The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June-October 1861 [Hardcover]

Bradley M. Gottfried (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2009

Bradley M. Gottfried's The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June - October 1861 is the eagerly awaited companion volume to his bestselling The Maps of Gettysburg (2007, two editions, four printings), part of the ongoing Savas Beatie Atlas Series.

The Maps of First Bull Run breaks down the entire operation (and related actions) into numerous map sets or "action-sections" enriched with more than fifty full-color original full-page maps. These cartographic originals bore down to the regimental and battery level and include the march to and from the battlefield and virtually every significant event in between. At least two-and as many as seventeen-maps accompany each "action-section." Keyed to each piece of cartography is a full facing page of detailed text describing the units, personalities, movements, and combat (including quotes from eyewitnesses) depicted on the accompanying map, all of which make the story of First Bull Run come alive.

This original presentation makes it easy for readers to quickly locate a map and text on virtually any portion of the campaign. Readers will maneuver with Confederate and Union armies in the Shenandoah Valley, march with General McDowell's Federals to the plains of Manassas, and fight blow-by-blow through the battle up to its stunning climax on Henry House Hill and the final retreat from the battlefield all the way to Washington. The smaller but important Battle of Ball's Bluff is also covered in the same fashion, as is the skirmish at Lewinsville. Serious students will appreciate the extensive and authoritative endnotes, bibliography, and complete orders of battle. They will also want to bring the book along on their trips to the battlefields.

Perfect for the easy chair or for walking hallowed ground, The Maps of First Bull Run is a seminal work that, like his earlier Gettysburg study, belongs on the bookshelf of every serious and casual student of the Civil War.

About the Author: Bradley M. Gottfried, Ph.D., is the President of the College of Southern Maryland. An avid Civil War historian, Dr. Gottfried is the author of five books, including Brigades of Gettysburg: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Gettysburg (2002) and The Maps of Gettysburg (2007). He is currently working with co-editor Theodore P. Savas on a Gettysburg Campaign encyclopedia.

REVIEWS

"Brad Gottfried's The Maps of First Bull Run is a solid follow-up to his The Maps of Gettysburg. The maps are very user-friendly, easily readable, and highly detailed without being the least bit confusing, and there are enough of them to give a complete picture of the course of the action. Combine each full-page map with the facing text, and this book provides readers with a good understanding of much of the action in the Eastern Theater during the first year of the war." James A. Morgan, III, author of A Little Short of Boats: The Fights at Ball's Bluff and Edward's Ferry, October 21-22, 1861

"Brad Gottfried's The Maps of First Bull Run is filled with full-page maps and accompanying facing text that will help make sense of the confusing series of events for Bull Run/Manassas neophytes and old hands alike. I highly recommend it." Harry Smeltzer, host of the Civil War blog Bull Runnings

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Savas Beatie; First edition (June 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193271460X
• ISBN-13: 978-1932714609
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #609,120 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For Newbies and Vets Alike, June 29, 2009

By 

Harry Smeltzer (Coraopolis, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June-October 1861 (Hardcover)

In the interest of full disclosure I must say that I did review the manuscript and maps for the Bull Run portion of the book, so I was involved to some small degree in the bookmaking process.

This second in Savas Beatie's series of campaign map studies follows the format of its predecessor "The Maps of Gettysburg", also by Gottfried, with three noticeable differences. First, it's a much slimmer volume, which is understandable due to the relative brevity of the campaign and battle and the fewer troops involved. Second, "The Maps of First Bull Run" also includes maps of the skirmish at Lewinsville, VA on 9/11/1861 and the Battle of Ball's Bluff on 10/21/1861. Third, unlike the Gettysburg maps, these are in full color.

There are 37 maps for the Bull Run portion of the book (another 15 for the remainder - that portion of the manuscript was reveiwed by Jim Morgan, author of the definitive study of Ball's Bluff, "A Little Short of Boats"), from the positions of the armies in June through the Union retreat to Washington ending July 22. The maps are clean and clear, which is good from the standpoint that they help the reader visualize the "bigger picture". Each map is accompanied by one full facing page of text. Notes are at the end of the book, arranged by map. I prefer footnotes at the bottom of the page, but I understand why endnotes were necessary in this case due to the constraints attending the two page layout for each map and text.

