The Friends of Manassas National Battlefield Park

On a hot July day in 1861 two great armies from north and south came together for the first time on the fields overlooking a stream called Bull Run. The naive unprepared troops would soon have their hopes of a short war dashed, as they came face to face with the horrors and carnage of war. By the day's end nearly 900 men lay dead and dying on what the day before had been the peaceful farms of Northern Virginia.

Thirteen months later the same armies, now much larger and battle hardened, would again clash over the same ground. This time, the destruction would be far greater, over 23,000 killed, missing or wounded. The outcome of the second battle would lead to the southern army's first full scale invasion across the Potomac River into Maryland.