The Anchored Weighed, The Engines Put In Motion

Wherein Hooker misses out [but not really]

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On April 11, Hooker's old brigade at last arrived in Hampton Roads and were treated to a sequel of March's paradigm-shifting battle. Martin Haynes of Company I, 2nd New Hampshire Infantry, and later the regimental historian, recalled:

As if it had been specially arranged to give the regiment a view of the whole outfit, it was not long before the Merrimack was seen coming down from Norfolk, accompanied by two large steamers and swarms of tugs. It was her first appearance since the famous combat in Hampton Roads, and all was excitement in anticipation of another big fight. Every vessel that could not fight struck out into Chesapeake Bay, while the war ships came in and took position to contest the passage of the rebel fleet.

The whole thing turned out to be a bit of a dud.

As the South America went out, she passed the frigate Minnesota coming in--a gallant show, with her men at the guns and her decks cleared for action; yet, alone, she was no match for the rebel monster, and the hop of successful battle rested with that uncanny little raft and turret [the Monitor] which had once sent the Merrimack crippled, back to her den. A half-dozen shots, perhaps, were exchanged at long range between the Merrimack and the Riprap battery, when the rebel procession headed back for Norfolk and disappeared behind Sewell's Point.

Though not entirely, since the ex-Merrimack captured three merchant ships, events that apparently were not memorable to Haynes, or were at least not in comparison to the lack of battle. The feeling of missing out was probably pretty strong among the New Hampshire men, and not just them but their fellow brigade members.

Reconnaissance on the Potomac (Frank Lesley's Illustrated Newspaper)

The division of Brig. General Joseph Hooker had spent a cold, isolated winter in Charles County, Maryland, suppressing secessionist inhabitants and plotting to end the activities of a series Confederate batteries that was shutting down traffic on the Potomac. The 2nd New Hampshire had marched there with him as part of his brigade, then been turned over to its senior colonel when Hooker was elevated to command the division that included then-Brig. General Dan Sickles' Excelsior Brigade. A third brigade of New Jersey regiments was added (called the "Second New Jersey Brigade" to avoid confusing them with their more famous brethren commanded by Phil Kearny) about midway through the winter.

The Deadline

Wherein Lincoln sets deadlines, luckily for Hooker

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Gen. Order No. 1, with quotation highlighted (LOC)

On January 27, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln decided it was time to stop waiting for his general-in-chief's report on how the nation's army would take to the field. Maj. General George McClellan had promised Lincoln such a document when he wrested control of the war strategy back following his sickness. But the report hadn't come. And so Lincoln issued an order to attack using his Article II power as commander-in-chief:

Ordered that the 22nd day of February 1862, be the day for a general movement of the Land and Naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces.

The order didn't specify which movements, though, which Lincoln expected McClellan to fill in.

But McClellan's plan was probably not complete. Assuming that the Confederate forces around Centreville numbered at least 150,000 in fixed positions, he wanted to use the Rappahannock River to split his opponents off from Richmond and either take their capital or induce them to attack him in a strong defensive position. That much had been conveyed to Lincoln by his loyal surrogate, Brig. General William B. Franklin. But the actual plan of operations was still known only to McClellan, and it was this that Lincoln hoped General Orders No. 1 would elicit (as well as the plans for other theaters).

But even if McClellan wasn't providing plans to the President, plans were being made. On the same day, Brig. General Joseph Hooker responded to an inquiry from McClellan's adjutant general, Seth Williams, about his thoughts on the best way to attack. Hooker had been in Southern Maryland's Charles County since late October, suppressing the region's trade of goods and information with the Confederacy and keeping an eye on the batteries at Evansport [Quantico]. But Hooker was an ambitious man, and he had plotted how he could turn his lonely post on the extreme right of the army into a way to crush the Confederate army.

Ice on the Potomac

Wherein either Hooker exaggerates or global warming is real

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The cold weather of December had brought a warming, rather than a cooling of tensions on the Lower Potomac. From the headquarters of the Department of Northern Virginia in Centreville, General Joseph E. Johnston was preparing his Southern army for a battle that he expected, even this far into the winter. While winter campaigning was something that no army enjoyed, it certainly wasn't unusual. Writing to his subordinate commanders about the situation, Johnston would have been well aware that Union forces were on the offensive in the Western Virginia mountains and that Brig. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was playing a cat and mouse game with two Union forces in what is today the West Virginia panhandle.

