Legends of Loudoun Part 18

All of these fortifications were, at the time, considered of great potential importance but in the course of events none, save for a long-distance bombardment of Fort Evans on the 19th October, 1861, were destined ever to be attacked nor, therefore, defended. The remains of all remain largely in place, useful only as local monuments to Loudoun's most tragic era.

The princ.i.p.al engagement in the county between the hostile armies took place in the first year of the war. Soon after the first battle of Mana.s.sas (Bull Run) the Leesburg neighborhood was held for the Confederates by Brigadier General Nathan G. Evans and his 7th Brigade made up of the 8th Virginia Infantry under Colonel Eppa Hunton; the 13th Mississippi, under Colonel William Barksdale; the 17th Mississippi, under Colonel W. S. Featherstone, together with a battery and four companies of cavalry under Colonel W. H. Jenifer, all sent there by General Beauregard to protect his left flank from attacks by General McClellan, whose forces lay across the Potomac, and to keep open communications with the Confederate troops in the Valley.

On the 19th October, 1861 Dranesville, a hamlet on the Alexandria Road, fifteen miles southeast of Leesburg, was occupied by Federal troops under General McCall. That evening his advance guard opened artillery fire on Fort Evans, just east of Leesburg, and another bombardment began at nearby Edwards' Ferry. Evans thereupon ordered certain of his troops to leave the town and occupy trenches he had dug along the line of Goose Creek, to meet the expected general attack. On the following day, a Sunday, word came to McClellan that the Confederates were evacuating Leesburg, whereupon that General sought to make a "slight demonstration," as he termed it, that is an increased firing by the pickets on the north side of the Potomac, with, perhaps, a small force of skirmishers thrown across, to confirm the Confederates in their belief that a general attack was impending and thus to hasten their complete evacuation of the town. It was no part of McClellan's plan, apparently, that troops should cross in force from the Maryland side or that a major engagement should be precipitated. Brigadier General C. P. Stone, in immediate command of the Federal forces along the river, nevertheless ordered a considerable force to cross to the Virginia side, both at Edwards' Ferry and also at Ball's Bluff, some four miles up the Potomac. Apparently in ignorance of Stone's actions, McCall, at about the same time, was retiring his men to their camp at Prospect Hill, four miles west of the old Chain Bridge. Evans was in the fort bearing his name. Early in the morning of the 21st, he learned that the Federals had crossed the river at Ball's Bluff, driving back Captain Duffy and a small force of Confederates. Thereupon Evans sent Colonel Jenifer with four companies of Mississippi infantry and two of cavalry to engage Stone. As a result, Stone's men were pressed back to the river around Ball's Bluff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF. (From an engraving published in 1862 by Virtus and Company. New York.)]

In his official report Gen. Evans wrote:

"At about 2 o'clock p.m. on the 21st a message was sent to Brigadier General R. L. White to bring his militia force to my a.s.sistance at Fort Evans. He reported to me, in person, that he was unable to get his men to turn out, though there were a great number in town, and arms and ammunition were offered them."

The Federal force which first had crossed to Ball's Bluff, was composed of 300 men of the 15th Ma.s.sachusetts under Colonel Devens. Later it was augmented by a company from the 20th Ma.s.sachusetts. No adequate transportation across the river for a large force had been provided, so that later it was difficult to send over needed Federal support. When Evans became convinced that the main fight would be at Ball's Bluff, he sent forward Colonel Hunton and his 8th Virginia Regiment of which several of the companies had been recruited in Loudoun. To these forces there were added, later in the day, the 17th and 18th Mississippi. Sharp fighting, with advantage first to one side and then to the other, culminated in a Confederate bayonet charge and the resulting route of the Federals, many of whom were killed and wounded, others driven into the river and drowned and by 8:00 o'clock the survivors surrendered and were marched as prisoners to Leesburg. It is estimated that about 1,700 men were engaged on each side. The Confederate loss was reported as 36 killed, 118 wounded and 2 missing. The Federals reported losses of 49 killed, 158 wounded and 714 missing. The Confederate dead were interred in the Union Cemetery at Leesburg; the Federal slain are buried at Ball's Bluff where their lonely resting place long has been cared for by the Federal Government.[156]

[156] Condensed from Hotchkiss' _Virginia Military History_ as quoted by Head, p. 138. Also White's _Battle of Ball's Bluff_. For Gen. Evans'

report see "Official Reports, Sept. to Dec. 1861," published in Richmond in 1862.

