Considered to be the definitive work on that subject. Lets market welcome james morgan. Mr. Morgan good morning, everyone. I will be moving around. We are good on sound back there . All, our topic, our theme really is a small battles and big results. Balls bluff meets those criteria. Very small battle. 1700 men on each side. The numbers were almost dead even. Tomakes it really amusing read the officers after action reports because on both sides they insist that they were terribly outnumbered by the other side. Numbers were dead even. At every point of contact during the day as the numbers are increasing up to the ultimate 1700, at every point of contact the numbers are fairly close. Small battle. Wasral Charles Stone who the Union Division commander after the war wrote to one of the first historian chroniclers of the war. He said balls bluff was like an unremarkable morning skirmish. That is what it was. If it had been bought fought in 1864, it may not even been named. In 1861. Ff was fought i will emphasize that several times. You have to understand the early war context of alls bluff. That makes it really stand out of balls bluff. That makes it really stand out. I do not have a powerpoint presentation. I like paper maps. This is to get you oriented. How many of you have been to balls bluff . Never mind the maps, you guys have all got it. This is just an area map. You can see washington dc in the corner. Alexandria to winchester turnpike is an important road because it went out into the shenandoah valley. Near thewn leesburg courthouse is the northsouth running route 15 called at the time the old carolina road. It ran from rochester, new york all the way to raleigh, north carolina. At the time that was the interstate. Andas an invasion route, extremely and extremely significant road. You can see on the map of the locations of forts that had been built to protect to the approaches to leesburg fort evans just north of route seven. It is owned and preserved by a rahau. Named protectingmmitted to conserving fort evans. It shows that they Preservation Community do not have to be at loggerheads with the corporations. For beauregard on the others to route seven no longer exist. There is a subdivision there. I believe it is called a bow regarding estates. It no longer exists. Those two are on very high ground. Any troops coming into leesburg from the east would have gone between a very nice artillery costs crossfire. Johnston, which is half there. It is on private property and they do not like you climbing around it. You have got that. A reminder about 15, 60 miles north of leesburg it runs through gettysburg. That same road is called the emmitsburg pike. Map of the the best battlefield on the day of the battle. You will find all kinds of maps that purport to be of the battle of balls bluff. Some appeared in newspapers not long after the battle. They were all secondhand. The shape of the field is all over the place. It is round, square, a diamond. The size of the field changes depending on who is writing tout it, anywhere between 10 20 acres. This map is the map of the battlefield on the day of the battle. This was drawn by captain William Francis bartlett who commanded a company of the 20th massachusetts. He was on the field from don until dark. He was not in battle until noon from dawn until dark. Noon. Not in battle until he included this map in a letter to his mother. He does not include dimensions. You can figure that out. This one. Like to use all the other maps were either in newspapers or appear many years later. We will refer to those at different times. Early in the war, you have to understand just how early in the war this battle was. It is october of 1861. Write in the middle of the organizational gear, that first year of the war. , thatanizational year first year of the war. There is not relatively speaking a lot going on. Understand this obviously there is a u. S. Army, but you have both sides trying to create these massive armies that will meet later in the war. They simply do not exist. The logistical tail to support those armies does not exist. That is what they are starting to do. In the American Experience prior to the war the largest army we had ever put into the field was winfield scots army in mexico. Depending on who you read, then numbers very. He conquered mexico with 12,000 men. 12,000 men is one division at the start of the civil war. The u. S. Army is not in existence. Command structure of that army consists of four generals and 19 colonels. What is about to be created, these huge armies, we have no experience with that. Idea where you even start. You a captain out west somewhere, you need a few horses for your company. You say i need three or four horses, fine, i will buy them. You take them back to camp, a guy puts shoes on them and youre good to go. You are a lt. Col. Several years i, you are assigned will need 10,000 horses the month after that. Or do you start . Where do you start . They do at the start of the year. They are creating the logistical background to build the sinews of war. Congress has to authorize money. These people then have to go out contract speaking about are your people who disbursing officers go out and contract with people to get all these horses. They have to take them someplace. By the time they get them to a Central Location you need to have facilities ready for them. You need a contract for a water forage and green for these horses, you have to create a Veterinary Service for these tens of thousands of horses. All of this has to start from scratch. That is why in the first year of the war there is not a lot going on. You have first manassas and that is a small battle by later war standards. That is part of why balls bluff stood out. It is slap in the middle of this organizational year. From