A Bitter Secessionist and Bad Men

In which George Meade forages in Great Falls

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The major drama of December 1861 revolved mostly around the ongoing saga of the Trent Affair, an international incident caused when a U.S. Navy vessel boarded a British vessel and removed two Confederate diplomats. The actual combat in the Potomac Watershed, meanwhile, was largely constrained to cavalry skirmishes in the no-man's land between the two rival Armies of the Potomac and daily harassment of shipping on the Potomac by batteries at Evansport [Quantico]. But skirmishes were not the full extent of operations occurring. December 6 provides a good example.

Brig. General George Meade spent the first few days of December contemplating horses. "The most important piece of intelligence I have to communicate is that I have bought another horse," he wrote to his wife on December 2. "He is a fine black horse that was brought out to camp by a trader, for sale. I bought him on the advice and judgment of several friends who pretend a knowledge in horse flesh, of which I am entirely ignorant."

Their Absence Not Perceived

Wherein the beginning of the biggest story of October 1861 goes unnoticed

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On the evening of October 17, 1861, Brig. General Charles P. Stone heard a remarkable report. The Confederates had left Leesburg. Since June, Stone had been responsible for soldiers based in Poolesville, Maryland watching the upper Potomac for signs of a Confederate crossing, save for approximately a week around the Battle of Bull Run. The size of their force had varied, but his opponents had never before abandoned Leesburg.

He carefully interviewed the scouts and peered across the river at their usual positions himself, before finally transmitting to the commander of his army the surprising news:

Stone's division of three brigades numbered about 12,000 men. His opponent on the Virginia side of the river mustered only 2,500 men by the more optimistic accounts. Colonel Nathan "Shanks" Evans, one of the heroes of Manassas, commanded the Seventh Brigade of General G.T. Beauregard's First Corps. It had one under-sized artillery battery, five companies of cavalry (numbering about 300 horsemen), three regiments of Mississippi infantry (about 600 each), and Colonel Eppa Hunton's 8th Virginia Infantry (at only about 450, probably due to the close proximity to the homes of its members).

Some of Evans' cavalry had close ties to the cavalry of Colonel Turner Ashby operating around Harper's Ferry (they either would eventually become part of his 7th Virginia Cavalry or already were, depending on the source) and were quick to report to the South Carolinian about a skirmish near there on the day before. The Seventh Brigade formed a salient, or a part of the line that sticks out and is surrounded on three sides, especially since the Union army had recently occupied Langley and Lewinsville. Continuing to hold Leesburg would put Evans at risk of being attacked from behind by a Union army.

So when Evans heard about the skirmish at Harper's Ferry and combined it with the occupation of Langley and Lewinsville, he assumed that the North was planning a push to secure Leesburg and Loudoun County beofre winter. So, without checking with anyone up the chain of command, he decided to move his little brigade to a safer line of defense at Goose Creek where it intersected the Old Carolina Road [today, the site of Oatlands Plantation].

WAR!

Wherein the old and new Fuss and Feathers blast each other to pieces

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George B. McClellan

"How does he think that I can save this country when stopped by Genl Scott?" George McClellan fumed to his wife, Mary Ellen, in his nightly letter after a frustrating meeting with Secretary of State William Seward.

I do not know whether he [Scott] is a dotard or a traitor! I can't tell which. He cannot or will not comprehend the condition in which we are placed & is entirely unequal to the emergency. If he cannot be taken out of my path I will not retain my position, but will resign & let the admn take care of itself. I have hardly slept one moment for the last three nights, knowing well that the enemy intend some movement & fully recognizing our own weakness.

The trouble should hardly have been a surprise. Too alike in temperament, the aged Brevet Lieutenant General Winfield Scott and the ambitious Major General George McClellan had grown tired of each other in less than two weeks. Each was a man obsessed with professionalism, each believed himself a master of grand strategy, and each regarded everyone as a threat to his own special mission to save the Union.

Rec'd: Spartan Feats I Trust You to Notice

In which we revisit the best articles I read this week

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Links shortly, but first:

Today in history there was a skirmish at Point of Rocks, MD. The Baltimore American had a reporter on hand to report the story of the 28th New York Regiment and the Loudoun Cavalry under Captain W.W. Meade. The cavalry was officially Company K, of the 6th Virginia Cavalry, and was on loan to Colonel Eppa Hunton to help guard the Potomac crossings. The 28th New York had been part of Robert Patterson's Army of the Shenandoah that missed Manassas, and was now stationed at Point of Rocks to make sure Patterson's replacement, Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, wasn't surprised.

A company of New Yorkers under the second-in-command crossed the river the night of August 4 to scout out the

Confederate position and Meade's cavalry chased them off. Both groups did exactly what they were supposed to: the New Yorkers advancing  until they were stopped by the enemy, and the Virginians making sure they saw no more than cavalry. The message to Banks would be the Confederates are here in force, but it is not clear what force.

