Only A Few Lines

In which our author succumbs to drowsiness and lets the reader draw his own conclusions

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On October 24, 1861, the battle at Ball's Bluff was still electrifying the public, as more detailed accounts began to get out. Southerners rejoiced at a second victory over the best and brightest of the Northern armies (especially since the secondary theaters, like Robert E. Lee's campaign in western Virginia, were going very poorly). Northerners became more and more horrified as every report proved worse than the one before.

But for the high command of both Northern and Southern Armies of the Potomac, things were starting to get back to normal. Senator Edward Baker's body was brought to Washington City, where it lay in state in the home of Colonel J.W. Webb, at the corner of 14th and H Streets, NW. Lincoln had wanted his friend to lay in the East Room of the White House, but the room was undergoing repairs.

Jefferson Davis wrote another pedantic letter to Maj. General G.W. Smith on the issue of ranks for Confederate army officers in relation to the size of their commands. In blue, Brig. Generals James Bayard and William Barry, chief engineer and artillery officer, respectively, submitted more details on their report to Brig. General Seth Williams (McClellan's adjutant) about the number of troops and pieces required to defend Washington, a report that brought the construction of forts into the unified system of defenses that heavily influenced the development of the modern District.

Speaking Freely

What Davis told G.W. Smith behind Johnston's back

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It was no secret that by October 10 the relationship between provisional President Jefferson Davis and acting Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin on the one hand, and Generals Joseph E. Johnston and G.T. Beauregard on the other. For months since the battle at Manassas, various combinations of the leadership in Richmond and the leadership of the marquee army in Northern Virginia had traded increasingly aggressive letters and telegrams. Davis had even come north to consult in person at Fairfax Court-House, but rather than easing the tension it made it worse.

On October 6, Maj. General Gustavus W. Smith, assigned by Johnston to command the unauthorized "Second Corps" of the Army of the Potomac, wrote to Jefferson Davis. The letter is recorded as "not found" in the official records, but its contents can be inferred from Davis' October 10 reply. Also not recorded, is whether or not Smith was prompted to send his letter by Johnston and Beauregard. He certainly had been at the Fairfax Court-House meeting, and, based on his own memorandum written up months later, suggests his sympathies lay with the generals. Whether the letter was a stab at diplomacy (either on Johnston's part or on Smith's own initiative) or not, Davis saw it as any modern politician would: an opportunity to pass on a leaked message to Johnston and Beauregard.

Davis wrote back October 10, starting off easy. Smith had evidently suggested that a unified command be established for the transportation of goods and personnel by rail. By Davis' reply it looks like he suggested Beauregard for the position, though he almost certainly did not recommend it at the loss of command of the First Corps. But that's how Davis decided to take it: "He could no doubt do more than anyone thought of in that connection; but how can he be spared from his present duty?" No, Davis concluded, the best idea was to maintain the quartermaster system based in Richmond.

After the Stampede

A boring day leading an army

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With history of warfare, it's easy to write about the fighting, the things before the fighting that led to it, and the things after that resulted from it. But real-time life in warfare is full of insignificant events that appear monumental, and significant events that go unnoticed. Both occurred in the first week of October.

"I have not written you since the few lines the day we expected to have a fight," Brig. General George Meade wrote to his wife on October 6 from his new camp in present-day McLean, referring to his last letter dashed off at 3:00 pm on September 30. "The stampede lasted for thirty-six hours." In his characteristic fashion, the mild cynic related to her the rumor going through the Union Army of the Potomac that its commander, Maj. General George McClellan, had planned a trap that would be slammed shut by the Pennsylvania Reserves, the informal name for the division to which Meade's brigade of four regiments belonged. "There is no doubt [the Confederates] were appraised of it, though McClellan asserts he did not tell even the generals who were to share in it till the very moment of action, and he is now convinced it is impossible to do or attempt anything without their knowing it."