that point, until the spring of 62, there is not much. Balls bluff stands out because it is in the middle of that, and also for a couple other reasons. It is fought north of the national capital. That is freaky. Is unionists, this battle actually north of the capital. Off, thenrows people you have a couple other things going on. There is a u. S. Senator killed their. Killed there isly in the war, all of this happening. Indications of how early in the war we are uniforms. Everyone knows about the first manassas. Armies, theythe original name the original name of the army in the east was changed to army of the potomac. Theyinal name of the swap names basically. At the time of balls bluff they are both called the army of the potomac. It is very early in the war. Other things, the level of command experience as i have said you have at the dutch in the u. S. Army at the time for colonels. You have at the time in the u. S. Army for youve got Winfield Scott but he is past his prime. He will not be doing anything in the field. You have all of these guys who are generals who used to be lieutenants last time they did anything unless you count fighting indians, which is a whole different dynamic. A confederate general previously u. S. Army officer said after the war at the beginning of the war i knew everything there was to know about commanding 50 dragons. That is pretty much the command level experiment experience that you had. This is onthejob training for these people. It is bubbling up like that. We have gone over the maps. , why are thetself troops there what is going on. You have to look at first 21st 1861. July you hear occasionally people will write why didnt the confederates sweep into d. C. They were in no shape to do that. They fall back. Confederates fall back to bull run itself which fall flows into the occoquan. They have a water line defense. The potomac becomes a kind of moat to protect washington. You have got these two waterlines of defense about 30 miles apart. People are pretty much leaving each other alone. A cavalry patrol bumps into somebody or something, but basically they leave each other alone. Confederates are made maintaining outposts. These outposts are mainly in the washington dc area on months until. You have all seen that famous photo of the unfinished dome of the capital the confederates can see that. They are keeping an eye on what the yanks are going to do. Theres one of their post the confederates maintain and that is at leesburg. That is because of the road intersection on your map, particularly route 15. You combine that road with the fact that the Potomac River is right there. 25 Potomac River in that mile or so stretch where it forms the border between virginia and maryland is fairly easy to cross. There are a lot of places to cross the river in that stretch. There were Three Bridges but they were burned in 1861. Rry sites. Fe forts,re 14 usable militarily usable. The bottom is fern so your wagons and artillery will not sink to their hubs when you get them there. The banks of the rivers are canou have 19 of them, you cross the troops anywhere there where they will be within supporting distance of each other on either side. If you combine the ease of crossing the river with that eastwest running highway, you could argue that at that point and they wore postmanassas, summer into the fall of 61, Loudoun County was arguably the strategically most important piece of ground in north america. That road gave each side access to the flanks of the other army. Weber controlled those River Crossings and that road, you can go whoever controlled those River Crossings and that road, that piece of ground mattered in 1861. Who is there . The confederates had a small men, may belet 3000 a few less. The numbers were always the federals had bad information. Stone thought that the confederates had 4000. If you do the math, about 3000. On the other of the river, the federals had two brigades, augmented in early october by a large third brigade, another 5000 men, which bump them up to 12,000. On the confederate side, you had a number of regiments. 18thad the 13th, mississippi. You had the eighth virginia. It was a local Loudoun County unit. Six of the 10 counties were from Loudoun County. They are the home team. Those guys knew that area. They had some artillery. The First Company of the richmond hausers were there. Hey had to six pounders early october they get a fifth gun, which the record identifies only as an iron rifled gun. Do not know exactly what that was. It confederates did not use at balls bluff. They did not bring any artillery to balls bluff. They had some cavalry. Partf which later became of either the fourth or sixth virginia cavalry. This was roughly a 3000 men brigade. Evans, west point, west point buddies nicknamed him s because he was knock kneed. Shanks was a good fighter. He had been involved in hand to hand combat in indian battles, he had taken arrow wounds. You look at photos of him and he looks like he is insane. He has general sherman eyes. Shanks evans has these eyes that you do not want to mess with it this guy. Also drank a lot. He was accused of being drunk at balls bluff. If he was drunk at balls bluff, it did not hurt because he did what he needed to do. You kind of have to think of grant in that regard. Grant is accused of drinking all the time, but not so much when he was actually dizzy. Evans actually busy. Evans not so much. Force had twoe brigades, about 7000 men for most of the summer. The trips that we need to be concerned about as far as balls bluff is the theft 15th and new york. Those were two independent regiments. Had three actually two brigades, one that contained units. The first minnesota, the 20th massachusetts, the seventh michigan. Except for the 20th massachusetts, minnesota and ballsan, were