For our illustrious journalist, though, there were only statistics to send back. He was a pretty good reporter or the regiments colonel, Dudley Donnelly, had a keen sense of PR, because the message sent back to the editors in Baltimore is pretty thorough. But he must have felt something was missing, because he went ahead and submitted a copy of an official report from a skirmish several days earlier at Edwards' Ferry to fill out his report, since Lt. Colonel Brown's wouldn't be ready for at least twenty-four hours. For fun, I'm running his correspondence down the side-bar instead of the usual Harper's Weekly political cartoon (they're not that good this week).

And now, the links!

The National Postal Museum got in the spirit with a piece on Confederate postal systems.

Civil War Visions has an excerpt from a letter from U.S. Grant ("Sam", of course) to his father on being promoted as part of the gang of U.S. Volunteer generals I blogged about the other day.

I fear I've been neglecting the Southern army with all the crazy that McClellan foists upon the capital, but All Not So Quite Along the Potomac writes a better post on James Longstreet's brigade after the battle of Manassas anyway.

If you want a Civil War date, I recommend checking out the Civil War wine tour. I'm not sure the quality of their history, but the wines aren't bad at all!

The Smithsonian has put together a remarkable cross-section of how West Point graduates dealt with choosing between states they regarded as their home and the oaths they swore.

Bull Runnings has the transcript of a letter from the wife of a private in Ambrose Burnside's 1st Rhode Island Regiment that formed part of his brigade at Manassas. The soldier was wounded and captured there, and died in Richmond on August 2.

Finally, G.T. Beauregard's complaining to everybody he could reach about his shortage of supplies at Manassas Junction finally triggered a snide response from provisional President Jefferson Davis on August 4. The American Civil War has us covered with a transcript.

Eppa Hunton Returns to Leesburg

In which we name check Prince William, Fauquier, and Loudon

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Eppa Hunton II

"We made our march to Leesburg, the citizens all along the road greeting the victorious soldiers with tumultuous joy, and welcoming their safe return to the County of Loudoun," Eppa Hunton remembered about the days following Manassas. Hunton was colonel of the 8th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which had guarded the two major Potomac River crossings near Leesburg (Edward's and Conrad's Ferries) while Charles P. Stone's Rockville Expedition was ongoing. When Irvin McDowell began his march on Washington and Stone went west to Harper's Ferry, the 8th Virginia and a South Carolina regiment that had reinforced them had scurried south to Manassas to bolster the Army of the Potomac, then under G.T. Beauregard.


At a crucial moment on Henry Hill, Hunton had thrown his regiment into the fray after deciding on it with another regiment's colonel and helped turn the tide decisively. But in the confusion it was unclear whether the result was going to be a Union retreat, or the forces were just repositioning themselves closer to Stone Bridge to try to flank. Hunton's eight company regiment would have been the only ones to defend such an attack and the colonel became very grim until it became clear the Northerners had broken and were running for Washington. Hunton wrote in his autobiography:

I had up to that time passed with my soldiers for an exceedingly pious man, but I lost my reputation as such, then and there. After I discovered that this force that I thought I would have to fight, had broken into pieces, I was extremely relieved and galloped back to my regiment, only a hundred yards off; and they said, and proved, that I proclaimed with a hearty oath that the Yankees were running like dogs. I was utterly unconscious of using an oath, but have no doubt I did. They proved it on me conclusively, and I never recovered my reputation for piety during the war.

12:30 pm: Reinforcing Henry Hill and the assault on Henry Hill

Matthew’s Hill
McDowell assumed Tyler had crossed the First Division at Stone Bridge, but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t making progress moving the Union line up Bull Run so that Henry Hill would be surrounded on three times. The answer, of course, was that Tyler had not crossed his whole division, only two of his three brigades, and the third was fruitlessly trying to find a down river ford that it could cross. And Tyler himself had quickly followed Sherman to the action and was now caught up in the scrum at the foot of Henry Hill.

Unaware of this McDowell sent a staffer to hurry Tyler up, then spurred his own horse to join Heintzelman down Sudley Road.

Henry Hill
Heintzelman’s division had been surprised, but was not discouraged and they were getting ready on the other side of Sudley Road to attack again.

Beauregard turned to Johnston and made a startling request – to leave the battlefield. After a hasty conversation, though, Johnston reluctantly agreed. Beauregard argued that the senior commander needed to arrange reinforcements and keep a battlefield-wide vision, while the junior could limit his focus to a specific sector.

Johnston first road to the closest brigade, that of Philip St. George Cocke. But Tyler’s negligence had unintentionally made it impossible for Cocke to go to Henry Hill without opening up the fords for the missing Northern brigade to cross. Johnston took a regiment, Eppa Hunton’s 8th Virginia, and directed it to Henry Hill, then took his staff to a nearby farmhouse called Portici to set up a headquarters.

