On July 21, 1861, the First Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas, if you're a Confederate sympathizer) erupted in Virginia, marking the first major land battle of the American Civil War—and boy, was it a spectacle of unpreparedness and chaos. Civilians from Washington D.C., including picnicking politicians and society elites, actually rode out in carriages to watch what they assumed would be a quick Union victory, treating the battle like a sporting event.

Imagine their shock when the Confederate forces, led by Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, not only held their ground but ultimately routed the Union troops in a stunning defeat. The Union soldiers, many of whom were raw recruits with little military training, broke ranks and fled in what became known as the "Great Skedaddle"—a full-blown retreat that turned the nearby roads into a pandemonium of panicked soldiers, overturned wagons, and abandoned equipment.

This disastrous battle shattered the naive notion of a quick, clean war and revealed the brutal reality that lay ahead: the Civil War would be long, bloody, and far more complex than anyone had initially imagined. The day served as a harsh lesson that warfare was not a gentleman's spectator sport, but a brutal, unpredictable landscape of human conflict.