not at bluff. They were at eds edwards ferry. Then you have some artillery. Brought some guns to cross over to balls bluff. Only one of them got there. He also had a couple of mountain hausers that belong to the new york state militia. All the new york state militia units were militia, but they had one company dedicated to artillery. They eventually rogoff and became an independent new york ottery. New york battery. Any cavalry tove speak of involved in bills bluff. You have these two forces spending the summer following first manassas watching each other over the river. The men on both sides very quickly came to make localized truces so that they would not would notht there get shot right there. Hey, yank, i will not shoot at you if you do not shoot at me. Works for me. It was a pretty pleasant time. One Union Officer later wrote about his time during that summer and fall around leesburg and Montgomery County maryland and he described it as a very civil war unquote a very civil war. Up at theng gens end of this period. In early october general stone men reinforcements of 5000 called the california brigade, consisting of four regiments, ae first, second, third, and fourth californian. These were all pennsylvanians. The fact that they were called californians the recruitment effort for this he called a pious fraud. Shortly after fort sumter, baker who was at the time a u. S. Senator from the new state of oregon had been associated with california for much of the 1850s, was a very wellknown public figure. He was a senator from oregon. He is back doing his senate thing in washington dc. Or it is fired on. With west coast connections want to organize a west coast regiment. He want to get to the west coast states symbolically tied to the union because there were secession movements in california. There was no guarantee that those two states would stick. There was not a risk that they would join the confederacy, but more so that they would break away and join a west coast union. If we if we can get a regiment of california troops, that will symbolically tie the west coast to the union and all of that will be a good thing for the union. How are we going to get california troops . California is on the fort far side of the moon. No railroads go out there. Or either walk, ride horses, you go on a ship. Either way you look at it you are looking at five months before you can get california troops out there. The wars get to be over by then anyway, right . So you do not worry about that. Baker and some of these other fors say lets just recruit what we will call the california regiment. For people whog used to live in california. An old 49er or someone who had been to disneyland. Aboutidnt really care that. They just wanted the name. They organize this regiment. They get a few hundred men in new york, then they discover the fella who is doing most of their he says, i know philadelphia better than i do new york, im going to move this to philadelphia. He turns out to be a very good recruiter. He wants 1000 men. He gets 5000 men to sign up. That inlaid they do not have a regiment. Have the makings of suddenly they do not have a regiment. You have the makings of a brigade. Going to be the fourth californian never got organized. They had these 5000 men and they divvied them up between four regiments. And fifth were standard sized. These guys show up, in general stones area. Third, fifth. To 12,000 overnight. You are shanks evans you are the confederate commander. You have been looking at 7000 yankees over the river and suddenly you are looking at 12,000. He begins to wonder what is going on here. Anotherinth and 10th, division crosses the river up near d. C. They cross into virginia, get onto what is the georgetown pike and they work their way up into langley, virginia. On the top of the highest hill in langley where the Central Intelligence headquarters are today for the same reason visibility, communications, high ground. Langley,12,000 in which is 25 miles away, but it is connected by a good road. The georgetown pike is a good road. If you go as far as drains bill intersects with route 7 drainsville it intersects with route seven. Where are all the confederates . They are in fairfax, not connected by good roads. You are shanks evans and you are thinking a week ago i had 7000 yanks. Yanksare another 12,000 within striking distance. He starts to worry about getting gobbled up. At Harpers Ferry there is a little skirmish involving none other then john gary who pops up all kinds of places. Athad heard that over Harpers Ferry the confederates had been gathering up some food stuffs and they had basically a wagon train. He said, lets go get it. Gets shanks evans attention. He is thinking i have yankees across the river, upriver, i have all these guys downriver and he begins imagining a threepronged involved envelopment. In fact, a lot of what you will read about pauls bluff says saysthat is balls bluff that is what it was. N attempt to encircle leesburg. You will sometime see maps with three big like arrows and circling leesburg saying this is what was happening. It was not. Sees all of this, he knows he only has 3000 men. He knows he will not get any timely help from the rest of the confederate army. He gets spooked as a result of this Harpers Ferry episode and he leaves. He packs his brigade up and go south to goose creek where the road crosses goose creek. He sets up a new defensive position there. What is odd about that is he does that without getting permission from anybody. He does it on his own. Message to general beauregard, his immediate sub. Superior. Ediate beauregard is not happy. He has turned over a strategically significant River Crossing, the invasion route, he has given that to the union forces. They had recognized immediately whatd they had, what a gift today had they could have simply walking walked into leesburg without firing a shot. He leaves. He sends a message to general beauregard. General beauregard is not happy. E sends a message act back it is very flowery, polite, 19th century military language. The general wishes to know why you have taken this decision as you have neglected to inform him. Read between the lines are you note says is, out of your freaking mind . He gets his wrist slapped and he turns around and takes his men back up to leesburg. Get takes about 2. 