Civil War History 49.4 (2003) 408-409
Few Civil War engagements more influenced the course of the conflict than the first battle of Bull Run. Though the carnage was slight by subsequent standards, the armies that collided near Manassas were each considerably larger than those ever commanded by a U.S. general, and the Southern victory exploded the illusion that the route to peace would be
... [Show full abstract] bloodless and quick.
Yet for all its importance, the July 21, 1861 engagement seems forgotten; almost alone among the major eastern battles, First Bull Run has not been the subject of a full, modern examination. In the introduction to his A Single Grand Victory,Ethan S. Rafuse cites the two best recent works: William C. Davis's Battle at Bull Run (1975) and John J. Hennessy's The First Battle of Manassas (1989). He rates Davis's work as insightful on the overall campaign while citing Hennessy's volume as being a fine account of what happened on the battlefield. In his book, Rafuse seeks to combine the best of both by combining the traditional campaign narrative with an analysis of the engagement's wider political and social context.
The author aptly summarizes the stakes involved for both sides that led to Fort Sumter, the North and South's strengths and misperceptions of each other, and the complex moves and motives that brought concentrated forces near Washington. He places particular emphasis in his first chapter on the origins of the widespread belief that the war would be brief. His account of the battle, which constitues nearly half of the book, is skillful and reasoned, and the maps provide clear illustration of troop movement. While no bibliography is offered, the book ends with a review of the literature that points the way to further readings.
A Single Grand Victory's major difficulty lies in its paucity of unpublished sources, giving to the book a too-familiar quality. The lack of original sources contributes to it brevity and an unnecessarily abbreviated end to the book. His post-battle assessment of what went wrong on the Union side does not come up to the standard set by Hennessy's work. The volume would have also benefited from a final chapter detailing the effects of the outcome on both sides. Such a chapter could have demonstrated how each side's perceptions changed as a result of the war's first major battle, providing a counterweight to Rafuse's pre-battle analysis.
Though these shortcomings prevent Rafuse's work from coming close to a comprehensive account of First Manassas, A Single Grand Victory represents a useful and competent retelling of the first Bull Run campaign.
