Civil war scholar james morgan discusses the battle of balls bluff that occurred in virginia. Five during the first year of the war, he argues this union was loss was due to misinformation and miscommunication among the officers. This event was part of pamplin historical parks big battles, small battles, big results symposium. Are forced speaker today is james morgan. Long civil war enthusiast and current president of the new fort sumter civil war roundtable in charlston and recently joined the border of the fort sumter historical trust. Jim was also a cofounder and chairman of the friends of falls isff, his tactical study widely considered to be the definitive work on that subject. Lets welcome james morgan. [applause] good morning. Everybody hear me ok . Im going to be moving around. We are good on the sound . Ok. Topic is smallur battles and large results. Balls bluff meets that criteria. A very small battle. 1700 men on each side. The numbers were almost dead even. Makes it amusing to read the officers reports because on both sides they insist they were outnumbered by the other side. The numbers were dead even. Not even the total number, every point of contact during the day as those numbers are increasing up to the ultimate 1700 or so. The numbers are close. That is just kind of fun to read the after action reports. Small battle. General charles stone, the Union Division commander after the the first to one of historian chroniclers of the war. He said balls bluff was like a morning skirmish. That is pretty much what it was. There were battles that signed her to day. In 1861. Uff was fought im going to emphasize that several time. Youve got to understand the early war context. I will get into that in several ways. Before we do anything else, go over your maps. I do not have a powerpoint presentation. I like paper maps. Just tot one, this is get you oriented. How many of you have been to balls bluff . Nevermind. Youve got it. [laughter] to see that. Surprised. This is just an area matt. You can see washington, d. C. , leesburg, balls bluff is right there. This is prefirst manassas. Thats not important for us. This is just orientation. You can see maryland and virginia, the dividing line, and West Virginia in the corner. Is loud andap county. It is easy to recognize because it is shaped like a big fat l. You can see what is important is it brings it in a little bit closer. Weve got the road intersection. They runs east and west, alexandria to winchester turnpike. These are modern roads. Alexandria to winchester, important because it went into the shenandoah valley. That is important right in downtown leesburg by the 15 called is about the old carolina road. From rock chester all the way down to raleigh, north carolina. At the time that was the interstate. That is a major thoroughfare. It was an invasion route. Road. Ely significant that intersection mattered. You also have, as you can see, the locations of the forts that had been built to defend the approaches, which is still there. It is owned by a company that has its headquarters in leesburg. Toy are a publicly committed preserving fort evans. I like to give them props for that. It shows businesses and the Preservation Community do not have to be at loggerheads with each other. Beauregard, that no longer exist. There is a subdivision there. And then those two are on high ground. Anyone coming from the east would have gone between a very nice artillery crossfire. Caught right in the middle. Those are very well situated. You have fort johnston, which is about half there. Its on private property. People dont like you climbing around it. Its pretty much gone. Youve got that. Roads, about 15, 62 miles north of leesburg through gettysburg. Its the same road. All right. The third map, this is the one that really is the best map of the battlefield on the day of the battle. You will find all kinds of maps that purport to be of the battlefield of balls bluff. Some of them in newspapers not too long after the battle. Those are second hand drawn by journalists. Somebody said i was there. This is what it looked like. The shape of the field is all over the place. It is round, diamond, rectangular, all signs of shades. The size changes. Acres to 20m two acres. This is the map of the battlefield on the day of the battle. This was drawn by captain William Francis bartlett. He was on the field from before dawn until after dark. He was not under fire until midafternoon. He had plenty of opportunity to see the field. He drew this map three days after the battle. He included it in a letter to his mother. This map is accurate. He does not include any dimensions. This is what the field looked like. We always like to use this. Other maps, in newspapers, or they appear in memoirs or various sources. Theres your maps. We will refer to those. All right. Early in the war. You have to understand how early this battle was. Its october of 1861. Write in the middle of the organizational year, the first year of the war. Thenapril in sumter and shiloh and the battles around richmond, theres not a lot going on. You all understand this. Theres the u. S. Army. Youve got both sides trying to create these massive armies that are going to meet later in the war. They dont exist. Does nottical tail exist. It has to be created. That is what you are starting to do. Youve got in the American Experience prior to the war, the largest army we had ever put into the field was Winfield Scott in mexico. Vary a little bit, about 12,000 men. 12,000 men is one division at the beginning of the civil war. In 1860, youve got nothing. The u. S. Army is only 16,000 men. Country. All over the the upper command structure consists of four generals. What is about to be created, these huge armies, we have no experience with that. No idea. Where do you start . You are a captain out west somewhere. You need a few horses for your company. You go to a rancher. You buy them and do a little paperwork. You are good to go. Years later, 1861, you are now charged somewhere, i need 10,000 horses now. 10,000 more next month and after that. Where do you start . Well, this is what happens the first year of the war. They are starting they building the