" . . . battles are not really ended when the smoke clears and the clamor ceases." *

Most wargamers are dimly aware that wars are not fought in a vacuum, and that von Clauswitz was correct when he called war, "an extension of politics." But most of the battles that show up on the table top tend to be the big battles, where the military outcome was at least as important, if not more so, than the political fallout that followed. If political impact shows up on the table, it's usually reflected in victory conditions for determining who won and/or lost. Small engagements, when they are recreated, rarely have much reference to their effect on the "big picture." Yet even a minor engagement can have dramatic and lasting consequences. And in the Civil War, no battle illustrated that fact more than the engagement at Ball's Bluff, Virginia, in October of 1861.

The Ball's Bluff fight came hard on the heels of the Union defeat at First Bull Run; after the appointment of Major General George McClellan as head of the Army of the Potomac. In mid-October, McClellan decided to probe across the river and get some idea of what the Confederates were up to. One of the divisions involved was commanded by Brigadier General Charles Stone, who had overseen security for President Lincoln's inauguration. Ironically, one of his brigade commanders was a good friend of Lincoln's, as well as being a U.S. senator -- Colonel Edward D. Baker. Both would come to a reckoning at Ball's Bluff.

Recon in Force

On October 20, McClellan pushed some troops from another division across the Potomac at Dranesville, Virginia in a reconnaissance-in-force. He sent a message to Stone to keep an eye on Confederate troops in and around Leesburg, twelve miles away, to see if they moved in reaction.

The last sentence of McClellan's order was to later become controversial: "Perhaps a slight demonstration on your part would have the effect to move them."

As Stone was making said demonstration, a patrol from his division crossed over the river at Ball's Bluff, a steep overlook onto the river, with a small island in mid-stream. The Union troops found virtually no opposition near Leesburg, and Stone saw a chance to cross over in force, making more detailed recons and perhaps striking at some small Rebel detachments. Stone gave the job to Baker, stressing that Baker should avoid any major engagements.

Baker, however, was a politician, not a military officer. He was a founder of the Republican Party, and was well known as an orator and lawmaker. He was an early supporter of the war, and of abolition, and made a speech on the Senate floor calling for "bold, determined" warfare. But his knowledge of military science stopped about there. Though he had turned down one offer of a general's star, and had another pending, he knew little of tactics and combat. He did have a zest for taking on the Rebels, and this was to be his undoing.

Nor was Ball's Bluff a good place for a fight. The steep bluff made retreat under fire virtually impossible, and a shortage of boats in the area guaranteed that movement across the Potomac would be at a snail's pace. Complicating this was a lack of organization for getting across the river by the troops involved; it was every regiment for itself in ferrying its troops across.

But in the early hours of October 21st, none of this seemed critical yet. Stone had already ordered two regiments across the river: the 15th Massachusetts, to conduct a reconnaissance as far as Leesburg, and the 20th Massachusetts, which remained in an open field at the top of the bluff, to serve as a covering force in case the 15th had to pull back.

Opening Shots

About 7:00 am, the 15th Massachusetts under the command of Colonel Charles Devens, hit a Rebel company on picket duty near Leesburg and the fight began. The Confederates were under the command of Colonel (later General) Nathan "Shanks" Evans, one of the outstanding commanders at Bull Run. As soon as Evans heard of the engagement, he put together a patchwork force of about 350 infantry and cavalry from four regiments and sent it to drive back the Federal probe. But he was reluctant to commit his other units -- the 8th Virginia, and the 13th, 17th, and 18th Mississippi Regiments (all Bull Run veterans) -- because of his worries about a second probe about two miles downstream that Stone had sent over.

Both the Yankees and Rebels withdrew slightly after a twenty minute firefight, but then the Confederates moved forward again, attempting to drive Devens' regiment back to the bluff. They made little progress and shortly after noon, Evans upped the ante by sending the 8th Virginia to join the fight.

By this time Baker had assumed command, but wasted precious hours on the Maryland side of the river on minor tasks like raising a boat out of the river. It would not be until 2:00 pm that Baker would reach the battlefield and take on-site command of the battle. By then, Devens had been driven back to the edge of the clearing at the top of the bluff, and the Union had been reinforced by the 71st Pennsylvania (also called the 1st California because of the number of men from that state in it), three artillery pieces, and leading elements of the 42nd New York.