Other than some minor quibbles not worth mentioning, I'm pleased with the text. Gottfried considered all the standard primary sources as well as soldier accounts and modern scholarship of folks like Ethan Rafuse and John Hennessy. No two accounts of the fighting on Henry House Hill are ever going to agree in every detail, but Gottfried's interpretation of events is plausible and well supported.

The maps are all oriented vertically north to south. This limited the amount of west to east info that could be accurately depicted, and gives the impression of a more limited area of operations on the day of the battle - the Confederate line extended along that axis from Stone Bridge to Union Mills. For the action on Henry House Hill, I think the orientation of the maps and the need to depict some pretty confusing action resulted in a misrepesentation of the relative proximity of the Union and Confederate artillery. Also, there are no topographical (elevation) lines on the maps. As a map lover, this is a bit of a bummer to me. But the stength of this book is the clear - if general - tactical picture it provides. A visit to the field - the whole field - reveals that it's more than just four hills or ridges (Matthews, Henry House, Dogan and Chinn), but is dotted with cuts and defiles. The depiction of all these changes in elevation would possibly have "busied" the maps to the extent that they would have failed in their purpose.

All-in-all, this study provides the best visual impression of the battle I've seen. Ed Bearss's map study is not written in a narrative format, and the few maps use the same base map and are very crowded and confusing. John Hennessy's book uses clearer, simpler maps, but again they're few in number. The reader will find more detail in those two Howard campaign series books, but in my opinion will come away with a better understanding of the battle with Gottfried's work. If such were not the case, there would have been no point to it.

"The Maps of First Bull Run" should have a place on the shelves of Civil War students of all levels. Hopefully it will create more interest in the battle, not just among newcomers, but with the scores of long time students who may have dismissed the battle as a confused meeting between inexperienced armies of little interest tactically. If it spurs them to dig more deeply into the details, and perhaps even produce micro-studies, all the better. I'll keep my copy close at hand when I'm reading and writing about the battle, and when the paperback edition comes out, I'll have it with me when I visit the battlefield.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Making Sense of a Confusing Battle, September 11, 2009

By 

Brett R. Schulte "Civil War Buff" (Southwestern IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June-October 1861 (Hardcover)

What do you get when a publisher long known for its excellent maps actually creates a "Maps of ..." series of books? The answer, one example of which is the The Maps of First Bull Run, is absolute heaven for wargamers and students of the Civil War who are into strategy and tactics. Bradley M. Gottfried, the author of several Gettysburg books, including the "Maps of ..." series premiere with The Maps of Gettysburg, continues that format here in a smaller book which brings full color to the series.

The Maps of First Bull Run contains 51 full color maps rendered in great detail, both in the lay of the land and in the regimental and battery level data in recording troop movements. Union divisions, brigades, and regiments are rendered in blue while Confederate units are shown in red. Roads are typically a beige color with forest and fields drawn in green. Text showing the names of towns, homes, forts, and other features of the terrain are clearly shown in black font. Scale is also detailed on each map, as is the direction of north (which is not always up). Arrows are often used to show the thrust of various attacks and important areas of combat are labeled with circled numbers tied to the text. Speaking of the text, each map includes a full page of text clearly describing the action on the opposite page.

The only area which could use improvement is in modeling the elevation. Topographical lines of elevation would better reflect the respective heights of various hills rather than the "hash mark" method which was used. I suspect this was a decision which was discussed quite a bit, so I look forward to Savas Beatie's response as to why they went in this direction with the elevation model.

The Battle of First Bull Run was an often confusing affair, with wildly varying descriptions of what happened and when. I own quite a few books on the battle, some with many maps. Never before have I felt so sure of what actually happened on this first major battlefield of the war than after reading The Maps of First Bull Run. These maps are not usually overly zoomed in on a key piece of the action, allowing the reader to see what was transpiring behind the front lines. This trend in typical Civil War books is not generally followed in the "Maps of ..." series and is a refreshing change of pace. Bull Run expert Harry Smeltzer (founder of the First Bull Run site Bull Runnings) aided Gottfried with proofreading, fact-checking, and otherwise vetting the information contained in the book.

Readers need to delve deeper than the title to see how much is contained in this book. The subtitle gives a clearer picture of what else is included, in this case the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Ball's Bluff expert Jim Morgan was consulted heavily on this portion of the book, with his interpretation of this confused fight being used. Although not mentioned in the subtitle, the skirmish at Lewinsville on September 11, 1861 is also represented on one map.