Among the killed were Colonel Baker of the Ma.s.sachusetts troops and Colonel Burt of the 18th Mississippi. Among the very dangerously wounded was a young Ma.s.sachusetts first lieutenant who, miraculously recovering, later crowned a long judicial career as a venerated member of the Supreme Court of the United States and conferred additional l.u.s.tre upon the name of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The Confederates were led in the fighting by Colonel Eppa Hunton of the 8th Virginia. It was he who rallied that regiment when a part of it was in retreat and turned threatened disaster into victory. Colonel Hunton had been born in Fauquier on the 2nd September, 1822, of a family long settled in that County. At the outbreak of the war he was practicing law in Prince William and held a commission as brigadier general in the Militia. After the Ordinance of Secession was adopted, he was commissioned a colonel by Governor Letcher and ordered to raise the 8th Virginia Infantry. For that purpose he proceeded to Leesburg and recruited his command. Chas. B. Tebbs became Lieut. Colonel and Norborne Berkeley, Major. Both were of Loudoun and Berkeley eventually succeeded Hunton in command of the Regiment. Of the ten companies in the regiment, six originally were made up of Loudoun men under Captains William N.

Berkeley, Nathaniel Heaton, Alexander Grayson, William Simpson, Wampter, and John R. Carter. Of the remaining four companies, one was from Prince William, one from Fairfax and two from Fauquier. During the war the regiment covered itself with glory by its splendid fighting qualities from the first Mana.s.sas to Pickett's charge at Gettysburg and suffered frightful losses. It became known from these losses, as the "b.l.o.o.d.y Eighth." Hunton, shot through the leg at Gettysburg, was promoted for his valour there to brigadier general. After the war he lived in Warrenton, practicing his profession with marked ability in Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William where juries, frequently including members of his former regiment, seldom failed to give him their verdict. He served as a member of the House of Representatives and later as United States Senator from Virginia, holding in his professional and political life the esteem and affection he had won on many a field of battle.

Acting as a volunteer scout for Colonel Hunton, that day of the Ball's Bluff Battle was a young trooper of Ashby's Cavalry who, migrating from Maryland to Loudoun in 1857, purchased a farm on the sh.o.r.e of the Potomac and became very much of a Virginian. Elijah Viers White was born in Poolesville, Maryland, in 1832, attended Lima Seminary in Livingston County, New York, and later spent two years at Granville College in Licking County, Ohio. With the restlessness of his age he went to Kansas in 1855 and, as a member of a Missouri company, had some part in the factional fighting then distracting that territory. At the time of John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry he served as a corporal in the Loudoun Cavalry and soon after the outbreak of the war was transferred to Ashby's Legion. By December, 1861, he was a captain, reporting to General Hill, and in charge of a line of couriers between Leesburg and Winchester. During the winter of 1861-'62 this force was quartered in Waterford and, somewhat augmented in numbers, was a.s.signed to scouting and guarding the Potomac sh.o.r.e. Thus originated the unit which became so famous in Loudoun's history--the 35th Virginia Cavalry[157] or, as it was more generally known, "White's Battalion"--the "Comanches"

affectionately held in local memory. Although having but about twenty-five men when wintering in Waterford, the organization increased with such rapidity that before the war's end its rolls, according to Captain Frank M. Myers, its historian, bore nearly 700 names. On the 28th October, 1862, it was formally mustered into the Confederate service by Colonel Bradley T. Johnson of General J. E. B. Stuart's staff. In its inception formed for scouting, raiding and other local duty, and regarded as an independent organization, it was fated in January, 1863, to become a part of Brigadier General William E. Jones'

Brigade and thenceforward continued a part of the regular military establishment of the Confederacy.

[157] Myers' _Comanches_, p. 314.

As the fame and exploits of the command and its leader grew, the latter was promoted major in October, 1862, and lieutenant colonel in February, 1863. That he was not made a brigadier-general in accordance with the recommendation of the military committee of the Confederate Congress was due chiefly to General Lee's personal disapproval of Colonel White's lack of severity as a disciplinarian. Undoubtedly his men took advantage of his protective att.i.tude toward them and incidents of insubordination, desertion, and even mutiny were not infrequent;[158] but as enthusiastic and fearless fighters they won and held the respect of both sides alike.