Baker proceeded to establish one of the worst tactical positions of the war. Instead of going forward to Devens' position at the edge of the clearing, Baker called him back to link up with the other regiments in the middle of the clearing . . . with their backs to an 80 to 100-foot steep bank on the Potomac River. Moreover, Baker ignored a wooded hill on his left, even after one of his officers pointed out that an enemy holding that hill could destroy the Union force.

The Rebels moved quickly to take advantage of these mistakes, beefing up the attacking force with the 17th and 18th Mississippi, but they did have some problems of their own. The 8th Virginia was short on ammunition (and remained so all day) and there was no overall Confederate commander, since Evans remained in Leesburg, miles from the fighting. (After the battle, the regimental officers squabbled over who had been in charge.) But after Confederate skirmishers took the hill overlooking the clearing and silenced the Federal guns with small arms fire, the outcome was pretty much determined.

Baker did make the most of his first and last command, moving up and down the line talking to the men. Whatever his military shortcomings, he knew how to inspire the men with words, and accounts of the battle single out his courage in standing out in front of his men, sword drawn, urging them to return the fire that was rapidly whittling down his force. About 5:00 pm, Baker was shot and killed while making such a speech, and the other Union officers decided they had had enough. A feeble attempt to break out to the Union left and link up with Stone's other force a couple of miles away failed miserably, and a retreat back over the Potomac began.

The steep bluff, the shortage of boats, and Rebel pressure immediately turned the retreat into a rout. Soldiers overloaded and overturned boats, while others threw their muskets and clothes into the river in a desperate attempt to swim for it. Many drowned and many more were shot by Confederates at the top of the bluff, who churned up the water with their bullets.

It was, in a way, a worse disaster than Bull Run. Out of a battle between evenly matched forces -- about 1,600 on each side -- the official Union losses came to 49 killed, 158 wounded, and 714 missing; many of the latter either drowned in the river or were captured by the Confederates. Confederate losses came to 36 killed, 117 wounded, and 2 missing. The South cheered, while Northerners anguished over the losses and started looking to pin the blame.

Nowhere was the blame game played more in earnest than in Congress. One of their own had been killed in the fight, and coupled with the Bull Run disaster, the defeat was too much for war supporters to bear. Radical Republicans, in particular, were keen on finding a scapegoat. To do so, they set up a body that would cast a shadow over every Union commander and senior officer until the end of the war: the infamous Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Led by Radical Republicans Benjamin Wade and Zach Chandler, the committee's first victim was the luckless General Stone. Unwilling to criticize the martyred Baker, or to take on the popular McClellan, the focus of the committee's investigation into the battle quickly went to Stone. Questionable testimony from officers with personal dislikes against Stone, and a great deal of innuendo, helped the committee to "establish" that Stone was disloyal and secretly favored the Southern cause. Stone unwittingly helped by getting into public feuds with Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Governor Andrew Stone. Only those officers who had been on the battlefield stood by Stone, but their testimony was pretty much ignored.

On February 7, at the direction of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Stone was arrested and taken to a military prison. No charges were ever filed, no hearings were ever held, and Stone was held incommunicado in prison for about six months before being released. His military career was ruined, and he would only hold one other brief post, a staff job, for the rest of the war.

The Committee, meanwhile, went on to look over the shoulders of Union officers for the rest of the war, and served as a platform for radical Republicans to implement its view of how the war, and later Reconstruction, should be brought about. The small engagement on a riverside cliff in Virginia -- quickly eclipsed by bigger and more dramatic battles -- still had a ripple effect that continued for years afterwards.

References

Farwell, Byron, Ball's Bluff: A Small Battle and its Long Shadow. EPM Publications, Inc., McLean, Virginia, 1990.
Grimsley, Mark, The Definition of Disaster in Civil War Times Illustrated, May, 1989, pages 14-21.
Irwin, Richard, Ball's Bluff and the Arrest of General Stone, in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Johnson and Buel, editors, pages 123-134.
Philips, Matthew, Bungled River Crossing, in America's Civil War, September, 1988, pages 42-49.

Battle of Ball's Bluff: Order of Battle and Scenario

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com