The battle that was fought from July 21-24 is known by two different names because the Union and Confederacy used different conventions for naming Civil War battles. The Union named them after the nearest body of water, and the Confederates for the nearest settlement or farm.
In the months after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter public opinion and political pressure had been building for a Union attack on the CSA capitol of Richmond, VA. President Lincoln and politicians were clamoring for action because the Confederate troops were encamped a very uncomfortable 25 miles (40 km) from Washington D.C and they believed the capture of Richmond would bring a speedy end to the nascent war.
Because of the building political pressure, the unseasoned troops of the Union Army of Northeastern Virginia under the command of Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell advanced his 35,000 man force across a creek called Bull Run, a Potomac river tributary. McDowell's intent was to launch a surprise attack against the equally unseasoned CSA Army of the Potomac force of 22,000 troops under the command of Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard near Manassas Junction.
The inexperienced showed as the Union Army clumsily executed the attack, but still had the advantage over the Confederate units on the scene until a brigade of Virginians under the command of a then unknown colonel and instructor at the Virginia Military Institute name Thomas J. Jackson stood their ground against the Union attack and earned him his 'Stonewall Jackson' nickname.
Jackson's stand combined with the arrival of reinforcements via train from the Shenandoah Valley under the command of Brig Gen. Joseph E. Johnston swung the course of the battle in favor of the Confederacy as they launched a strong counterattack that forced a Union withdrawal under pressure. The Union withdrawal turned into a rout as some of the troops panicked and fled in the direction of nearby Washington D.C.
The First Battle of Bull Run was at that time the largest and bloodiest battle in US history, with Union casualties totaling 460 killed, 1,124 wounded, and 1,312 missing or captured. On the Confederate side the victory came with a cost. In addition to losing Brig. Gen. Barnard Bee and Col Francis Bartow, their casualties were 387 killed, 1,582 wounded, and 13 missing
The First Battle of Bull Run/Manassas also caused both sides to realize that this would be a long, drawn out and nasty war with far bloodier battles to come and they began to act and think in those terms in the aftermath of this first clash of the war.
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