150 Years Ago: Johnston Withdraws from Harper's Ferry

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General Joseph E. Johnston had been in command of the Confederate Army of the Shenandoah for about three weeks, since May 24, 1861, and he did not like the position he was in at Harper's Ferry.  The town was important for both sides, but it was impossible to defend; it would change hands eight times during the war.  On Saturday, June 15, 1861, Johnston withdrew his army, some 10,000 men organized into four brigades, toward Winchester.

Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) had a very strategic location on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.  It was where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers and the states of Maryland and Virginia met.  It was also the site of the United States Armory and Arsenal, one of only two such facilities in the country (the other at Springfield, Illinois) where small arms were produced for the U.S. Army.  Until April 1861, that is.

When Virginia seceded, the U.S. Army garrison at the arsenal evacuated.  They tried to burn the buildings and destroy the equipment before they left, but local citizens saved the machinery.  Major General Kenton Harper of the Virginia Militia quickly organized two thousand militiamen at Harper's Ferry and put Brigadier General Thomas Jackson in charge.  The equipment was sent to Richmond for safe keeping, and this group of militia formed the nucleus of Johnston's army.

Johnston had taken command in May when Virginia Governor John Letcher turned the state troops over to Confederate control.  Jackson became one of Johnston's most important lieutenants.

Robert E. Lee, who had overall command of the state troops until they were turned over to the Confederacy, had advised Johnston to hold onto Harper's Ferry.  To give it up, he said, "would be depressing to the cause of the South."  But Johnston was in an impossible position.  The town sat on a low flood plain with the heights of the Blue Ridge Mountains all around it.  It was at the bottom of a bowl.  On top of that, two Federal armies had his attention -- Robert Patterson's army (also named the Army of the Shenandoah) was just across the Potomac in Maryland and George McClellan's was somewhere to his west in the Virginia mountains.  Johnston had to find a more favorable position.  He eventually settled at Bunker Hill.

During his time at Harper's Ferry, Jackson had commandeered the B & O trains that came through, 42 locomotives and 386 freight cars.  Most of these were wrecked and thrown into the river, but Jackson used horses to haul fourteen locomotives and some boxcars by road to Strasburg, where they were put on the Manassas Gap Railroad for Confederate use.

An aside:  Rather quickly after the start of the war, the pro-Unionist counties of western Virginia would break away from the rest of the state, seceding from the secessionists to form the new state of West Virginia.  Harper's Ferry, then in Virginia would be located in the new state.  In 1890, the United States Board on Geographic Names, which is responsible for formally naming municipalities and natural landmarks, removed most apostrophes so as to not imply ownership of a place.  What was once Harper's Ferry, Virginia, is now Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Another aside:  Harper's Ferry was the site of John Brown's raid in October 1859.

150 Years Ago: Romney

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On the morning of June 13, 1861, Union troops under Colonel Lew Wallace crossed into Romney, Virginia (now West Virginia), ran off the Confederates there, and went back the way they came.

Now barely two months past Fort Sumter, the war was still just a series of small skirmishes where the armies got a little too close together.  Wallace received orders to travel from Cumberland, Maryland, to Romney to dislodge some Confederates in the town, a strategic point on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.

It was vital that the Union control the B & O.  It connected Washington to the western states.

Wallace commanded the 11th Indiana Infantry Regiment, a Zouaves unit.  They crossed the Potomac by train, then marched south to Romney, some 25 to 30 miles away.  Most of the action took place at a covered bridge that crossed the South Branch of the Potomac at the entrance to the town.  There the Confederates had a battery of two guns and sharpshooters in a nearby house, Sycamore Dale.

Wallace's advance guard crossed the bridge at a run, leapt down an embankment and engaged the troops in the house.  As Wallace got more troops across the bridge, they combined and drove the Confederates out of the house.  Wallace ordered it to be burned.  When he returned later, he found that the owner, David Gibson, had talked his troops out of it.  Wallace listened to Gibson's plea and withdrew the order, and used the house as his headquarters during his brief stay in the town.

The Confederates and most of the residents of Romney scattered out of the town.  Wallace searched the town for weapons and supplies, then withdrew back to Cumberland.  It's not clear why Wallace withdrew.

