Why did First Battle of Bull Run happen?

Answer 1

Fort Sumter had fallen three months before and the US Army had made no response against the Rebels. The politicians were impatient and although the Union Army was poorly prepared and trained General McDowell felt that he had to attack the South.

Answer 2

First Bull Run happened because Northern politicians thought it was time for some combat, and forced McDowell to send his army into action before it was ready.

Second Bull Run happened because Robert E. Lee was in danger of being overwhelmed by the joining-up of the two Union armies, one under McClellan and one under Pope. So he felt he ought to attack Pope before McClellan could reach the scene.

Answer 3

Because two Union armies were about to join forces. Together, they would have overwhelmed Lee and put Richmond in peril.

So Lee moved fast, and defeated the smaller force before reinforcements could arrive.

Answer 4

Almost every Civil War battle was fought near a railroad or a navigable waterway. One or the other was necessary so the army had a way to get food and supplies. An army could not remain in one place very long at all, without a river or a railroad for a supply line. Foraging parties would go out into the countryside and rob all the farmers for miles around of all their food, but after a few days the entire area of countryside would be picked clean, "eaten out" as they said. An army trying to remian in one position far from a supply line had to depend on supplies coming from the nearest supply line by horse (or mule) drawn wagons. The horses or mules must eat too, and after a certain distance the wagon can only carry enough food for the horses or mules to make the trip, and nothing else. Armies could keep moving, spread out over the countryside ("foraging liberally" = robbing each and every farmer), but if the enemy appeared, they had to concentrate their forces, and could not send out foragers, who would be rounded up. They either had to fight and win quickly, or retreat, hungrily.

So, the Confederates had established their base near Manassas, along Bull Run creek, because there was a railroad from the south that could bring them supplies there. Another railroad came in from the west, through the Manassas Gap in the Manassas Mountains, from the agriculturally rich Shenandoah Valley. When the Yankees moved out to attack the Rebels, this was where they knew they would find them, at this base about twenty-five miles west of Washington, D. C.

Answer 5

Well it was the first battle of the civil war so I would say everything from the differences from south to north and the problems with slavery.

Answer 6

The First Battle of Bull Run was the First major battle of the Civil War. It happened so that the North and the South could battle over the issue of slavery