ABSTRACT
The Confederate decision to move its capital from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Virginia, brought the two warring capitals within one hundred miles of each other. It also insured that Virginia would become the stage for some of the most important battles of the war. The first major confrontation in Virginia occurred on July 21,1861, along a small stream called Bull Run, less than thirty miles from Washington, DC. The battles that followed Bull Run would create casualties that would far exceed the horror experienced that day. By virtue of Southern victory in the first sustained engagement in the war, many Confederates bragged of their superior martial attributes. They also felt that they had ensured the establishment of independent nationhood. While Confederates jubilantly proclaimed that this proved that one rebel could whip ten Federals, Lincoln and his leaders concluded that this would not be the ninety-day war they had envisioned.
