The Battle of Balls Bluff

by Gary M. Petrichick

A short distance downstream from Whites Ferry on a peaceful stretch of the canal, one passes the two mile long Harrison Island which hides from view the steep banked Virginia shore known as Balls Bluff. Here on Monday, October 21, 1861, in one of the last actions in Virginia that year, a minor but significant battle took place

The Leesburg area was held by a Confederate brigade under Col. Nathan "Shanks" Evans, who had distinguished himself during the Battle of Bull Run earlier in the year, while the Maryland shore of the Potomac River and the C&O Canal were defended by the Union forces of Brig. Gen. Edward P. Stone. Gen. Stone had been recalled to active duty in December 1860 by Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott to help organize the defense of the capital, making him the first citizen called to service in the war. He commanded the Federal advance into Virginia, capturing the City of Alexandria in late May 1861 and in early June led the month long Rockville Expedition to secure the city from the west. In August, Gen. Stone was put in command of the "Corps of Observation," assigned to the area of Maryland from Nolands Ferry to Edwards Ferry. In September and October he was reinforced by the brigades of Brig. Gen. Frederick Lander and Col. Edward D. Baker, senator from Oregon and close personal friend of President Lincoln.

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, in command of Federal troops around the capital since late July, had been under pressure for some time to take the war to the South, and in mid October 1861, sent a 12,000 man division under Brig. Gen. George McCall across the Potomac to Langley, Virginia, a little over twenty miles east of Leesburg. Col. Evans, fearing for the safety of his 2,800 man brigade, abandoned Leesburg on the 16th. The movement was observed by the Union Signal Corps on Sugar Loaf Mountain and word was sent to McClellan who directed that troops in Langley advance to Dranesville, Virginia, to verify that the observed movement was in fact a true withdrawal. He also wired Gen. Stone suggesting that perhaps a "slight demonstration" might help move them. Meanwhile, Confederate Commander Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, on learning of Evans’ withdrawal, ordered him back to Leesburg, arriving the evening of the 19th, with Union scouts only a few miles away.

On the 20th Gen. Stone moved troops to Edwards Ferry, and following an artillery barrage had a brigade ferried across the Potomac on flat-boats passed from the canal carrying 35 men each. The Confederates retired from the area, the Union forces were ordered back at darkness, and a reconnaissance was ordered at Balls Bluff near the mid point of Harrison Island. A 20-man scouting party scaled the cliff around midnight and proceeded about one mile inland. In the darkness and fog, they spotted what they thought to be a small, poorly guarded enemy encampment. One source claims what they really saw was haystacks; two other sources say a tree line.

Regardless, on the morning of the 21st Gen. Stone sent Col. Charles Devens and 300 inexperienced men of the 15th Massachusetts to raid the "camp." Around 6:30 a.m., they reached the location reported by the scouting party and realized the mistake. Thinking they had been unobserved, they remained there awaiting further orders. At 7:00 a.m., they were surprised by veteran forces from the 17th Mississippi and were forced back to the edge of the bluff. Union troops on Harrison Island, thinking the 15th needed immediate assistance, crossed at Balls Bluff rather than at Smarts Mill across from the head of the island where an easy ford existed. That decision forced both infantry and artillery to cross on boats which were not available in the numbers needed. Gen. Stone at Edwards Ferry, on hearing of the skirmish, gave Col. Baker the option of reinforcing or withdrawing the troops on the bluff.

Confident that Col. Baker could handle the situation at Balls Bluff, Gen. Stone concentrated on a feint across the river at Edwards Ferry, ordering a crossing as a diversion to draw attention from Devens on the bluff. Col. Evans, with intelligence gained when a Union courier was intercepted on the 20th, was aware that his right flank was in no danger from McCall to the east and that he was free to reinforce his left. Keeping three regiments at Ft. Evans on the Leesburg to Edwards Ferry road to defend against a crossing at the ferry, he dispatched four companies of infantry and three companies of cavalry to support the troops already on Balls Bluff. Col. Baker, recognizing that a crossing at Balls Bluff required more boats, reportedly spent a few hours overseeing the transfer of a canal boat from the C&O Canal to the river. The report cited mentions neither details on the boat nor the location at which the transfer was made. The Edwards Ferry River Locks are only about three miles from the center of Harrison Island, so a traditional canal boat could conceivably have been brought from there and poled upstream to the island in the time cited.