Key to People and Places

Enter'acte

In which our heroes do nothing, with very different outcomes.

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Mary Chestnut was surprised to find Brigadier General Samuel Cooper in the parlor of her Richmond home on the morning of July 19. Cooper was the adjutant general for the new Confederate Army, responsible for executing the plans of the Confederate war leaders (which was a euphemism for the will of Jefferson Davis). Mary's husband, James, was a Confederate Congressman and an aide to Brigadier General G.T. Beauregard, who had just the week before been in Richmond trying to convince Davis, Cooper, and the third member of the Confederate military triumvirate, Robert E. Lee, of a plan that his Cajun superior had hatched.

In her diary, she recorded that Cooper was "radiant, one finger nervously arranging his shirt collar, or adjusting his neck to it after his fashion. He called out: 'Your South Carolina bonhomme has done a capital thing at Bulls Run [sic]--driven back the enemy if not defeated him..." The details that had reached Richmond about Blackburn Ford that morning were mere rumors, wildly exaggerated, that slowly came back down to earth throughout the day.

I was in hopes there would be no battle until Mr. Chestnut was forced to give up his amateur aidship to come and attend to his regular duties in the Congress [meeting July 20]. [Lawrence] Keitt has come in. He has says Bonham's great battle was a skirmish of outposts. Joe Davis, Jr., says, "Would heaven only send us a Napoleon!" "Not one bit of use it heaven did. [Secretary of War] Walker would not give him a commission."

Setting the Stage

Union guard at Centreville, 1861

Shortly before midnight, Brigadier General Milledge Bonham roused his brigade and prepared them to march from Centreville. By the first minutes of July 18, the weary men who had retreated from Fairfax Court House the night before were back on the road, marching down the Centreville Road (VA 28) to join the rest of their Confederate companions at a defensive position set on Bull Run.

Bonham's retreat was part of a consolidation of Confederate forces to defend Manassas Junction. That morning, Colonel Eppa Hunton's 8th Virginia Infantry abandoned Leesburg and began a three day march to join the army. Brigadier General Theophilus Holmes received orders to leave a minimal defense at Aquia Creek and join Beauregard as well. But together only a few thousand men would be added from these forces, the real coup was in the lower Shenandoah Valley, where the Union army under Major General Robert Patterson had inexplicably pulled back almost to the Potomac River the day before. Confederate Brigadier General Joesph E. Johnston took the opportunity to send his cavalry as close to Patterson as possible so as to block his scouts. With this screen in place, he began loading his infantry into box cars at Winchester for transport to Manassas Junction.

Beauregard On Edge

Col. Sloan's 4th South Carolina preparing fortifications on Bull Run
from the August 8 Harper's Weekly

By July 11, Brigadier General G.T. Beauregard, commanding the Army of the Potomac, was becoming very nervous. He had written his friend and former aide, Confederate Congressman Louis Wigfall on July 8 expressing his fears.

I believe we are about to be attacked by the enemy...probably by about 40,000 men! What do you suppose is my effective force to resist this attack? About 15,000 effective men! How can it be expected that I shall be able to maintain my ground unless reinforce immediately? ...Is it right and proper to sacrifice so many valuable lives (and perhaps our cause) without the least prospect of success?

But, as usual, Beauregard had ulterior motives.

I have to reply two or three times for the most essential things required here. To obtain anything with dispatch I have to send a special messenger to Richmond. Is this the way to direct and control operations of an army in the field? Cannot this evil be remedied? I am sure it could if properly presented to the President.

The West Point Artillery Goes Into Action

A limbered 12-pounder howitzer, Model 1841 (LOC)

On June 18, Charles P. Stone filed yet another report at  9 pm in addition to his other two of the day. The Confederates were definitely organized opposite him at Leesburg, and they were getting more serious about contesting his position. "The enemy attempted to make a crossing at the Goose Creek," he reported to Washington worriedly about an attempt by the Confederates to position themselves downriver from Leesburg (toward today's McLean), having burned the bridge over one of the Potomac's larger tributaries a few days earlier when Stone's men had first showed up at Edwards' Ferry.

The officer in charge of the Pennsylvania militia guarding Edwards' Ferry had estimated there were between 800 and 900 Confederates. As with most early war estimates from jumpy, inexperienced officers, the number was probably high, since the men were from Colonel Eppa Hunton's 8th Virginia Infantry (though Stone didn't know this), which numbered only between 800 and 900 men total. Hunton had been on his own since May, when Virginia's Governor, John Letcher, had asked him to raise the regiment in the Leesburg area. For about two weeks he had reported directly to Robert E. Lee (as the former head of Virginia militia), until Lee had directed him to report to G.T. Beauregard in Manassas (on the same day Stone had originally set out from Washington for Rockville).