Procurement Offices to create the sinews of war. Youve got to have a Procurement Office to disburse money. Congress has to authorize that money. These people have to go out and contract, lets talk about horses. These people who are your disbursing officers go out and contract to gather these horses. Theyve got to bring them somewhere. A the time they get them to certain location, you have to have facilities. You have to have barnes built and staples. You have to have a water source. For and to provide grain. You have to create a veterinary service. Tens of thousands of horses. All of this has to start from scratch. That is why in the first year of the war, theres not a lot going on. Youve got first manassas and it is small by later standards. That is part of the reason why balls bluff stood out. It is right in the middle of this organizational year. Fort sumter three months later. First manassas is the big battle. Then everybody stops. What just happened . Wed better catch our breath. From that point until the spring of 1862, not much. Balls bluff is in the middle of that. And also balls bluff is fought north of the national capital. Geographically north of washington. This battle is north of the capital. Throws people off. Youve got a couple of other things. Theres a United States senator who was killed. I will get into senator baker and mader. That is the basic idea. All of these things on happening. The army is being created. Things,ouple of other uniforms, Everybody Knows about first manassas, yanks in gray, the same at balls bluff. There are problems with that. The names of the armies, the original name of the union army was the army of northeastern virginia. That changes to the army of the potomac. To Confederate Army changes the army of northern virginia. They swap names basically. Guard the army of the potomac. Youve got that. Its very early in the war. Other things. ,he level of command experience youve got four generals. And the westit point grants go south. You still have to find somebody with highlevel command experience. Youve got Winfield Scott, but he is past his prime. Youve got all these guys who are suddenly generals who were lieutenants the last time. Fightingu count indians, which is a different dynamic. After the war someone said at the beginning of the war i knew everything there was about commanding 50 troops. That is pretty much the level of command experience you had. This is onthejob training. Youve got to keep that in mind. Everything is bubbling up like that. Weve gone over the maps. Itself. Luff what is going on . 1861. T first manassas the confederates win. They are every bit as beat up as the federals are. You hear sometimes people will say why did the confederates sweep into d. C. . They were in no shape to do that. They fall back. They fall back to bull run itself which flows into the potomac. They have a water line of defense. The federals are using the potomac which becomes a moat to protect washington, even though the federals on the south side around d. C. Youve got these water lines of defense about 30 miles apart. People are pretty much leaving each other alone. The odd cavalry patrol bumps into somebody. The confederates are maintaining outposts. They are keeping and i on it. They are mostly in the washington, d. C. Area. On the high ground. Where the pentagon is. They are looking down. You have seen 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 other outpost, that is leesburg. That is because of the road intersection on your map. Northsouth the road. With thene that road fact of the Potomac River is right there. , in that 25river mile stretch between virginia and maryland, is easy to cross. There are a lot of places to cross. There had been bridges, three bridges. They were burned. Troops across. In that 25 miles, there are 19 usable for its. Militarily usable. The water is shallow. Sinkagons arent going to when you get them down there. And the banks of the rivers are laidback so you can get down. If you have 19 of them, you can cross troops at several places and they will be within supporting distance of each other. Combine that, e crossing the river, with that highway, at that time, both sides are watching the other side. You could argue at that point after manassas, into the fall of 61, Loudoun County was the single most important piece of ground in north america. Because that road gave each side access to the flanks of the other army. Whoever controls those River Crossings, you could go north and you are in the flank of the opposing army. Balls bluff mattered. In 1861. That is why they had troops there. Who is there . The confederates had a small brigade, 3000 men. Maybe a few less. The numbers were always bad about how many troops were there. General stone thought they had about 4000. If you do the math, if you look at the records, its about 3000. The federals had 7000. Augmented in early october by a large brigade. Another 5000 men. On the confederate side, you had regimens, infantry regiment. You had the eighth virginia which was a local Loudoun County unit. That is the home team. Those guys knew that area. They had some artillery. The First Company was there. They were authorized for six guns. Early october they get a fifth gun, an iron rifle gun. I dont know what that was. Five pieces of artillery. Which the confederates did not use at balls bluff. They had some calvary. About 300 men divided into five companies. All of which became the fourth or sixth virginia cavalry. Man brigade. 