The fighting on the bluff raged back and forth from early afternoon until late evening, with Union troops and equipment being slowly and laboriously fed up the seventy-foot bluff into battle. Among those reinforcing Col. Devens in the early afternoon were five companies of the 20th Massachusetts under Maj. Paul Revere, grandson of the Revolutionary War hero. Unfortunately, Col. Baker’s troop dispositions early in the day doomed the Federals to ultimate destruction. Col. Baker himself was killed and by nightfall the Federals were routed. Seriously wounded was a future Supreme Court Justice, Lt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteers. Elijah V. White, a native of this area, acted as a guide and courier for the 18th Mississippi during part of the battle and later that evening was instrumental in the capture of many Union troops at the foot of the bluff. He received a commission as Captain in the Confederate Cavalry for his actions and later rose to Colonel of the 35th Virginia Cavalry.

Many men died or were severely injured scrambling down the cliff, and many more were shot by Confederate riflemen from the bluff. About eighty men from various commands made it up to Smarts Mill where they commandeered a small skiff and escaped to the Maryland shore, five men at a time. Overloaded boats capsized as they attempted to cross the river in panic and for days bodies floated as far downstream as the Capital. Tom Hahn, in his Towpath Guide to the C&O Canal, reported that canaller legend had the area haunted by soldiers’ ghosts and that overnight stops here were avoided.

Union losses, from a total combat strength of 1,720, are given at 49 killed, 158 wounded, 553 captured, and 161 missing, many presumed to have drowned. Confederates, with 1,709 troops, had 36 killed, 117 wounded, and 2 captured. Reinforcements were brought in to prevent a Confederate advance and the 4,500 Union troops in Virginia across from Edwards Ferry were evacuated on the evening of the 22nd on "canal boats" poled across the Potomac, thus ending the affair.

Sometime following the Battle of Balls Bluff, blockhouses were constructed on the Maryland shore at the mid-point and upstream end of Harrison Island. Gen. McClellan exonerated Gen. Stone of responsibility for the defeat, but the uproar over both the defeat and the death of Col. Baker demanded a scapegoat. At the insistence of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War which had been formed to investigate Union losses at Bull Run, Wilsons Creek, and Balls Bluff, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton issued orders for Gen. Stone‘s arrest in January 1862. Held without charges, he was released from Ft. Hamilton in mid August 1862, but his service in the Army was clouded and he resigned on September 13, 1863.  The Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War went on to be a thorn in the side of the Administration for the remainder of the war. Col. Evans was appointed Brigadier General as of October 21, 1861, and fought at 2nd Bull Run, Antietam, and Vicksburg.

Notes: - Some sources present place names as possessives, other do not, examples being "Edward’s Ferry"/"Edwards Ferry," and "Ball’s Bluff"/"Balls Bluff." In addition, you find references to both "Harrison’s Island" and Harrison Island." In all cases, being inherently lazy, I chose the version requiring less work.

There are numerous references to boats in battle narratives, e.g. flatboat, scow, skiff, life boat, and canal boat, but none that I have found give good descriptions of the boats. We’re told of a "large scow" connected to a hawser that stretched from the Maryland shore to Harrison Island that could carry one gun detachment plus horses. There is mention of a "small scow or canal boat" that could carry a gun and carriage with limber. In another case troops were crossed in two 40-man scows from the Maryland shore to the island and one 50-man scow from there to the Virginia shore.

I camped with my daughter at the Turtle Run Hiker/Biker near the mid point of Harrison Island in July 1992 and alone at the Chisel Branch Hiker/Biker just downstream in September 1993. On neither occasion was I visited by spirits other than liquid. For an exquisitely detailed account of the battle and its political aftermath I strongly recommend reading "Battle at Ball’s Bluff," by Kim Bernard Holien, who has been kind enough to review this article.

(This article was published in the March 2008 issue of Along The Towpath, the newsletter of the C&O Canal Association.

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