Each map and its accompanying text have endnotes associated with them. Areas of disagreement among the sources are discussed to allow readers to recognize portions of the map which are in dispute, and there are more than a few. In any case, Gottfried backs up his maps with plenty of annotation and explanation.

This book, like The Maps of Gettysburg before it and like future volumes in this series, is a wargamer's dream come true. Numerous scenarios tied to the various maps in this book can be created. The large number of maps combined with the orders of battle for First Bull Run and Ball's Bluff give wargamers a wealth of information at their fingertips in one book.

The Maps of First Bull Run is a worthy addition to what is shaping up to be a massive series of map-based books on all of the major battles of the Civil War. Bradley Gottfried is planning to do the entire Eastern Theater on his own! Savas Beatie has also announced the upcoming Maps of Chickamauga by wargame designer, tour guide, and all-around Chickamauga expert Dave Powell, who has recently started the new Chickamauga Blog.

Readers for whom there can never be enough maps will love this book. The Maps of First Bull Run thoroughly covers the surging action on the slopes of Henry Hill and the confused panic at Ball's Bluff in amazing detail. Presenting these battles as a series of full color maps allows them to come alive like never before. Wargamers, battlefield trampers, and those interested in the tactical minutiae of Civil War combat will find this book to be a more than worthy addition to their Civil War libraries, as will anyone remotely interested in the military aspects of the Civil War. I will be looking forward to each and every volume in this series and I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HELPS THE READER CUT THROUGH THE FOG OF WAR, February 28, 2010

By 

CTS 2631 "Timboabwe" (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of the First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the Battle of Ball's Bluff, June-October 1861 (Hardcover)

I used this book to help follow the action while reading four books on the campaign and battle of First Manassas/Bull Run and two books on the raid/battle of Ball's Bluff and it made a big difference in my ability to keep up with the text since none of the books on these military actions have enough maps!(Morgan's book on Ball's Bluff had the best battle maps but "The Maps Of First Bull Run" did a great job showing the situation in Northern Virginia in late 1861 and the Union Army of the Potomac's movements prior to the battle. Plus, the battlefield situation at Ball's Bluff and Edwards Ferry is enlarged and colorized, making the action easier to follow)

First, here are the books I read on the subjects covered by the maps in this volume:
1. The First Battle of Manassas by John Hennessy
2. A Single Grand Victory by Ethan S. Rafuse
3. Battle at Bull Run by William C. Davis
4. Donnybrook by David Detzer
5. A Little Short of Boats by James A. Morgan III
6. Ball's Bluff by Byron Farwell

All of these books were a good source to learn about the campaign and battle of First Manassas/Bull Run and Ball's Bluff but by using "The Maps of First Bull Run" I feel my ability to follow the armies movements leading upto the clash of arms and the complicated maneuvers and fighting on these battlefields was greatly enhanced.

The book uses a format where the map is on the right hand page and the text describing the actions on that map are located on the left hand page so there is no flipping back and forth through the book looking for the appropriate map to follow the course of events.

The maps show all the terrain types (including elevations unlike many military history books) needed to help the reader picture what the armies saw and understand how their decisions were influenced by the lay of the land. Units are shown as brigades, regiments, battalions, companies, batteries, and sections. There are 51 maps total. The first ten maps detail the situation in the Northern Virginia/Shenandoah Valley theater of operations, the movements of both sides to the banks of Bull Run and the movements in the Valley including Confederate General Joe Johnston's evasion of Union General Patterson's forces to reinforce Beauregard at Manassas, the Battle of Blackburn's Ford 18 July, 1861, and McDowell's planning of the battle 19 and 20 July, 1861. The next 27 maps show the Battle of First Manassas/Bull Run from the Union flanking march to the Federal forces rout and retreat to Washington. The last 14 maps cover the time period after the battle and upto the action at Ball's Bluff October 21, 1861 and its aftermath. Appendix 1 gives an Order of Battle for both sides with losses at First Manassas/Bull Run, Appendix 2 gives the same for Ball's Bluff, followed by a nice section of Notes for each map, a decent Bibliography, and Index.

The maps and text are great. If you want to better understand these early battles in Virginia, "The Maps of First Bull Run" is a great help for a Civil War buff, or just a casual reader of history. Highly recommended.