Bull Run

Bull Run

Richard J. LeFevre
American, 1931 - 2000

1994

watercolor and mixed media on paper

The first major battle of the Civil War was fought on July 21, 1861, at the Battle of Bull Run, or First Manassas as the South preferred to call it. Northern picnickers expecting to see the Southern army get a quick thrashing came from nearby Washington to spread out their tablecloths, eat chicken, open bottles of wine, and enjoy a good battle. But things got out of hand and did not go as they expected when the battle’s momentum swung to the South. This was the battle where Confederate General Barnard E. Bee (who died later that day) watched fellow Confederate general Thomas J. Jackson repeatedly repulse the enemy and famously observed, “Look there stands Jackson standing like a stone wall!” From that time forward, the general was known as “Stonewall” Jackson, and his troops was called the Stonewall Brigade. In the upper center of this painting is General Winfield Scott who was Commanding General of all Union forces at the beginning at the Civil War, yet was no longer physically able, due to poor health and his advanced age, to get on a horse or go to the field of battle. President Abraham Lincoln relieved him of this position after the Battle of Bull Run.

Bequest of the Artist