People viewing this week’s monument might think they recognize it as the First Bull Run monument, but they would be wrong. This is the Second Bull Run monument. Yes, it is built out of the same red sandstone that the First Bull Run monument is made out of from the blocks picked out of the Railroad Cut. It is the same height, sixteen feet. It was finished on the same day and both were dedicated on the same day. They were made by the same people. But they are different.
While the First Bull Run monument on Henry (House) Hill is photographed by everyone who goes to Manassas National Battlefield, the Second Bull Run is only photographed by those willing to hike up what appears to be a daunting uphill climb.
Look, I am in my late sixties, with heart failure and I suffered a stroke ten months ago, so I am not in great shape. I parked my car at the parking area for the Deep Railroad Cut and it only took me eight minutes to get to the monument. It was not a trying hike. You probably can do it too.
At the base is a sign telling you that hundreds of Union soldiers lost their lives on the path you will take up to the monument. It is daunting when you read that, but since their were no Confederates occupying the heights above me, I figured it was without significant danger.
The marker tells the story of General Pope’s men attacking Stonewall Jackson’s forces at the top of the hill and in the Deep Railroad Cut. The Railroad Cut was unfinished and it made a good earthworks behind the military crest of the hill.
As we walked on the trail we crossed Dogan Branch, a little stream that refreshed Union soldiers before they made their attack on the Deep Cut. Panels told us that this was where Berdan’s Sharpshooters engaged the Confederates 162 years ago.
Today, walking here, you would not think this would be a place of death. So peaceful and beautiful.
While I have visited this site in all kinds of weather, it is most wonderful in mid-Spring. Both battles were fought in the summer, but these fields and hills have a diversity of color for all to see.
The National Park Service has a panel explaining the Sharpshooters role in the Battle here. You can also see that the hand-lettered sign-board is a copy of one put up by a veteran of Berdan’s units.
The painting shows a scene so different from what you experience there today.
On the front of the monument is a plaque that says “IN MEMORY OF THE PATRIOTS WHO FELL AT GROVETON AUGUST 28 29 & 30 1862.” Groveton was the village where the Railroad Cut crosses the landscape. It is tiny now, and it was back in 1862. Many Union soldiers referred to the 1861 battle as “The Battle of Bull Run” and the 1862 battle as “The Battle of Groveton,” but it would soon be known as “The Second Battle of Bull Run” or “The Second Manassas Battle.”
You can see damage to the monument in my photo, but to really assess what happened to it, look at this photo below taken in 1865 by Alexander Gardner, a Scottish immigrant who took hundreds of photos during the war.
You can see in the 1865 photo that the soldiers who constructed the monument had placed artillery shells on the bottom two levels of the base and used cannon balls to decorate the top of the monument. Those have been stolen by souvenir hunters in the 19th Century. Even the wooden fence was torn down to sell as souvenirs. While the Henry House Hill monument is in ready sight to people passing by two busy roads, this monument is hidden and was back a hundred and fifty years ago ready picking for people hoping to make some money off the battlefield.
Monumental Questions: 1860s Civil War Monument Vandalization at Manassas by Ryan Bilger in The Gettysburg Compiler
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