5 days your wrist slapped, feel contrite, go back up to leesburg. During those days they yanks realize, hey, they are gone, we think. Dividedcounty was a county. About a third of the voting population voted to stay in the union. The reason for that is because in Loudoun County, in the northwestern quadrant of Loudoun County was divided from the rest of the county kind of by some cultures, but mainly by because many of the settlers in northwestern Loudoun County, the towns today of lovettsville and waterford in particular had come down from pennsylvania. They are descendents of what we would today call pennsylvania dutch germans. Their families are all up there. They have family connections to the north. Their commercial connections to the north because the potomac is not hard to cross. They do not want to secede. There were a lot of prounion folks there. Some of them go ahead and cross hey, the rebs are gone, come on over. To sendral is not going his men over on the words of some civilians. He sends word to the general hey, what are we going to do . Right tonstance he was be cautious. What evans did did not make any military sense. Why would they give us this valuable piece of property . Simplyan rather than order general stone to cross his men across the river and go into leesburg, because remember a River Crossing is tricky, even if it is not opposed. You are talking about some rookie troops early in the war. These guys do not have this kind of experience we are not talking about marines here. Mcclellan rather astutely does not call on general stone. He calls on the division in langley under george mccall. These will eventually become the pennsylvania reserves. I want you to take your drainsvilledo which is right on the fairfaxLoudoun County line. From there you will probe into leesburg. His troops from langley to drains bill drain sville. Jacksons foot cavalry. It takes them to full days to go full days to go 12 miles. By the time they do their probe into leesburg and they start to get themselves organized, the confederates are back. It is all very confusing. Mcclellanes to ville to get a briefing from mccall. Mccall does not know what is going on. There back. Back. Y are mcclellan does not like the smell of the thing. Forget theever mind, whole thing, go back to your camp. To stayn tells mccall the night, but returned back to his camp in the morning. Beenf the things i have doing today is making roadmaps. Can i have another 24 hours to make my maps . But only 24 hours. The other morning he has to go back. The next morning will be the 21st of october, the day the battle of balls bluff. Bluff fighting at balls. Mccalls men men pickp, mccalls up and go. They do not know what is going on. If i was general stone i would have interpreted that as mccall is coming, watch for him. Mcclellan continues this message perhaps a slight demonstration on your part would have the effect to move them, meaning to move them out. Is watch for to be thatnow well get evans at spooked again, he really will leave, and we really will get leesburg without a fight. Wouldnt that be nice. General stone is doing things to make it look like he is about to cross the river in force. He puts of boats in the water. He moves troops down to the river as though to put them on the boats very visibly. He fires a number of rounds into wedded areas wooded areas. Nt. Is all a fei it gets to be desk and basically the confederates have not responded. The reason they have not responded is shanks evans recognizes this as a feint. There is not a lot he could have done about it anyway. He just watches. He does not know mccall is going to turn around and leave the next morning. 20 dusk onr october 20. Happening. Lot is stone calls all of his people back. His demonstration is over. Then stone says lets find out what has been going on if anything as a result of this. He gets in contact with general charles devens. Big island, 2. 5 miles wide, there were a lot of these islands in the potomac. One side or the other would be on those islands to get the food from those farms. Stone says a message to colonel devens. Have heard ofy fort devens massachusetts thats the guy. He goes on after the war. He has an unfortunate Division Commander in the 11th, so he does not do well there. He goes on after the war to become attorney general of the you United States under rutherford b hayes. Devens guess this order from. Eneral stone, give me a recon terrible es a balls bluff is a terrible place to it is a great place for a recon. That is what devens is to organize. He gets in touch with he gets one of his captains and he says take a few men over. Philbrick had done this before. A look, philbrick, take at what is going on on this night of october 20. He gets a 20 guys from the massachusetts. They cross the river quietly at night. Dark, theyis getting make their way up the bluff. They do not scale the bluff. You will read in a number of union accounts, we scaled the bluff. It makes it sound like normandy. It is not normandy. There is a path and it winds its way up the bluff. It is not 100 feet high. Windy, wine d, steve they do notut scale the bluff. After the of the day confederates rocked the federals, a lot of confederate reports talk about driving the yankees over the bluff