How well and dearly this reputation as warriors was earned is shown by their partic.i.p.ation in no less than thirty-one battles, including Cold Harbor, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Appomattox and in fifty-nine recorded minor engagements as well.[159] Colonel White himself was severely wounded on no less than seven occasions. Such was the esteem in which he continued to be held in Loudoun after the war, that he was elected sheriff of the county and also its treasurer. He was a princ.i.p.al founder and the first president of the Peoples National Bank of Leesburg which position he continued to occupy until his death in 1907. General Eppa Hunton in his autobiography has this to say of him: "No man in the Confederate Army stood higher for bravery, dash and patriotic devotion than Colonel 'Lige' White."

[158] Same, pp. 148, 154, 242, 315, 342, 353, etc.

[159] See ma.n.u.script memorandum prepared by Mrs. Magnus Thompson and now in possession of Colonel White's granddaughter, Miss Elizabeth White, of Selma.

In the meanwhile, as we have seen, the Loudoun Rangers had been organized on the territory west and north of the Catoctin Mountain by Union men and had been taken into the Federal service. In August, 1862, this command, then numbering about fifty, was making its headquarters in the small brick Baptist Meeting House which still stands in Waterford, whence it had been partic.i.p.ating in raids on the Confederate portion of the county. About 3:00 o'clock in the morning of the 27th of August, while a certain number of the Rangers were away from the church on raids or picket duty, Captain E. V. White, with forty or fifty men, made a carefully planned attack on the building and after some sharp fighting, in which one of the Rangers was killed and ten wounded, the men in the church surrendered and were taken prisoners and paroled.

On the 1st September the Rangers were involved in another fight, this time with Colonel Munford's 2nd Virginia Cavalry sent forward by General Stuart for that purpose, the encounter taking place between the top of Mile Hill and the Big Spring on the Carolina Road. The Rangers were at the time reinforced by about 125 men of Cole's Maryland Cavalry but the Confederates, by getting in their rear and completely surrounding them, put them to route in a hot sabre fight. Goodhart, the Rangers'

historian, comments that these two defeats, coming so closely together, almost broke up that organization and "did to a very large extent interfere with the future usefulness of the command."[160] It continued in service, however, until the end of the war, partic.i.p.ating in the battle of Antietam, in the Gettysburg campaign, and in the Shenandoah Valley campaign in September, 1864.

[160] _The Loudoun Rangers_, by Briscoe Goodhart, 44.

It was in the same September of 1862, it will be remembered, that Lee undertook his first invasion of Maryland. He and General Stonewall Jackson spent the night at the residence of the late Henry T. Harrison on the west side of King Street, now occupied by Mr. Harrison's grandchildren, Mr. Cuthbert Conrad and his two sisters. "The triumphant army of Lee," writes Head "on the eve of the first Maryland campaign, was halted at Leesburg and stripped of all superfluous transportation, broken-down horses and wagons and batteries not supplied with good horses being left behind."[161] It is said that Jackson rose early in the morning from his bed in the Harrison house to examine the several suggested points for the Southern Army to cross the Potomac. He is locally credited with the decision that the place known as White's Ford was best for the purpose and it was there, on the 5th September, that much of the Army crossed. With such a vast number to put across the river, it is probable that all the ferries and fords in the Leesburg neighborhood were used. It is well to note that White's Ford and the present White's Ferry (then known as Conrad's Ferry) are two very different places. The Ferry is at the end of the road now marked by the State, running along the south side of Rockland; the Ford is to the north thereof at the head of Mason's Island. Obviously the depth of the water at White's Ferry would preclude its use as a ford. Goodhart says Edwards' and Noland's Ferries were used,[162] while the report of the Federal Signal Officer (Major A. J. Myers) made to Brigadier General S.

Williams, dated the 6th October, 1862, records the Confederates "crossing the Potomac near the Monocacy, and the commencement of their movement into Maryland."[163] Nevertheless the Confederate official reports definitely shew that a great number, probably the major part of the vast host, crossed at White's Ford, including Stonewall Jackson's own men, General Early's Division (which had pa.s.sed through Leesburg the day before and camped that night "near a large spring"--whether Big Spring or the old Ducking Pond of Raspberry Plain does not definitely appear); General Hood's Division, Colonel B. T. Johnson's 2nd Virginia Brigade, McGowan's Brigade, etc.[164] Never were the hopes of the Confederates more rosy; it is recorded that, as the Army crossed the river, the men sang and cheered with joy and that every band played "Maryland, my Maryland." Twelve days later there was fought the battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day's conflict of the whole war, and on the night of the 18th September the Confederates, in retreat but in good order, recrossed the Potomac.

