Army of the Potomac

Captain E P Alexander, Chief Signal Officer, Army of the Potomac

Engineers

LIEUT. COL. T H WILLIAMSON Assignment: Lieutenant Colonel T H Williamson, Virginia State Corps Engineers, was assigned to the works at Camp Pickens, Manassas Junction, and attached to the staff of Brigadier General P G T Beauregard as chief engineer.

capt. W H Stevens Assignment: Captain W H Stevens, Confederate States Corps Engineers, was one of fourteen members of the newly formed Confederate States Corps Engineers and attached to the staff of Brigadier General P G T Beauregard.

capt. D B harris Assignment: Captain D B Harris, Virginia State Corps Engineers, was attached to the staff of Brigadier General P G T Beauregard and assigned to the Fifth Brigade under the command of Brigadier General P St G Cocke.

capt. E P Alexander Assignment: Captain E P Alexander, Confederate States Corps Engineers, was attached to the staff of Brigadier General P G T Beauregard as chief signal officer.

Sources

"None of them seem to have done much professional work in the battle but they assisted in posting troops and batteries, a duty for which they were well qualified through knowledge of the tactical value of ground."

"Williamson and Harris, who had been there since May, had laid out and built the defenses of Manassas Junction chiefly with slave labour and, presumeably, had also supervised those which were built by Bonham's and Jones' brigades along Bull Run."

Bull Run Remembers, by Joseph M Hanson

"In support of the 5th Brigade were five companies of cavalry, the battery of Capt. H Gray Latham, and Capt. Arthur L Roger's Loudoun Artillery, in positions selected by David B Harris, now assigned to Beauregard's staff, while retaining his commission in the Virginia Corps of Engineers."

Confederate engineer: training and campaigning with John Morris Wampler, by George G Kundahl

Notes

Captain E P Alexander hastily trained some assistants to operate several signal stations set up behind the Bull Run defense line, and established his own headquarters and base station on Signal Hill, one and a half miles east of Mannassas Junction. On the morning of 21 July, 1861, while in flag communication with the station at Colonel N G Evan's headquarters, on Van Pelt's hill behind the Stone Bridge, Captain E P Alexander caught sight of the Union column moving down to Sudley Ford.

Orders of Battle

The above painting, 'The Fourth Alabama', is by Don Troiani, modern America's finest historial artist.