and you have these images of guys doing swan dives into the river off of this 100 foot cliff. That didnt happen. At happened at the southern end where it is bluff not 100 feet high. Over5th massachusetts go onto the virginia side 20 guys of the 15th massachusetts go over onto the virginia side, which is impressive. It had rained almost every day in march. Reports and with Something Like more rain, river up another six inches, still raining. Know dark so they do not they are crossing the virginia channel of the river, which is much more narrow, which means the current is going faster and you do not know what kind of logs may be floating. They get across. Are to send this recon, so he sends captain philbrick out to do the recon. Philbrick takes his men, they go through the opening the clearing through the woods at the top of the map, then off the map into an area that is now was agricultural fields at the time. Full moon. Most a there had been a full moon a couple of nights before. Terrain is rolling, there is a lot of shadows, inexperienced troops. , look into the distance and they see a confederate camp. Tense. Re a bunch of lets go back and tell general stone. They do not check it out. Inexperience kicks in. What they see is what appears to be a line of the tops of tents. It is a row of trees. You have got the trunks of the trees, branches hanging down like this, so you get that same kind of appearance in the distance. They do not check it out. They go back, they report at 10 00 that there is a confederate camp over there, but we did not see any guards. We did not see any campfires. He did not hear any horses snuffling around. None of the things you would expect in a camp at night. Somebody would be playing a fiddle, but they did not hear that. Then roll stone presented with this faulty intelligence information said, general stone presented with this faulty said, either this unguarded. D, or we have to check it out. In the middle of the night general stone turns to the messenger who had brought the information from colonel devens, tell colonel devens i want him to send half of his regiment over the river right now and as soon as it is light enough to see tomorrow morning raid that camp. Devens gets that information he is not happy about it. He has to go with half of the regiment, about 3000 men. It will be his first combat operation. It will be in the dark in a place that is unknown to him. He crosses his 300 men in a little shuttle service. Remember what i said about the current being fast. The push up from harrisons island, five or six guys in the it takes all night, but it they get them across. The 15th ed by the 20th massachusetts guys stay behind, deploy along the bluff, watch the back door. It is a very nice idea. The river again which i said is an impressive feat considering the darkness and the speed of the current. They get there, it is light enough to see, Raiding Party goes out to where the recon patrol was the night before. The get out there to raid the camp and they realize their mistake. Now what do we do . Now you get all sorts of speculation because devens could have said, we are a Raiding Party, there is nothing to raid, lets go home. Here, no onewe are knows we are here, i can see leesburg in the distance. In theeploys his men tree line, which today is where a culdesac is, where the entrance to the park is. Itt tree line on one side of is the park, on the others is the subdivision. That tree line is pretty much the same as it was in 1861. That is the tree line where devens deploys his 300 men. Wait, i amou guys sending a messenger back to tell the general. The messenger, an accountant , really cool looking guy. Are photos of him in the book. It is a headshot and he has his head turned off to the side. He has these great side whiskers. Burnside would love his side whiskers. If this guy were in the military today, he would be a jock. Boston. Accountant from he is probably a really boring guy. He is the messenger now. Colonel devens says i want you to go back, tell general stone about the new information, get the new orders. Devens has to go from the fields about three fourths of a mile bluff,on foot after the down the bluff, cross the virginia channel in about, get on harrisons island, cross that on foot, get on another boat, cross the maryland channel, get a horse ride three miles down to edwards ferry, find a general stone, report, get the new orders and get back. There is a time like here in that time lag affects the federals. E does this lieutenant howe gets to general stone 8 00 in the morning. Heres the deal, what do you want to do . Were going to turn this Raiding Party into an enlarged reconnaissance. I want you to move towards leesburg. Im giving him more firepower because i am asking devens to go further, but this is not an attack on leesburg. Simply go forward. You are recon, so recon. Away goes lieutenant howe down the river. Report tock to colonel devens. While he is in transit doing this, who should show up at general stones camp in edwards colonel, senator Edward Dickinson baker . Aker virtually forgotten today unless you are from oregon. A virtually forgotten today unless you are from oregon. Oregonian, you know baker. Everyone knew who he was. Former congressman from illinois, he had served best friends with abraham lincoln. The two of them knew each other as Young Lawyers in illinois. Lincolns second son was named edward baker after baker. They were brothers. 