Oral history and a town marker claim that Romney changed hands 56 times during the war.  It was probably fewer than ten.  After Wallace's departure, Colonel A. P. Hill brought a larger force of Confederate troops in to occupy the town the next day.

Lew Wallace would go on to become a major general, but his postwar career would be much more successful.  He would serve as governor of New Mexico Territory and as U.S. Minister to the Ottoman Empire, but he would become world famous as the author of Ben-Hur.

150 Years Ago: The Philippi Races

On June 3, 1861, Union troops attacked and routed a much smaller Confederate force at Philippi, Virginia.  It was a small skirmish that had a big impact on the opening days of the Civil War.

Union Major General George McClellan was conducting the first real campaign of the war.  McClellan commanded the Department of the Ohio.  From his headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, he quickly realized the importance of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad that linked his command to Washington.

McClellan sent troops into western Virginia to secure the railroad there.  There was a small Confederate force of about 800 men under Colonel George Porterfield at Grafton, Virginia, a small village at the site of the junction of two lines of the B & O Railroad.  As the Union troops neared Grafton, the Confederates withdrew south to Philippi.

After a brief pause to regroup, two columns under Colonel Benjamin Kelley marched all night in a driving rain fifteen miles south to Philippi to launch a predawn surprise attack on the Confederate force.   This was a tremendous accomplishment for raw recruits on almost nonexistent roads over mountainous terrain in terrible weather, but the two columns, some 3000 men, converged on Philippi before dawn.

A pistol shot was to be the signal to attack.  The poorly armed, badly outnumbered Confederates were huddled in their tents to escape the terrible weather.  They had not set up picket lines to guard the perimeter of their camp.

Most of the population of this section of Virginia was pro-Unionist, but one of the Confederate sympathizers, Mrs. Thomas Humphreys, saw the Union troops advancing and sent her son on horseback to warn the encampment.  She watched as Union pickets captured the boy and fired her pistol at them.  Her shots launched the attack prematurely.

It didn't matter; the attack was still effective.  The Union troops opened up with their artillery, which awakened the sleeping Confederates.  They fled south, leaving their equipment and, in most cases, their clothes behind.  The Federal infantry followed in hot pursuit and the whole affair became known as "the Philippi races;" a shameful disgrace in the South and a big morale boost in the North.

Kelley was badly wounded while pursuing the Confederates.  Porterfield was soon relieved of command, replaced by Brigadier General Robert Garnett.

Though he was not there and didn't play any part in the skirmish, McClellan was given all the credit for the victory.  He was quickly becoming the first hero of the war in the North and would soon be called to Washington to replace Winfield Scott as General-in-Chief of the U.S. Army.

The rout emboldened the pro-Unionists of the region.  Soon they would break away, seceding from the secessionists, creating a brand-new state in the Federal Union, West Virginia.

This encounter would see the first (but certainly not the last) battlefield amputations of the war.  One of these, James Hanger, lost a leg.  He recovered and was sent home where he made an artificial leg for himself out of barrel staves and a hinge.  It worked well enough that the Virginia legislature commissioned him to make them for other veterans.  After the war, he patented the "Hanger Limb" and founded what is now Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics.

Also on this date, Stephen Douglas died in Chicago.

150 Years Ago: Fairfax Court House

After Fort Sumter, the Civil War began slowly like a freight train gathering speed.  Both sides had to raise armies to fight.  Men across the country, North and South, raced to join up, but arming and supplying the new recruits would be a daunting task -- many were turned away for lack of weapons.  But once the armies began forming up, they began moving and running into each other.

In the early morning hours, around 3 a.m., on Saturday, June 1, 1861, a Regular U.S. Army cavalry force of about 50 to 75 troopers under Lieutenant Charles Tompkins rode into the village of Fairfax Court House, Virginia.  They were on a reconnaissance mission to gauge Confederate strength in the area.  They found a sizable force of about 200 men in the village -- two cavalry companies and a company of infantry.

The Confederate force was just green recruits, many without arms.  Most of the cavalry fled straightaway, leaving the infantry company, the Warrenton Rifles, to do the bulk of the fighting. 

What followed was a brief skirmish that would be the first land battle of the Civil War. 