[161] Head, 150.

[162] _Loudoun Rangers_, 44.

[163] _War of the Rebellion; Official Records_, Vol. 27, p. 118.

[164] "Reports Army of Northern Virginia," from June 1862 to Dec. 1862.

Vol. II, pp. 99, 187, 211, 246, 282, etc.

While the battle of Antietam was being so hotly fought in nearby Maryland, Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General) Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, advancing from Was.h.i.+ngton with ten companies of Federal cavalry, reached Leesburg where there still remained a small Confederate force made up of Company A of the 6th Virginia Cavalry and about forty Mississippi infantrymen under Captain Gibson, then acting as Provost Marshal of the town. Being largely outnumbered, the Confederates were about to retire when they were joined by Captain E. V. White and thirty of his men. Persuading the soldiers already there to make an effort to hold the town, White and his men exchanged shots with the Federal advance guard; but finding that Kilpatrick was bringing a battery forward, the Confederates retreated through the town's streets.

Kilpatrick, however, had already trained his cannon upon Leesburg, thereby subjecting it to its first and only artillery bombardment and greatly terrifying the civilian population. Myers records that "shrieking sh.e.l.ls came cras.h.i.+ng through walls and roofs" of Leesburg's buildings. The Federal report avers that but a few sh.e.l.ls were fired "over the town."[165] After this brief artillery fire, Kilpatrick sent a detachment of his 10th New York Cavalry through Leesburg's streets who came in touch with the Confederates on the town's outskirts. Here Captain White, about to lead his cavalry in a charge, was severely wounded by the fire of the Confederate Infantry and as his men, in retreat, carried him to Hamilton, the Confederate Infantry also fell back, leaving the town to Kilpatrick. By way of souvenir of this little engagement, there still remains a bullet-hole in the front door of the house on the south side of East Market street then occupied by the late Burr W. Harrison but now the residence of his grandson, the Hon. Charles F. Harrison, Commonwealth's Attorney of Loudoun. According to the official Federal report, already quoted, the Confederate "force at Leesburg was princ.i.p.ally comprised of convalescents and cavalry sent to escort them. The whole country from Warrenton to Leesburg is filled with sick soldiers abandoned on the wayside by the enemy."

[165] Myers' _Comanches_, 111; also report of Colonel J. M. Davis, _War of the Rebellion: Official Records_, Vol. 27, p. 1091.

At the outbreak of the war Loudoun was, as it now again has come to be, one of the most fertile, prosperous and best farmed counties in all Virginia. When the fighting was fairly under way, it, from its position as border territory, was dominated by one side after the other but at almost all times was overrun by scouts and raiding parties from both armies. Her farms and their abundant livestock and produce offered constant, if unwilling, invitation to these soldiers to replenish their need of horses, cattle, hogs, grain and forage; and every account of the period refers again and again to instances of seizure of these supplies, involving the greatest hards.h.i.+ps, as they came to do, to the rightful owners. It seems to have made little difference as to which side was temporarily in control, so far as these levies were concerned, for both Federals and Confederates appropriated supplies from the farms of foes and friends alike, sometimes, it is true, giving receipts or certificates covering what they had taken, with a cheerful promise of ultimate compensation, and sometimes wholly waiving that formality.

Also, as the armies pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, there were roving deserters from both sides and "the mountains were infested with horse-thieves and desperadoes who were ready to prey upon the inhabitants, regardless as to whether their sympathies were with the North or South."[166]

"Numerous raids" quoting Deck and Heaton, "made by both armies drained the abundant food resources of the county. The women and the children were hard pressed for food, but they met the privations of war bravely and loyally."[167] Head, writing prior to 1908, when there still lived many whose knowledge of war conditions in Loudoun was based on personal experience and observation and who, on every hand, were available for consultation, says that the people of the county

[166] Williamson, 105.

[167] _Economic and Social Survey of Loudoun County_, 22.