At the present all is quiet, the enemy having withdrawn to his old lines at Manassas [Meade was off, they had only retired to Fairfax Court-House]. His threatening Washington was a bravado, hoping to draw McClellan out. Failing in this, he has fallen back, thinking we would rush after him, and thus give them a chance to get us at a disadvantage. They are, as Woodbury said, great on strategy, but I guess they will find after awhile that our movements are not to be governed by theirs, and that McClellan is not going to move until he is ready, and then not in the direction they want him.

Little Difference of Opinion

Wherein the future of the CSA is decided

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Beauregard's Headquarters on Main St and Oak St in Fairfax today (LOC)

On the morning of October 1, provisional President of the Confederate States Jefferson Davis bid farewell to his would-be nation's Army of the Potomac and rode by horse for Manassas Junction, where he would take the train to Richmond. He had spent a grim evening the night before with Generals Joseph E. Johnston and G.T. Beauregard, as well as Maj. General Gustavus W. Smith, concluding that the Confederacy was in serious trouble. Like so many choices made by Davis, Johnston, and Beauregard in the first six months of the war, the results of this conference would have a lasting impact on the rest of the war, the fate of the Confederacy, and the war about the war into the 20th Century.

Five days earlier, Johnston had written the acting Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, requesting a strategic conference about the future of his army. In a missive once again berating the War Department for failing to give him enough troops and supplies he wrote, "I think it important that either his excellency the President of the Confederate States, yourself, or some one representing you, should here upon the ground confer with me in regard to this all-important question."

One Army

Wherein the org chart of the Army of the Potomac (CSA) looks like swiss cheese

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While the Northern armies around Washington were organizing the massive manpower streaming into the capital, the considerably smaller Southern forces were doing the same. But while McClellan had close to a free hand in choosing his subordinates, Generals Joseph E. Johnston and G.T. Beauregard were under much closer control. The Confederacy's provisional president, Jefferson Davis who liked to be heavily involved in the decisions of generals in the field.

In what would become a bad habit, Davis had sacked his Secretary of War in mid-September and installed the divisive Judah P. Benjamin as acting secretary. Born British, Benjamin was now on his third country, and a close confidant of Davis. But Benjamin was not tactful, and with the bad feelings already brewing between the two generals in Fairfax Court-House and Richmond, he was not the right man to bring the Confederacy's war leadership back together.

Perfect Order and Excellent Spirits

In which Stuart and Stevens earn their stars.

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George McClellan, major general commanding the Army of the Potomac, had a great deal to crow about on September 11, but somehow it didn't work its way into his daily letter to his wife Mary Ellen. Instead, he groaned to her in boredom about his previous day visiting the Pennsylvania Reserves in Tenleytown. Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin had come down to see his pet unit and deliver regimental flags paid for by the state, since he hadn't had time to before with the rapidity of their mobilization. He also had delivered a stirring speech, not unexpected for the nation's most hawkish governor.

All our material wealth, and the life of every man in Pennsylvania, stands pledged to vindicate the right, to sustain the Government, and to restore the ascendency of law and order. You are here for that purpose, with no hope of acquisition or vengeance, nor from any desire to be enriched by the shedding of blood. God forbid! Our people are for peace. But if men lay violent hands on the sacred fabric of the Government, unjustly spill the blood of their bretheren, and tear the sacred constitution to pieces, Pennsylvania is for war--war to the death!

"It was long and fatiguing," was the extent of McClellan's assessment to Mary Ellen. The historian of the Pennsylvania Reserves didn't pick up on his disinterest, instead relating his generosity to Curtin, Reserves commander George McCall, President Lincoln, and Secretary of State William Seward. "At the close of the ceremonies the distinguished visitors repaired to General McCall's tent and partook of a bounteous collation, prepared for them by the commanding general."

McClellan did make sure to note for his wife "how the men brighten up now, when I go among them--I can see every eye glisten. Yesterday they nearly pulled me to pieces in one regt. You never heard such yelling. I did not think the Presdt liked it much." He also took time to respond to one of Mary Ellen's previous letters with shock that his friends Simon Bolivar Buckner and Gustavus W. Smith had joined the Confederate army.