Before Bull Run The Army of Pennsylvania and Its Forgotten Campaign 1861

Little if anything is written about the aThree Month Mena that answered President Lincolnas clarion call for 75,000 loyal militia volunteers after the insurgent Confederate government attacked and took Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Few also appreciate how vulnerable Washington, D.C., the nationas capital, was to rebel capture, especially after the Commonwealth of Virginia, which understandably refused to provide troops to smash the rebels, joined the Southern Confederacy. To revive interest in this lost campaign, which was fought between the fall of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and the battle of Bull Run (July 21, 1861), I have fleshed out several participants of the Army of Pennsylvania, the capitalas primary defender, namely Captain Emlen Franklin of Company F, 1st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and the armyas commander, Major General Robert Patterson, a veteran of the War of 1812 and the War with Mexico. In so doing, I have combined my historical knowledge with my combat experiences in Fallujah, Iraq, as an Iraqi Army advisor from 2005-06, to try to bring the campaign of the Army of Pennsylvania and the defense of the capital more to life for the average reader by using Miles, Patterson, and the others as vehicles of historical fiction. I hope you enjoy the book and are inspired to read more about the early phases of the Civil War, including the battle of Bull Run/First Manassas.