On December 5, Johnston had written to Brig. Gen. William H.C. Whiting, commanding his right flank at Dumfries about the eventuality of an attack by the Union army and his plans for a Confederate response.

My Dear General... I want to know precisely what roads are open and which closed. Please inform me The enemy's movements might be such as to tempt me to go in your direction first. It is necessary to be prepared to do so at all events... Should we go against your enemy it ought to be in two columns on those two routes. 

And, referring to the way he had tricked Union Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson before Manassas into thinking his army was at Winchester when it was in fact on the way to turn the battle's tide, he added a line that would have brought a shout of triumph to Professor Thaddeus Lowe: "The infernal balloon may interfere with such success as we had with Patterson."

Meanwhile, Johnston was also in a letter battle with Richmond over orders issued by Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin that he immediately create two brigades of only Mississippi troops, which Johnston scornfully refused to do in several hundred words, especially because two of his Mississippi regiments were with Whiting.

The forces as now arranged are perfectly familiar with their respective positions, officers and men have become accustomed to each other, are acquainted with the nature of the ground they occupy, &c. The execution of Orders No 252 would work a complete revolution in the organization of the army, and necessitate a change of position of all the regiments from Leesburg to Dumfries, and from this position to Dumfries and Leesburg. Should the enemy attack us whilst these changes of station are in process, an event by no means improbable, it would be almost impossible to avert disaster to our arms.

Benjamin, naturally, wrote back expressing President Jefferson Davis' "desire" that Johnston should simply send the 13th, 17th, and 18th Mississippi regiments from Leesburg (where they had been crucial at Ball's Bluff) to Whiting as reinforcements, "to whose brigade they belong". Johnston could then move any other brigade to take their place at Leesburg, never mind that the last major troop movement at Leesburg had prompted a battle.

Reinforcing the Lower Potomac

In which we swing by Budd's Ferry and Evansport

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Not a long post today, just a quick stop by the opposite sides of the batteries on the Lower Potomac that were impeding traffic to Washington City. In Maryland, at Budd's Ferry, was the headquarters of Joe Hooker, nominally in command, but having a tough day, apparently:

Headquarters Hooker's Division, Camp Baker, Lower Potomac, Maryland, November 22, 1861. Brig. Gen. S. Williams, Assistant Adjutant-General, Army of the Potomac: 

 General: An animated fire was kept up from the rebel batteries on two or three schooners descending the river this afternoon with no better success than heretofore. The rebels will certainly abandon their purpose of claiming the navigation of the Potomac by means of the batteries now in position ere long. They must see that it is labor in vain. Of late a large number of vessels have passed and repassed at night, and no effort has been made to check them. Thus far their labor has been equally fruitless during the day.

Professor Lowe has not returned from his mission to Washington. I see no effort making to inflate the balloon on shore, as was intended by him at the time of leaving.

The two companies of cavalry dispatched to the lower part of the Peninsula have not returned.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOSEPH HOOKER, Brigadier-General, Commanding Division. 

Hooker had been having trouble with his second-in-command, Dan Sickles, who would give orders without notifying him--if he was even present in Maryland. Thaddeus Lowe and his balloons happened to be Sickles' find, so it's probably not surprising that he was off on his own agenda. Hooker's mood would brighten the next day when McClellan announced that he would be adding a third brigade to his division, one of all New Jersey regiments that called itself the Second New Jersey Brigade, under Colonel Samuel Starr.

John Dahlgren and the Union Aircraft Carrier

Wherein we go afloat and end up aloft

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Map of Rebel batteries (left) on the Potomac River, beginning of November

"Between 9 and 11 o'clock a.m.," Brig. General Joe Hooker informed the Army of the Potomac headquarters on November 11, "some of the rebel batteries were in active operation."

Three schooners passed up the river under a six knot breeze without the slightest injury, although thirty-seven heavy guns were discharged to dispute their passage. The crews seemed to entertain a just appreciation of the batteries, for they sailed along with as much unconcern as they would to enter New York Harbor. They do fire wretchedly. Whether it is owing to the projectiles or to the guns I am not informed. Several of the pieces are rifled, but they seem to throw more wildly if possible than the smooth bores. From what was witnessed to day and on previous occasions, I am forced to the conclusion that the rebel batteries in this vicinity should not be a terror to any one.

