Full metadata, or as far as I’m concerned an image of the source document, is best. If it’s published, I need to have all the information that would be included in a footnote. Snippets of letters without dates or citation info, which is what many bloggers post, won’t be included here.

Virtual Tour of Cannons at Bull Run

Craig Swain has this very cool bit giving a virtual tour of the critical gun positions at Bull Run. Check it out!

Letter From the Fire Zouaves

Here are two accounts from a member of the 11th New York Infantry, Lieutenant Edward Burgin Knox (that’s him on the left in the image on the left, when he was with the 44th NY, Ellsworth’s Avengers). Both are provided by Ron Coddington, the first in a New York Times Opinionator piece, and the second on Ron’s blog, Faces of War. Knox’s writing appeared in the Wisconsin Patriot on August 3, 1861. Ron generously provided the photo here and also has sent me a transcription of Knox’s account, which I’ll post to the Resources section soon.

Thornberry Kids

John Hennessy has this great post up at Remembering: Musings on Fredericksburg and Manassas, in which he dissects this famous image of Sudley Springs Ford in March, 1862. See other photos from this collection here.

With the anniversary fast approaching, there are lots of blog posts and newspaper articles popping up every day that concern First Bull Run. I don’t announce them all here, but I do try to keep up with them on Facebook and Twitter. Use the links I’ve embedded in their names to follow Bull Runnings there and keep up with the latest Bull Run news.

I’m still getting inquiries regarding whether or not I will be at the ceremonies and events at the battlefield this week. I have no official role there. I may head down that way on Thursday or over the weekend just to check out what’s going on, but I’m not sure just yet. If you go, please be sure to take lots of water and drink it regularly, before you get thirsty. The plains of Manassas is a very hot place indeed in the summer. I mean, really, really hot. If you see me there, please say hello.

More Bull Run Research & Commentary Coming Soon…

John Hennessy of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP has graciously notified me of his intent to discuss some First Bull Run topics on the newly rechristened blog Remembering: Musings on Fredericksburg and Manassas. Far from detracting from what I do here at Bull Runnings, this is great news for anyone interested in the single most important event in the history of this or any other planet. John has authored important studies of both battles on the Plains of Manassas. I can only imagine what this walk through his files will turn up, and expect really, really good stuff.

Bull Run Connections on Cenantua’s Blog

I’ve been remiss in linking to this great post over at Robert Moore’s blog. Better late than never!

Incident at Vienna

Today is the 150th anniversary of a little incident at Vienna, VA involving a trainload of Union soldiers and a dastardly “masked” Confederate artillery battery. The incident, to some minds, had an impact on how McDowell’s army would move through Northern Virginia a few weeks later – I’m not so convinced that it did.

Ron Baumgarten at Not All So Quiet Along the Potomac wrote some nice posts on Vienna recently, and you can read them here.

And Craig Swain of To the Sound of the Guns has a cool photo essay of the now rails-to-trails site of the action here.

Cool Bull Run Stuff on the Web

A few links I ran across thanks to Facebook friends and others:

Go here for an overview of the battle and a cool animated map courtesy of The Civil War Trust.

Also from The Civil War Trust, John Hennessy talks about Jackson at Bull Run here. For more, see John’s article on the topic here.

And read this interesting bit on Matthew Brady at Bull Run from The Atlantic here.

Gettysburg NPS Blog on WordPress

Thanks to the good folks at Mysteries and Conundrums for passing along the news that the Gettysburg NMP blog has moved to WordPress, ditching the woefully inadequate NPS platform.  Check it out here.

Gettysburg NMP Blog

The good folks at the NPS at Gettysburg have started a blog, and you can find it here.

There appear to be few frills and no feed (I keep track of what’s going on in the sphere with my Google feed reader). I’m really not sure why they opted for this format when the good folks at Fredericksburg have blazed such a clear path, but it’s just starting out so maybe things will evolve.