title: The Incredible Civil War
author:  Burke Davis 
description: Major Wilmer McLean might well have said, as tradition has it, The war began in my front yard and ended in my parlor. McLean, a well-to-do wholesale grocer from Alexandria, had retired in 1854 to a pleasant estate along Bull Run, near Manassas Junction, in Prince William County, Virginia. He had made many improvements on the plantation, including a massive stone barn. The place was known as Yorkshire, for the home county of a previous owner, Colonel Richard Blackburn, a migrant Englishman. Roads in the neighborhood led to the nearby rail line and important villages, and several crossed Bull Run not far from the farmhouse. One of these crossings was McLean's Ford. In May, 1861, the line of Bull Run was occupied by Confederate troops to guard against an expected Federal thrust from Washington. Many regiments camped on or near Yorkshire, and Camp Wigfall was established on its southernmost acres. Just behind McLean's Ford and on either side, General J.R. Jones had his brigade raise earthworks which remain today-though much reduced by bulldozers-amid a housing development known as Yorkshire Village. On July 18, when Federals approached the site, General P.G.T. Beauregard, the Confederate commander, left his headquarters at a nearby farmhouse and went to Yorkshire. The general was riding the front lines at noon of that day when a Union shell dropped into a chimney of the McLean house, fell into the kitchen fireplace, and immediately exploded in a kettle of stew. The stew was splattered over the room and the luncheon menu for the general, his staff, and the McLean household was revised.
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  ![image](Davis_BoxSet.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Burke Davis on the Civil War
  
  
  The Long Surrender, Sherman’s March, To Appomattox, and They Called Him
  Stonewall
  
  
  Burke Davis
  
  
  ![image](Book1/images/fig_01.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  
  [The Long Surrender](Book1/xhtml/cover.xhtml)
  
  
  [PART 1](Book1/xhtml/part01.html)
  
  
  [Flight](Book1/xhtml/part01.html#pt-1)
  
  
  [_1\. “Now … they will repent”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter001.html)
  
  
  [_2\. “We should abandon our position to-night”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter002.html)
  
  
  [_3\. “Blow her to hell”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter003.html)
  
  
  [_4\. “A fire bell in the night”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter004.html)
  
  
  [_5\. “We could rally our forces”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter005.html)
  
  
  [_6\. “I cannot feel myself a beaten man!”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter006.html)
  
  
  [PART 2](Book1/xhtml/part02.html)
  
  
  [The Pursuit](Book1/xhtml/part02.html#pt-2)
  
  
  [_7\. “Why are you still in the field?”_](Book1/xhtml/chapter007.html)
  
  
  [_8\. “You’re Southern gentlemen, not highway
  robbers”_](Book1/xhtml/chap