Later this month — July 21, to be exact — we will mark the 160th anniversary of the first major land battle of the Civil War at Bull Run.
It was on the fields around Manassas, Va., only 25 miles from Washington, D.C., that some 60,000 Union and Confederate soldiers met in vicious, sometimes hand-to-hand fighting, that swirled back and forth between the opposing armies, who themselves could not agree on a name for the battle — Bull Run (after the nearby tributary) for the Union army and Manassas (after the nearby rail junction) for the Confederates.
A battle that had appeared so promising for the Federal troops that morning devolved into a disorganized route by late afternoon, resulting in nearly 5,000 casualties being killed, wounded and missing in action.
While First Bull Run — a second battle would occur over the same ground 13 months later — would be dwarfed by succeeding battles, both in numbers of troops involved and casualties incurred, it remained a pivotal event in the memory of many Civil War veterans. And while the Captain Thomas Espy Post roster does not boast a veteran of First Bull Run, we may still find several ties to the engagement.
A review of the wartime records of the Espy Post veterans reveals a spate of enlistments in the days and weeks immediately following First Bull Run. Where the battle did not produce the penultimate engagement of a quick and bloodless war, it instead brought home the realization that the war would be a grueling, costly affair. Hundred-day enlistments were scrapped for three-year terms. Espy Post veteran David L. Aiken enlisted just four days following First Bull Run and served until June 14, 1865 — one of the longest tenures of any Espy Post veteran.
The rolls of the Captain Thomas Espy Post also contain many veterans of Company H, 62nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, dubbed the “St. Clair Guards.” Under the command of the Post namesake, Captain Thomas Espy, the nucleus of the company was formed in the days immediately following First Bull Run, as news of the devastating battle reached western Pennsylvania. These recruits would include brothers James and Joseph Couch, Jared Fife, Joseph Hope, and others, all signing a three-year enlistment in late July 1861 in hopes of putting down the southern rebellion.
The Espy Post was likewise home to several veterans of the 5th Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery. Serving primarily in the defenses of Washington, D.C., throughout the war, in the spring of 1865 several detachments of the regiment were sent to the fields around Manassas to reinter the bodies of some 2,000 Union casualties of the battles of First and Second Manassas who had never received a proper burial.
It was during such grisly work that Espy veteran Peter Hartz secured a discarded U.S. bridal bit, which he brought home and treasured for 41 years before presenting the bit for display at the Espy Post Memorial Hall, where it may still be viewed today.
Likewise with Espy Post veteran Moses Bell, who had served in Company A, 100th Pennsylvania Infantry. Bell and his regiment were present at Second Bull Run, where he was very nearly killed when a three-pound solid shot passed through his knapsack. Bell retrieved the shot and later donated it to Memorial Hall, where it remains today. In 1891, Bell returned to Bull Run to visit the fields of his near brush with death. During this visit, he found a Hodgkiss bolt shell with a manufacture date of May 14, 1861, still visible. This shell had undoubtedly been discarded during First Bull Run and had laid on the field for 30 years. Visitors may still today view this relic at the Captain Thomas Espy Post.
In a May 5, 1865, letter to the American Citizen of Butler, Pa., a soldier of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry described his feelings of visiting the fields around Manassas in company with soldiers of the 5th Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery, perhaps veterans of the Espy Post among them. The soldier wrote that:
“Our duty is very light … with officers visiting the scene of the Bull Run battle-field, from which place we are about 12 or 14 miles. Almost every day parties from this regiment and from the 5th Heavy Artillery, a part of which lies near here, go out to the visit the ground, consecrated by the blood of hundreds of our fellow soldiers who literally ‘fought, bled and died for a purpose which they never saw realized’ but which now, thanks to them and thousands more, who have sacrificed their lives for the same noble glorious cause, has happily reached its consummation … ”
The Captain Thomas Espy Post at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall welcomes visitors to see these artifacts and hear these stories every Saturday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Jon-Erik Gilot is the Espy Post Curator at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall.