O.R.– SERIES I–VOLUME 2 [S# 2] — CHAPTER IX, p 309
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A Journal of the Digitization of a Civil War Battle
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Harry SmeltzerDulce bellum inexpertis
“I am sending you these little incidents as I hear them well authenticated. They form, to the friends of the parties, part of the history of the glorious 21st. More anon.”
About
Hello! I’m Harry Smeltzer and welcome to Bull Runnings, where you'll find my digital history project on the First Battle of Bull Run which is organized under the Bull Run Resources section. I'll also post my thoughts on the processes behind the project and commentary on the campaign, but pretty much all things Civil War are fair game. You'll only find musings on my “real job” or my personal life when they relate to this project. My mother always told me "never discuss politics or religion in mixed company”, and that's sound advice where current events are concerned.
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This site is more than a blog. Bull Runnings also hosts digitized material pertaining to First Bull Run. In the Bull Run Resources link in the masthead and also listed below are links to Orders of Battle, After Action Reports, Official Correspondence, Biographical Sketches, Diaries, Letters, Memoirs, Newspaper Accounts and much, much more. Take some time to surf through the material. This is a work in process with no end in sight, so check back often!
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Bull Runnings 
Harry,
Seeing this made me wonder how well troop strengths are documented for First Bull Run. Has anyone looked at this in any detail? Are there sources which go down to regimental level?
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Strength numbers are a fascinating topic. This table makes it appear that McDowell had somewhere in the range of 35K for the battle. But we can readily subtract close to 50% as detachments that weren’t engaged.
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Will and Brett,
More tables are to follow. I think we have pretty reliable numbers for the Union. In general, we can say the forces were evenly matched in gross, and also in engaged (around 17-18,000 each).
Talking with Jonathan Soffe of http://www.firstbullrun.com, Confederate numbers are a different story, as usual. He’s finding companies not listed on OOB’s whose histories indicate they were present at the battle.
But several “traditional” versions of the battle fall apart in light of cold, hard numbers. Casualty rates belie narratives of “every man cut down”. David Donald wrote in “Lincoln” that the Union army was “overwhelmed”. Contemporary Union and Confederate accounts alike claim they were outnumbered (I’ll be posting an OR table of Confederate estimate of Union strength soon). But most important, the notion that McDowell’s plan was foiled only by the arrival of Johnston from the Valley is bunk – McDowell’s plan anticipated facing almost exactly the number of Confederates he did in fact face – about 35,000.
A pretty good analysis of numbers is in R. M. Johnston’s “Bull Run: Its Strategy and Tactics” which you can find online in the books and articles page to the right.
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[…] Table – USA Troop Strengths July 16-17, 1861 […]
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[…] Virginia Commanded by Brigadier-General McDowell, U. S. A., for July 16 and 17, 1861. (View it here.) There it was, in black and […]
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