Despite Hooker's conclusions, he had been sent there two weeks earlier in order to work with the U.S. Navy's Potomac Flotilla to eliminate the potential threat that the batteries caused to Union shipping. At the order of the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, river traffic had been reduced to a fraction of the usual shipping required to sustain the capital, and almost all supplies were coming down the B&O Railroad from Confederate-sympathizing Baltimore.

Hooker knew a good thing when he had it, though, and was content to ride out the winter with his division over a day's march from Washington and therefore from George McClellan, his staff, and anyone else who might outrank him. Not nearly as content with his situation was Commander Thomas Tingey Craven, the head of the Potomac Flotilla. As early as October 23, Craven had declared the mission of the flotilla to control the river a lost cause and suggested removing the guns from his ships and setting up batteries on the Maryland side that could exchange fire with the Confederates (his plan was partially put into action, the guns from the Pensacola had been used by Hooker to establish his one operating battery at Budd's Ferry).

"Feeling that my position here in command of the flotilla can be of no further benefit," Craven wrote Welles, "I most respectfully request to be detached from the command and appointed to some seagoing vessel."

Early Returns

In which we celebrate Election Day at a secesh BBQ

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Brig. General Joseph Hooker had settled his small division well into their positions along the Lower Potomac in Maryland by November 8. Hooker called his headquarters at Chickamuxen Church "Camp Baker", after the Senator from Oregon killed in battle who had given Hooker his first break during the war, and had occupied himself with establishing an efficient military camp there for his old brigade and down the road for the other brigade in the division, that of Dan Sickles'. He detailed it all in his long daily reports to Maj. General George McClellan, through his adjutant, Seth Williams.

The November 8 report is typical of Hookers' reports, which collectively form a remarkably complete picture of the daily activities of a division commander on detached duty (and should surprise those of used to depictions of Hooker as a self-seeking bungler with their above-average competence). In it Hooker reports the establishment of a new hospital at Camp Baker, which he hopes will deprive men of an excuse to escape work by traveling all the way back to the old hospital at Camp Union in Bladensburg. He also complains about the discipline of Sickles' Brigade, a nearly daily occurrence (though he doesn't hesitate to criticize his old brigade in earlier reports).

But Hooker's movement down the Potomac was not to establish a camp further from the city, and his report reflects that. Part of his objective had been to establish control over a population that was known to be Confederate-sympathizers, if not outright Confederates. It certainly hadn't been lost on Hooker or McClellan, or anyone in the War Department or White House that Hooker would arrive just in time for the first Wednesday of November, the date of Maryland state and local elections.

On November 2, he had received orders through Seth Williams with regards to the election. Hooker's reply carefully specifies that he will use his cavalry "to preserve quiet and good order, and to suppress any coercion or intimidation on the part of the secession leaders." But he and his superiors in Washington were intimately aware that the 1861 elections in Maryland would seat a state legislature that would again take up the topic of secession. The president had already authorized suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and Fort McKinley in Baltimore Harbor was already stocked with Southern-sympathizing Maryland politicians, including the mayor and police commissioner of Baltimore. But it was imperative for the defenders of Washington to ensure that the new Maryland legislature didn't move towards secession.

Seeing the Old Man Off

Wherein we bid farewell to Winfield Scott

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Harper's Weekly cover announcing the retirement of Winfield Scott. A depiction of the last Cabinet meeting.

Before dawn on November 2, in the midst of a heavy rainstorm, retired Bvt. Lt. General Winfield Scott left his headquarters on F and 17th Street near the White House and rode to the B&O Railroad Station, located at the site of today's Union Station. It was still dark, and Scott was trying to leave town before anyone had time to call on him about his retirement the night before. The New York Times recorded:

A drenching rain was falling at the time, and this fact prevented Gen. McClellan and staff, with an escort of cavalry, from accompanying him on the route thither. A numerous assemblage, in view of the hour and the unpropitious state of the weather, had gathered at the depot, among whom were nearly a dozen ladies.

His staff accompanied him; Colonels George W. Cullum, Henry Van Rennselaer, and Edward H. Wright, all aides-de-camp to Scott, and his chief of staff, Colonel Edward D. Townsend. All four were career military men who had enjoyed many years of good fortune under the longest-serving commander of the Army in U.S. history (a record that still holds) and who had earned the respect and praise of the man now leaving in the middle of a gloomy downpour. His replacement would also be his arch enemy, who the Scott staffers had spent the last three months helping the old general attempt to thwart. Their futures were bleak, and it would take the fall of McClellan to fully rehabilitate their army careers.