The U.S. Cavalry rode in, made a lot of noise, and captured a few prisoners, including some Confederate cavalrymen who were trying to form a line in the main road while most of their comrades rode off.  Lieutenant Colonel Richard Ewell had just arrived in town to take over the Confederate force.  He came out of his hotel into the middle of the melee and was shot in the shoulder.  Ewell would be the first Confederate field grade officer to be wounded in the war.

Captain John Q. Marr, commander of the Warrenton Rifles, heard the commotion and quickly got his men up and formed into battle lines in a nearby clover field.  A few of the retreating Confederate cavalrymen ran upon them in the dark and were fired on.  One was wounded; the first case of friendly fire in the war.

Marr got out the sight of his men and disappeared, leaving the unit leaderless.  A 64-year-old civilian took command.  He was William "Extra Billy" Smith, a former Virginia governor and a resident of Warrenton.  He had helped recruit the company and knew many of the men, but had no military training or experience.  After the battle was over, Marr was found dead in the clover field, the first Confederate fatality of the war.   Smith found that he enjoyed the experience of commanding men in battle and asked for a commission.  He would become one of the oldest Confederate generals in the Civil War.

Ewell, wounded shoulder and all, took charge of the scene and moved the Warrenton Rifles into a better defensive position.  Some civilians in the town grabbed what weapons they had and joined them.  Three times the U.S. Cavalry unit tried to ride out of town past the Warrenton Rifles; three times they were driven back.  They finally left the village via a different route.

Confederate casualties:  1 dead (Captain Marr), two wounded, five missing (all captured)
Union casualties:  1 dead (a Private Saintclair), and four wounded, including Lieutenant Tompkins.  They reported one man missing, but the Confederates took three prisoners.  The Union also lost nine horses killed; four were wounded.

150 Years Ago: Alexandria and Contraband

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On Friday, May 24, 1861, Federal troops made their first invasion of the South as eight regiments crossed the Potomac before dawn and occupied Alexandria, Virginia.  One consequence of the invasion was that the North suffered its first combat fatality of the war.

Elmer Ellsworth, the colonel of the 11th New York Regiment, saw a Confederate flag flying from the roof of the Marshall House hotel.  He climbed up on the roof and cut it down.  As he was coming back down the stairs, he was shot to death by the proprietor of the hotel, James T. Jackson, who was then killed by Private Francis Brownwell, one of Ellsworth's men.  Both sides now had their first martyrs of the war.

Ellsworth had briefly studied law in the office of Abraham Lincoln, then worked on his campaign and accompanied him to Washington for the inauguration.  Ellsworth then traveled to New York City to raise a regiment of volunteers.  He recruited heavily in the city's fire departments, and clothed the regiment in zouave uniforms patterned after French colonial troops in Algeria -- white leggings, red baggy pants, a blue sash, a dark blue vest, a short red cape, a dark blue jacket, and a blue tasseled red fez.

Lincoln openly mourned Ellsworth's death.  His body lay in state in the White House before being returned to upstate New York for burial.  Alexandria would remain in Union hands until the end of the war.

Also on this date, at Fort Monroe, Virginia, three fugitive slaves came into Union General Benjamin Butler's lines.  Their owner, Colonel Charles Mallory, had been using them to erect a battery for Confederate guns and wanted them back.  Butler was obligated to return them because of the fugitive slave law, but he had other ideas.  Property of those in rebellion against the United States could be seized as contraband of war.  These men were property, owned by a man rebelling against the United States.  Could they not be held and used as contrabands?

Butler had introduced a new idea -- and a new word -- to the war.  In the days that followed, more fugitive slaves came into his lines and Butler kept them and used them while the War Department tried to sort out the problem.  Secretary of War Simon Cameron would eventually declare that the war was being fought to preserve the Union and protect the rights of all, including the right to repossess fugitive slaves, but that did not apply "in states wholly or partly under insurrectionary control."  Butler could keep the slaves, but must do no proselytizing to encourage slaves to run away.

Related articles

• Way Back Machine | The Zouaves Depart (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
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150 Years Ago: Virginia Makes It Official

Virginia began the process of leaving the Union almost immediately after Lincoln's call for troops after Fort Sumter was fired upon.  On Thursday, May 23, 1861, Virginia voters completed the process, voting for secession by a 3-to-1 margin in a statewide referendum.  Most of the pro-Union vote came in the western part of the state, which was now considering a break with the rest of the state.