81050 comes along, california comess a state, 1850 along, california becomes a state and baker says, i am going to california. Their into lincoln have first disagreement during the mexican war baker and lincoln have their first disagreement airing the mexican war. The mexican war. York wasrmy from new simply called the new york regiment. These three regiments were part of a big grade led by james led by jamesigade shields. Shields is leading the advance. Cerro gordo. T they are advancing. Shields take a wound in the tax test. Baker takes over the brigade. Military some experience weekly. Up because he is in command of this california brigade, this mostly california brigade. Mostly pennsylvania california brigade. Baker stone says this is what we have got. He told them about the reconnaissance patrol, the bad information. There to the go up crossing point at balls bluff, across from pauls bluff. You go over and evaluate the situation across from balls bluff. If you want to pull block back the troops that are there, you make the call. Stone know that at that time that the messenger was reporting to stone, colonel devens 15 massachusetts had tangled with part of the 17th mississippi. Fighting had started. Stonessenger is giving more bad, outdated information. Decision to turn it into reconnaissance is a bad decision again. He heads on upper river, up river. The messenger has got it to colonel devens. Fine, excepthat is everything is different now because we have made contact with the enemy. We have had a skirmish with these mississippi guys. It was a 15 or 20 minute firefight and then both sides fell back. The information you have given me is no good. Go back again to general stone. Update him, then find out what we are going to do. Lieutenant d im sure he does not complain a on to and goes back deliver this information again. Thes on his way back up second time to tell general stone. A car is on his way up river to take command. Baker is on his way upriver to take command. Baker says i will cross with all my men. The lieutenant proceeds on downriver to report to general stone. Baker is going to cross with all his men. Baker gets to the point indices that there are lots of men over there. He knows there has been fighting. Proceedactually does is to organize the search for boats to cross the river. This is not planned. Nobody had planned a major River Crossing. They do not have boats handy. Brigade commander takes it on himself to organize the search for more boats, a job he should have got given to a lower officer. He should have gotten himself across the river and taken control of the troops, but he did not do that. He sent it troops across. He orders all the troops he can find to get across the river, but he gives them no orders what to do when they get there and he puts no one on command on the virginia side. You have colonel devens, part of the 20th massachusetts, you have colonel william lee of the 20th. You have some of portions of the first californian, they are commanded by isaac west or who organized them. You have some colonels and lt. Col. s, but no one is in charge overall. Baker who is in command is on the maryland side trying to find boats. The title of the book incidentally is a reflection of that general stone rights to mcclellan and he says, i have troops over there, and we are a little short of boats. Says,lan comes back and keep me posted. He does not seem he does not seem concerned about that at first. How are we on time . Are we ok . They are searching for boats and we have more skirmishes. It was the initial skirmish at 8 00. A fallback we have the initial skirmish at 8 00. They fallback. More confederate troops come. They do not have the time lag because they are nearby. About the time this happens these first reinforcements, the rest of the 15th massachusetts show up thinking they will expand reconnaissance and find themselves in a fight. There is a second skirmish. 20 minutes, then everyone falls back again. Everyone is trying to figure out what is going on. It was not planned. It took on a life of its own. We will often read earlier accounts that say this was a preplanned attempt to take leesburg and it was nothing of the sort. It was an accident. Another part of this is when general stone first decided to order this Raiding Party to go over, he also got in touch with one of his cavalry officers, a former First Sergeant in the u. S. Cavalry. He was a good buddy of john buford. News a major in the third york cavalry. You an i will give opportunity to go over there and confederates. The cross at edwards ferry, make some noise, get the confederates looking at you so that the people down at balls bluff can do their raid without tracking too much attention attracting too much attention. And crossess sir, the river. You have got union troops across the river, edwards ferry, union , ands at balls bluff mccall is still in drainsville. If you are shanks evans, this is the threepronged attack you as heeen expecting as far can tell. He does not immediately send a lot of troops over to balls bluff because he thinks the biggest part of the assault will come at edwards ferry. It makes more sense to do it at edwards ferry. The train their works in a way that it doesnt at pauls bluff. He then at balls bluff. There is a third skirmish around unions more and more troops are arriving. Baker has been telling anyone he can see, get across the river. As all these reinforcements arrive, they just deploy along the bluff. The 15th massachusetts are doing all of the fighting. The other union troops who can hear the shooting simply stay on the bluff. The senior guy, the closest thing to a commander there is william lee of the massachusetts. He says it later, why did you not go out to support the other union troops . I do not have any orders to do that. You are a colonel, marched to the sound of the guns if nothing else. Was not aa coward, he soldier. He attended west point in the 1820s. He was out railroad guy for much of his career. Finally, you have this situation. Finally devens with his 15th mass falls back, because he knows there is other union troops back at the bluff, so they are going to hang