0 at the time he was a colonel. West point, class of 1848. Shanks. Icknamed shanks is there. He was a tough soldier. He had been involved in handtohand combat in indian combat. You look at photos of him, it looks like hes insane. Hes got the general sherman eyes. Hes got these eyes you do not want to mess with. Also drank a lot. He got into trouble for it. He was accused of being drunk at balls bluff. I will say, if he was, it did not hurt. He did what he needed to do. You have to think of grant in that regard. His troops are drinking. When he was working a military campaign. That is the confederate force. The union force on the maryland brigades, 7000 men. The troops we need to be concerned about are mostly the york, neither new of which was a brigade. We were independent regimens. You often see them listed as being a part of one brigade. They were not. Menu had three actual brigades. , i that contained units think the first minnesota, the 20th massachusetts, you had the seventh michigan. Units, the 34th, they were at edwards ferry, down the road. Then you also had some artillery and they had brought some guns to cross over. Only one of them got there. You had a couple of mountain houses which belong to the units. State militia they had one company dedicated to artillery. They eventually broke off and become a separate battery. No cavalry to speak of. They had it on the union side. Got these forces, spending the summer following first manassas, watching each other. Getting along pretty well. The men on both sides, very quickly came to make localized truces. Shot forould not get nothing. Its one thing to dine a battle. Its another thing find yourself dead on picket duty. They did not want to do that. Dont shoot at me, i wont shoot at you. Ok. Works for me. They had these truces. They got along nicely. They did all the usual fraternization. Ive got newspapers, ive got tobacco, we will switch. All the stuff. It was a pleasant time actually. The civilians on both sides treated so soldiers well. One Union Officer later on wrote about his time during that summer and fall around leesburg and montgomery county. He described it as a very civil war. [laughter] the fighting, at the end of this very civil war, everything starts to change in october. Stone getse, general a reinforcement of 5000 men. Its called the california brigade. Consisting of four regimens. Men were from pennsylvania. The fact they were called californians was what colonel edward baker, who is also a u. S. Senator, the recruitment effort for this he called a pious fraud. The idea was shortly after fort sumter, three weeks, baker, who was a u. S. Senator from the new state of oregon had been associated with california for much of the 1850s. He was a wellknown public figure. He was a senator from oregon. Hes back doing his senate thing. He ended bunch of other people want to california regimen. They want to get west coast states tied to the union. There were succession movements. No guarantee those states were going to stick. The concern was not they would join the southern confederacy but that they would break away and form a Pacific Coast republic. It was important they stay with the union. The idea was weve got to get california troops. Was bigger and more important. Then as it is now. That will tie the west coast to the union and all of that will be good for the union. How are we going to get california troops . California is the far side of the moon. No railroads. To do . E you going it would take months to ride horses. Or you get on a ship. You are looking at at least five months before you can get california troops. The war will be over by then. What is the point . You dont worry about that. Said and some other folks lets recruit the california regimen. We will pretend. We are looking for guys who lived in california. Youve been to disneyland or something. You had some california connection. We are going to organize this. They really didnt care. They just wanted the name. Starts getting organized in new york. Recruiterdiscover the says i know philadelphia better than new york. Im going to move to philadelphia. He does. Really good to be a recruiter. He wants 1000 men. He gets 5000. Suddenly they dont have a regimen. They have a full brigade. There were some technicalities and glitches. I have not seen a concise explanation. What was going to be the fourth california never got organized. They had these men and they divvied them up. 15 companies each. 1500 men. The second and fifth were standard sized. 5000 men. They show up in general stones area. They bumped his numbers up to about 5000. Excuse me, 700012,000. You are the confederate commander. Youve been looking at 7000 yankees. Then theres 12,000. You are going to notice that. He begins to wonder, what is going on. A few days later another 12,000 men across the river at chain bridge near d. C. Into virginia and get on the georgetown pike and work their way up to langley and establish a camp on top of ciahighest hill where the headquarters are today, for the same reason. High ground. Visibility. All that. Youve got 12,000 union trips across the river, 12,000 in langley. Its connected by a good road. Wellmaintained. About halfway to leesburg and it intersects with route seven basically. That is a good road all the way. Where are the confederates . In fairfax andwn manassas. They are 30 miles away, not connected by good roads. All of a sudden, you are thinking, wait a minute. A week ago i had 7000. Now theres 12,000 in striking distance. He begins to worry. Hes concerned about getting gobbled up. Himthen upriver from theres a skirmish involving up all kindso pops of places. In Harpers Ferry the confederates had been gathering some foodstuff and supplies. They had a wagon train basically. He crosses over. Theres some fighting about that. It doesnt really amount to a lot. It gets shanks evans attention. Hes thinking ive got yankees, all these guys across and down river. A threes imagining prong development. That is what he thought was going to happen. A lot of what you read throughout the 20th century says thats what it was, pauls bluff was the result of a threepronged attempt to envelop leesburg. You even see maps and some of the sources with three black arrows and leesburg coming across. Its not. As you will see. Ok. Hanks evans he sees all this. He knows hes only got 3000 men. Hes not going to get help from the army. Basically he gets spooked because of this episode. He leaves. He patches his brigade up and head south. He goes a few miles to goose creek where the road crosses. What is odd about that, he does not get permission from anybody. He does it on his own. Message to general beauregard and says this is what im doing. Beauregard is not happy. By abandoning leesburg, he has crossing,r the river control of the river, the invasion route, he has given that to the union forces. If they had recognized w