"probably suffered more real hards.h.i.+ps and deprivations than any other community of like size in the Southland.... Both armies, prompted either by fancied military necessity or malice, burned or confiscated valuable forage crops and other stores, and nearly every locality, at one time or another, witnessed depredation, robbery, murder, arson and rapine.

Several towns were sh.e.l.led, sacked and burned but the worse damage was done the country districts by raiding parties of Federals."[168] Col.

Mosby, of the famous Partisan Rangers, adds his testimony, writing particularly of the upper part of Fauquier and Loudoun:

"Although that region was the Flanders of the war, and harried worse than any of which history furnishes an example since the desolation of the Palatinates by Louis XIV, yet the stubborn faith of the people never wavered. Amid fire and sword they remained true to the last, and supported me through all the trials of the war."[169]

[168] _History of Loudoun County_, 149.

[169] Mosby's _War Reminiscences_, 41.

This last quotation brings to our story one of the most picturesque figures in either army and one whose numerous exploits in Loudoun and her adjoining counties were truly of that inherent nature from which popular legend and folklore evolve. John Singleton Mosby was born at Edgemont in Powhattan County, Virginia, on the 6th December, 1833. He was educated at the University of Virginia, was admitted to the Bar and when the war broke out was practicing his profession in Bristol.

Promptly volunteering for service, he became a cavalry private in the Was.h.i.+ngton Mounted Rifles and when that became a part of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, Mosby was promoted to be its adjutant. Subsequently he served as an independent scout for General J. E. B. Stuart until captured by the Federals and imprisoned in Was.h.i.+ngton. After his exchange he was made a captain in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States by General Lee,[170] later a major and then colonel, serving on detached service under General Lee's orders. During the winter of 1862-'63 he built up his command known as Mosby's Partisan Rangers (which had more formal status as the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry) in the territory between the Rappahannock and the Potomac, where, for the remainder of the war, he continued to operate; but the heart of his domain was thus described

"From Snickersville along the Blue Ridge Mountains to Linden; thence to Salem (now called Marshall); to the Plains; thence along the Bull Run Mountains to Aldie and from thence along the turnpike to the place of beginning, Snickersville."[171]

[170] _Mosby's Rangers_, by J. J. Williamson, 15.

[171] Same, 175.

This was the true "Mosby's Confederacy," as it became known, and Mosby's Confederacy in very fact it was, albeit a precarious and but loosely held realm. By Mosby's orders, no member of his command was to leave these bounds without permission.

Mosby's purpose, always governing his operations, is thus described by him:

"To weaken the armies invading Virginia by hara.s.sing their rear--to destroy supply trains, to break up the means of conveying intelligence, and thus isolating an army from its base, as well as its different corps from each other, to confuse their plans by capturing despatches, are the objects of partisan war. I endeavoured, so far as I was able, to diminish this aggressive power of the army of the Potomac, by compelling it to keep a large force on the defensive."[172]

[172] Mosby's _War Reminiscences_, 44.

He was amazingly successful. His men had no camps. To have had definite headquarters would have been to invite certain destruction or capture.

When too hotly pursued, they scattered over the friendly countryside, hiding in the hills, the woods, farmhouses or barns and often, if discovered, appearing as working farmers. "They would scatter for safety" says Mosby, "and gather at my call, like the Children of the Mist." Their attacks frequently were made at night; but whether by day or night so unexpectedly as always to utterly confuse their foes and keep them in such nervous antic.i.p.ation of attack at unknown and unpredictable points that Mosby became to them a major scourge. Branded as "guerilla," "bushwhacker," and "freebooter," Mosby stoutly and logically maintained that his method of fighting was wholly within the rules of war and when General Custer took some of his men prisoners and hanged them as thieves and murderers, Mosby, acting on Lee's instructions, promptly retaliated by hanging an equal number of Custer's men as soon as he was able to capture them. That appears to have ended the execution of captured Mosby men, save for rare individual and heinous offences.

One of the most spectacular and, upon the local imagination, lastingly impressive forays made by him was the so-called "Greenback Raid" in which, on the 14th October, 1864, his men wrecked a Baltimore and Ohio train near Brown's Crossing. Among the pa.s.sengers were two Federal paymasters, carrying $168,000 in United States currency. This was seized by Mosby's men, carried to Bloomfield in Loudoun, and divided among the raiders, each receiving about $2,000. It is related that thenceforth, until the end of the war, there was ample Federal currency circulating in Loudoun.