Miserable Marksmen

Wherein Hooker is sent to end the "blockade" of Washington

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Scene of Northern ships running the gauntlet on the Lower Potomac, from Harper's Weekly

Brig. General Joe Hooker must have been gratified. After months of trying to join the army despite an old grudge held by general-in-chief Winfield Scott, followed by months of parades and organizing under the finicky eye of the Union Army of the Potomac's George McClellan, he had finally embarked on some real soldiering. His division had been tasked with defending a mighty bend of the Potomac River, stretching clockwise from Port Tobacco to Pomonkey Creek, on the Maryland side.

McClellan's primary concern was the battery at Evansport [Quantico] and its companion across Quantico Creek at Shipping Point, that had recently shut down river traffic to the capital. The channel of the Potomac at that point in the river winds close to the Virginia side, which put any ships sailing for Georgetown or Alexandria City right under the guns of the Confederates, including, according to the historian of the 1st Massachusetts, a state-of-the-art 7-inch Blakely muzzle-loading rifled cannon purchased from England. The weapon could fire a 120-pound projectile with stunning accuracy, assuming its operators could use it correctly. In the opinion of the New Englanders, they weren't:

High hills on the Maryland side afforded the troops an excellent observatory wherefrom to watch the firing; and, as the rebels, it seemed, had plenty of powder and ball to expend, twenty-four hours seldom passed but they afforded observers an opportunity to observe what miserable marksmen they were.

On the Eve of Battle

Wherein George Meade prepares himself and his family for a Confederate attack

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October 12, 1861 was a fairly quiet day in the Confederate Army of the Potomac. The promotions to major general had come in for James Longstreet and T.J. Jackson (who was being called "Stonewall" in the popular press after the story about his defense of Henry Hill had spread over the summer), who were assigned to G.T. Beauregard's First Corps and G.W. Smith's Second Corps, respectively. It would be a few more days before they were given multiple brigades to make up their divisions. At least in Longstreet's case, it would only be two brigades, preserving hope that the plan of creating multiple divisions under major generals might continue despite provisional President Jefferson Davis' recent attempts to kill it once and for all (Jackson's subordinates are not recorded in the Official Records, if they were even made).

But in the Union Army of the Potomac, things were aflutter. "I am at this moment looking after the enemy," its commander, Maj. General George B. McClellan wrote to his wife, Mary Ellen. He splurged to send the message by telegram, because that morning he had received a telegram from her announcing she had given birth to the couples fifth (and, as it turned out, final) child, Mary. "I thank God you are safe," McClellan had told her, before his words about seeing to an enemy attack. Despite being sure he would be "in the saddle all day" he encouraged her to telegraph him throughout the day with updates of her status.

McClellan had been at the camp of Fitz John Porter, in what is now Rosslyn, when he received word that the enemy was advancing on the divisions of Brig. Generals W.F. "Baldy" Smith at Lewinsville, Virginia and George McCall at Langley, Virginia. General Joe Johnston, as we have seen, had no intention of an offensive operation, but since Manassas he and his subordinates had actively deceived McClellan about their true intentions. Beauregard especially enjoyed dabbling in these schemes and had a willing partner in his signals and ordnance chief Porter Alexander. In an undated plot implied by Beauregard's biographer to be in August and by Alexander to be in the early fall (perhaps after the Evansport battery opened) the two took advantage of new technology Alexander had wheedled out of Richmond to unhinge the whole Union command structure. As Alexander recalled:

I had my signal stations scattered about on the high places, & of course under orders to report promptly all unusual occurrences. One night, I remember, about bedtime receiving a report that one or two or possibly more rockets had been seen over the Federal lines. I took the report to Gen. Beauregard & he asked me if I had rockets. I said yes, every station was provided, on which he told me to have every station send up one & during the night to have one or two more demonstrations of them. It took very few minutes to send the orders everywhere, & we soon had rockets apparently answering each other for a long distance right & left, & couriers were sent to shoot others, later, at other points. The next papers from the North brought the story above referred to It was said McClellan complained to Lincoln that only he and Gen. Scott knew of his plans, & yet they were allowed to become known to some one who must have betrayed us.