July 16 1861 Tuesday
First Bull Run Campaign
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Patterson’s Shenandoah Valley Operations
USA. The US Navy’s Blockade Strategy Board chaired by Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont USN suggested a novel plan to strengthen the blockade of Southern ports. Lacking sufficient vessels capable of enforcing an effective maritime blockade, they proposed to fill a “stone fleet” of large old vessels with heavy rocks and to scuttle them at entrances to Southern harbours. The Board also recommended that the Atlantic region should be divided into northern and southern sectors. The Navy Department decided to implement this division on 18 September 1861, although the actual implementation was delayed.
USA. The Federal Bill authorising the President to call out the militia and to raise 500,000 volunteers passed the US House of Representatives.
Millsville, Missouri. Confederate irregulars fired into railroad cars at Millsville, killing 3 and wounding 7 Union soldiers. Seven Confederates were killed in the retaliation.
Missouri. Skirmish at Wentzville/
North Carolina. USS St Lawrence, Captain Hugh Y Purviance, captured the British blockade-runner Herald, bound from Beaufort to Liverpool.
Virginia. Incident at Barboursville.
Virginia. The Confederate forces retreating from Carrick’s Ford reached Monterey.
Virginia. Union Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell’s Army of the Potomac marched out of the Washington defences and Arlington with most of its 35,000 men. The plan was to advance against the Confederate army concentrated around the vital railroad junction at Manassas. Union State Brigadier-General Daniel Tyler’s division led the column and reached Vienna while Brigadier-General David Hunter’s and Colonel Dixon S Miles’ divisions arrived at Annandale. Brigadier-General Samuel Peter Heintzelman’s division stopped at Pohick Creek. At this time Confederate forces in the Virginian theatre numbered about 40,000 men and the Union fielded about 60,000 against them/ These were deployed thus: 23,000 Confederates at Manassas facing 35,000 Union, 11,000 Confederates in the Shenandoah Valley facing over 12,000, and 5,000 facing 15,000 Union men at Fortress Monroe on the York-James Peninsula.
Virginia. In the Shenandoah Valley, Union Major-General Robert Patterson left Bunker Hill. Instead of moving south towards Winchester to deter Confederate reinforcements from being sent to oppose the Union advance towards Manassas Junction, Patterson turned east to Charlestown and then withdrew back towards Harper’s Ferry. This retrograde movement eased the pressure on Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley and allowed Brigadier-General Joseph Eggleston Johnston’s Army of the Shenandoah to leave the Shenandoah Valley and to move to reinforce Confederate Brigadier-General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard at Manassas Junction.
Union Organisation
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Silas Horton Stringham
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William Mervine
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
West Indies Squadron: Garrett J Pendergrast
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: Thomas Tingey Craven
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of Annapolis: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of Kentucky: Robert Anderson
Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
- Army of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
Department of the Ohio: George Brinton McClellan
- Army of Occupation: George Brinton McClellan
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: Robert Patterson
- Army of the Shenandoah: Robert Patterson
Department of Texas: Vacant
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of Virginia: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Department of Washington: Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Western Department: Nathaniel Lyon interim John Charles Frémont awaited
- District of Ironton: Benjamin Gratz Brown
- Army of the West: Nathaniel Lyon
Confederate Organisation
Commander in Chief: President Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: Leroy Pope Walker
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen Russell Mallory
Military Adviser to the President: Robert Edward Lee
Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Department of Fredericksburg: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
- Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder
Department of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
- Army of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Department of South Carolina: Daniel Harvey Hill
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn
- Defences of Galveston: John Creed Moore
Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg
Western Department: Leonidas Polk
- District of Upper Arkansas: William Joseph Hardee
- Forces in Missouri: Benjamin McCulloch
Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton
District of Harper’s Ferry: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
- Army of the Shenandoah: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Army of the Kanawha: Henry Alexander Wise
Army of Liberation: Gideon Johnson Pillow
Army of the Northwest: Henry Rootes Jackson
Union Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
George Brinton McClellan
John Charles Frémont
Major-General USV
John AdamsDix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Irvin McDowell
Robert Anderson
William Starke Rosecrans
Brigadier-General USV
Samuel Peter Heintzelman
David Hunter
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Andrew Porter
Fitz-John Porter
William Buel Franklin
William Tecumseh Sherman
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Don Carlos Buell
Thomas West Sherman
Nathaniel Lyon
John Pope
George Archibald McCall
William Reading Montgomery
Philip Kearny
Joseph Hooker
John Wolcott Phelps
Ulysses Simpson Grant
Joseph Jones Reynolds
Samuel Ryan Curtis
Charles Smith Hamilton
Darius Nash Couch
Rufus King
Jacob Dolson Cox
Stephen Augustus Hurlbut
Franz Sigel
Robert Cumming Schenck
Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss
Frederick West Lander
Benjamin Franklin Kelley
John Alexander McClernand
Alpheus Starkey Williams
Israel Bush Richardson
James Cooper
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (Quartermaster-General)
Confederate Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
General ACSA
Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Leonidas Polk
Brigadier-General ACSA
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
William Henry Talbot Walker
Henry Rootes Jackson
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Henry Alexander Wise
Earl Van Dorn
William Joseph Hardee
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
Benjamin Huger
John Bankhead Magruder
James Longstreet
Edmund Kirby Smith
John Clifford Pemberton
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Henry Hopkins Sibley
Barnard Elliott Bee
John Henry Winder
Richard Caswell Gatlin
Daniel Smith Donelson
Samuel Read Anderson
Gideon Johnson Pillow
Benjamin Franklin Cheatham
Felix Kirk Zollicoffer
Daniel Harvey Hill
Jones Mitchell Withers
American Civil War High Command 