on there. This is all very confused. The leadership is not concise, not doing really well, nobody really taking command. Baker is on the wrong side of the river, nobody knows what to do. This is onthejob training for all these people. There is only one west pointer in the union command structure at balls bluff, cogswell. Stone, but stone was not at balls bluff. On the confederate side, only one west pointer, shanks evans, and he is in leesburg, so there is no professional soldier doing this. These are lawyers, politicians, teachers, farmers, dont really know what they are doing. Battle goes on, skirmish, lull, skirmish, lull. Around 2 00 in the afternoon, the fighting really begins. The eighth virginia advances to a spot on your balls bluff map just about at the top of the map where the line of trees opens up and you see the curvature of the path that goes down. The eighth virginia shows up. Baker finally has shown up. He has decided, i better get across the river. About the same time devens has fallen back, because he has been hung out to dry, coincidentally baker crosses the river. He meets devens, says, you have done a good job. What he actually says is, i congratulate you on the prospect of a battle. You have to wonder what is going through devens mind. What the hell are you talking about . I have been fighting all morning. What do you mean prospect . Baker says, i want you to go catty corner, coming down into the field. Union troops with their backs to the river facing into the field. I want you to go across the field, form a right angle to those union troops. Now you have a defensive line by the union troops, the river is at their backs, another wing here in the tree line at this side. That path that comes down comes right down through, so any confederates who comment, and because of the rough terrain on either side and because these are early war 1861 troops, they are going to come right and through here, march into a crossfire. Only an idiot is going to march his men into a crossfire and the people were not idiots. They were inexperienced. They were not idiots. These union troops are in the open, these are hidden in the tree line so the confederates cant see them. Baker gets here and says, i need to find out how many are out there. He tells colonel wister, send a couple of your companies beyond the federal left. Go up toward where the parking lot is today and find out how many confederates are there. The eighth virginia is they are hunkered down. A couple of companies of the first california advance up the slope. The eighth virginia stands up and fires and they advance on each other. On that slope, basically the federal left, today the slope that goes down toward the cemetery, is first part of the continuous fighting that lasts all afternoon. 150 to 180 guys on each side, part of the eighth virginia, part of the first california. It is handtohand, bayonets, small but nasty. Both sides eventually fall back. Having fallen back, there is another very brief lull and then everything opens up. From that point, fighting is almost continuous. I dont want to run over time, so im going to finish with saying it continues on. Baker is killed around 4 30 in the afternoon, the only u. S. Senator to ever die in battle. I have always thought we could come up with another name or two we would not mind that happening too, but we wont go there at this point. This point. The only u. S. Senator ever to die in battle and nobody is in command. They talk about it. Colonel Milton Cogswell of the 42nd new york, you have him, you have lee, devens, wister, but only a lieutenant colonel. You have the three full birds. Cogswell takes command. He has a nice story of his own if we have time later. Cogswell decides he wants to organize a breakout, the other two want to surrender. Cogswell says, if we can punch out, we can get out of here and work our way down to the open field and get back down to edwards ferry. He tries to organize this. It basically falls apart. Everyone is running out of water, running out of ammo. He is trying to organize something that really cant happen with these inexperienced troops. None of the union troops have been in battle before. Some of the confederate troops had been at first manassas. Finally at the end of the day, cogswell says, the fat lady has sung. Hold them off as long as you can, we will save as many of the wounded as we can. That works until another confederate regiment shows up, fresh troops. They launch the climactic assault which breaks the union line. You have these guys running down the steep slope and get to the river. Of course, it is a river and 19thcentury people dont swim for recreation, so you have a lot of guys who drowned, a lot he simply surrendered because they did not want to try to hit the river. Some did make it. Finally it gets dark and the confederates cant see and the battle ends. I am going to stop there and take some questions. Sir . I thought it would be interesting to note that as you are giving your talk, they are doing the of balls bluff. James he said today is the anniversary weekend, the anniversary is the 21st of october, so up that balls bluff they have begun the days long series of events to commemorate the battle. Did the union ever get the votes to come back . James what happens is when they got down there the question was did they ever get the boats they needed to get back across the river. They had three skiffs and a flat boat they had schlepped over and were moving the troops to virginia. By the time the rout was on, the boats had gotten shot full of holes, had gotten loose and drifted down the river. The raft had a lot of wounded guys on it. You had a number of troops dressed really swimming trying to grab a hold of the raft. One guy describes it, it looked like a colony of bees where guys