Big Bethel

The battle at Virginia's Big Bethel Church, known as the Civil War's first land battle, was a baptism of fire for a nation newly torn apart by civil war. Northern and Southern soldiers alike could not imagine how fiery passions and technological advances would collide into America's bloodiest war, all beginning that hot, cloudless day at Bethel, as the shells burst among the smartly clad Zouaves. Here, the war saw its first friendly fire incident, the death of the first West Point graduate, the