150 Years Ago -- Stonewall Jackson/Maryland

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Thomas Jackson, who everyone would soon be calling "Stonewall," was appointed colonel of the Virginia militia on April 26, 1861.

Jackson, a West Point graduate (17th in the class of '46) and Mexican War veteran, was a major in the Virginia militia and a VMI professor of artillery and natural philosophy when the war began.  Soon after Virginia seceded, he arrived in Richmond with his VMI cadets.  Governor John Letcher made him a colonel and sent him to his new post, commanding the state troops that had taken over Harper's Ferry.


Also on this date, in Maryland, the state legislature met in regular session -- normally, not a noteworthy event, but these were not normal times.  The state was still in an uproar over the Baltimore riot and State Senator Coleman Gellott was calling for a rump session in Baltimore.  To forestall this, Governor Thomas Hicks called the legislature into regular session on April 26.  Since Federal troops were occupying the capital, Annapolis, they were to meet in Frederick, in more pro-Union territory.

When the lawmakers convened, Hicks addressed them, advising that Maryland take a neutral position in the war.  After some debate, the state legislature agreed.  They would issue a proclamation stating that they lacked the authority to an ordinance of secession, then neglected to call for a state convention that could.  Maryland would not be leaving the Union.

Lincoln had to make sure of that.  With Washington lying between Virginia, which was essentially out of the Union, and Maryland, Lincoln had to have Maryland or the capital would be lost before the war had barely begun.  When he learned that Hicks was convening the legislature, Lincoln considered arresting the lawmakers to prevent the session, but finally decided that it "would not be justifiable, nor efficient for the desired object."  But Lincoln would do whatever it took to keep Maryland in the Union.

150 Years Ago -- Lee Takes Command

On Tuesday, April 23, 1861, Robert E. Lee made with Virginia Governor John Letcher who offered him command of Virginia's state troops.  Lee accepted.

150 Years Ago -- Norfolk Abandoned

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On Saturday, April 20, 1861, the Gosport Shipyard at Norfolk, Virginia was abandoned by the Federals and seized by armed Virginians.  The name was changed to Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1862; then, as now, it was the most important naval installation in the United States.

The shipyard had been fumbled away through bad timing.  The commander there, Commodore Charles McCauley, a 68-year-old veteran of the War of 1812, had succumbed to pressure and ordered the evacuation.  State troops under General William Taliaferro were menacing the base, putting up batteries for a bombardment.  In addition, several of McCauley's officers and men had resigned to go South.

The Federal sailors and marines began making preparations to leave by scuttling the warships at the yard on April 19.  As the ships sank to the bottom, a relief expedition led by the U.S.S. Pawnee arrived.  The officers conferred and finally decided the only thing to do was complete the destruction the following day.

On the evening of April 20, the Federals finished by burning the buildings and the upper works of some of the ships that were poking up out of the water.  A mine was set in the dry dock.  The Virginians moved in after the Federals moved out, and found, like Harper's Ferry the day before, that most of the machinery was still serviceable.  The mine had failed to explode, leaving the dry dock intact.

A big steam frigate, the Merrimack, was another major prize for the Southerners.  The ship had been at the yard for engine repairs.  As the nation had moved toward war and Virginia had moved toward secession, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had sent the navy's chief engineer, Benjamin Isherwood, to make repairs and Commander James Alden to take command of the Merrimack and get her to Philadelphia.  McCauley, not wanting to antagonize the Virginians, had refused to let the ship leave.  Now, the Confederates could raise and reuse her.


Also, on this date, in Maryland, a steamer carrying the 8th Massachusetts Infantry arrived at Annapolis.  The troops, led by Massachusetts politician Benjamin Butler, a newly minted brigadier general, were bound for Washington, forty miles away.  Governor Thomas Hicks, surely thinking about the Baltimore riot the day before, urged Butler to keep his men on the boat.  Hicks wired Lincoln: "I have felt it to be my duty to advise the President of the United States to order elsewhere the troops now off Annapolis and also that no more may be sent through Maryland."  Hicks and Butler negotiated over the weekend, and Butler finally brought his men ashore on Monday, April 22.