were hanging onto their backs and hanging onto their backs and it tips the thing over, so all the wounded guys are now in the river and they drowned. Somewhere between 100 to 150 bodies eventually float down the river to d. C. And beyond in some cases. Not only are they in the water for several days, they have all gone over great falls, which makes it even more gruesome to the people to find these bodies. Somebody else . Stone got in a lot of trouble because of balls bluff, but he was never criminally charged although he spent a lot of time in prison. He had an interesting career after the war. Could you tell us about the charges . James got another hour we could talk . Stone got caught up in the politics of the thing. The hook on which his critics hung their criticism was the fact he lost a battle. That was not really the point. The point was a couple of things happened involving the joint committee on the conduct of the war, and that is the big result from this battle. The fight at balls bluff led directly to the creation of the joint committee on the conduct of the war. One of the first things they did was go after stone, not so much because he lost the battle. One of the things that happened is Lincoln Administration policy remember, maryland is a slave state but has not succeeded the policy was if you were a slave from a state in rebellion and you escape, you are free. But if you are a slave from a state in the union and you run away, you have to be returned. The federal fugitive state law was in effect, the maryland fugitive slave law was in effect. The Lincoln Administration had to do what was necessary to keep maryland from seceding, and kentucky, and missouri. So, he placates the slave owners. A month after the battle, a couple of slaves from a plantation in maryland show up in the camp of the 20th massachusetts. They are reported to stone. Stone says, you got to take them back. They take them back to their master. Massachusetts boys complained to governor john andrews and senator charles sumner. They get involved in criticism of stone and mcclellan and the officers of the 20th mass went along with this. Stone becomes the center of this whirlpool. He gets arrested in february and they keep him in jail in isolation for six months without ever presenting charges. He begged for a courtmartial. The law said if you are an officer and you are arrested, you have to be shown charges within eight days of your arrest. He was in jail 168 days and never saw charges. Finally six months later they dont need him so they say, you can leave, thank you. Of course, his career is ruined. I love general stone, one of my favorite people. California regiments . Were there any special inducements to them to enlist . 5000 instead of 1000 . James just the fact that baker was a very wellknown public figure. The posters all said, join colonel bakers california regiment. He had been a colonel in the mexican war. There was a certain panache to that. It was cool. They figured, he is the best friend of the president , we get cool uniforms, the best weapons. But there was no special pay or anything. Thank you very much. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this is American History tv on cspan3. We feature 48 hours of feature 48 hours of programming exploring our nations past. This weekend, on the presidency, former Bush Administration officials describe their roles in george w. Bushs 2007 decision to increase american troop levels in iraq. Here is a preview. Risk of not disagreeing, continuing on discretion, i think it is at the heart of this process, the difference between policymakers and academics. Let me add to what peter said. I was struck in the course of this project but also reading the final product about something that i had realized earlier on in my career when i was working on the issue of sanctions. I was a fellow at the brookings institution. I realized that you had academics saying sanctions dont work and policymakers that kept using sanctions. I realized that policymakers and academics are asking different questions. They are interested in different questions. I think that this project that, in some fashion, as a policymaker, the question i was interested in and am still interested in was did this advice andvide recommendation and the decision that was the best one open to the president at that time. That is what i am interested in. As we see in many of the academic chapters, which are really useful and interesting, there is a lot of other questions at play. Compare tois process some kind of ideal . Policymaker,s a you are much less interested in that. You realize that there is no one ideal that works in every circumstance. If you are asking the question i am asking, does this produce the best decision for this president at this moment . You realize that the process is going to differ from president to president. Learn more about president george w. Bushs decision to increase troops in iraq, sunday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. Announcer , author James Carl Nelson tells the story while discussing his book, the polar bear expedition, the heroes of americans forgotten invasion of russia, 1918 through 1919. This program was part of the 2019 National World war i museum and memorial symposium. About a littleg bit of what is going on in russia. Lora i feel like everything is relevant in the world today that connects back to world war i. Our next speaker is James Carl Nelson. He is the author of four books about the American Experience in world war i. The remains of company d, five lieutenants, i will hold. He is the winner of the colonel Joseph Alexander award for biography from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and the polar bear expedition the he
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