Colonel Robert E. Lee sent his official letter of resignation to the War Department.

150 Years Ago: Virginia Secedes

On Wednesday, April 17, 1861, the Virginia state convention passed an ordinance of secession 88 to 55.  The ordinance would not be official until a majority of voters ratified it in a statewide referendum on May 23, but there was no chance this would not happen.  Virginia was, for all intents and purposes, out of the Union.

The loss of Virginia was a big blow to the Union as historian Bruce Catton explains, "Without Virginia the Southern Confederacy could not have hoped to win its war for independence; with Virginia the Confederacy's hopes were not half bad, and they would get even better when people realized that Virginia would come equipped with Robert E. Lee.  American history has known few events more momentous than the secession of Virginia, which turned what set out to be the simple suppression of a rebellion into a four-year cataclysm that shook America to the profoundest depths of its being."

Virginia state troops were already on the way to Harper's Ferry to seize the U.S. Arsenal there.

Also on this date, Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation "inviting all those who may desire, by service in private armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this government in resisting so wanton and wicked an aggression, to make application for commissions or letters of marque and reprisal to be issued under the seal of these Confederate States."

This was either a noble calling combining patriotism and profit or piracy, depending on your point of view.  Later, the Union would charge the officers and crew of the Savannah with piracy, claiming that their Letter of Marque was invalid since the Confederacy was not a sovereign nation.  Davis threatened to hang a Union officer for each executed Confederate privateer.  Thereafter, the Union treated privateers honorably as prisoners of war.

At Galveston, Texas, the Star of the West, which had tried unsuccessfully in January to reinforce and resupply the garrison at Fort Sumter, was captured by Confederate troops.

150 Years Ago: Fox Gets His Orders

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On Thursday, April 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln called Captain Gustavus Fox to the White House.  The president had finally made up his mind to relieve Fort Sumter and Fox would be the man to do it around April 11.

Lincoln told Fox that a messenger would be sent to South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens giving him due notice of the attempt.  No troops would be landed if the delivery of the provisions was unopposed.

Lincoln also gave Fox formal orders from Secretary of War Simon Cameron.  Fox was to load supplies and troops into a ship at New York, then proceed to Charleston harbor.  If armed forces opposed him, he was to report to the senior naval officer present who would have orders from Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles to use his entire force to land troops and supplies.  A letter was being sent to Major Anderson at the fort that day telling him what was being attempted and ordering him to hold out if he could.

Fox hurried back to New York, where he chartered the Baltic and rounded up the troops and supplies needed.  He was ready to set sail by April 9.

From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton:

"The expedition he was leading had been substantially augmented since he first suggested it. Originally the big idea had been to slip a boatload of provisions into the harbor by a stealthy dash at night, relying on speed and deception to get the supplies to Fort Sumter before the Confederates knew what was up; now all question of surprise was given up, Governor Pickens was being officially notified in advance that the thing was going to be tried, and four warships were going along with orders to open fire if there was any trouble. Clearly enough the entire concept of the operation had changed. A month earlier the underlying idea had been to uphold Major Anderson and his garrison; now it was nothing less than to uphold the breadth and depth of Federal authority over an unbroken Union. The first might have been done by a quick dash with nobody looking; the second would mean nothing unless seen by all the world, and if General Beauregard's cannon might help call the world's attention to it, that would be up to General Beauregard. The first had been nothing more than a play for time. This was a frank avowal that time had run out.

"Table stakes, in other words. Sending the outridder down to Governor Pickens, Lincoln was shooting the works. He was not forcing a war, but he was serving notice that he would rather fight than back down; more, he was setting the stage in such a way that Jefferson Davis, if he in his turn preferred to fight rather than to back down, would have to shoot first. Lincoln had been plainly warned by Lamon and Hurlbut that a ship taking provisions to Fort Sumter would be fired on. Now he was sending the ship, with advance notice to the men who had the guns. He was sending warships and soldiers as well, but they would remain in the background; if there was going to be a war it would begin over a boatload of salt pork and crackers -- over that, and the infinite overtones which by now were involved. Not for nothing did Captain Fox remark afterward that it seemed very important to Lincoln that South Carolina 'should stand before the civilized world as having fired upon bread.'"

Also on this date, in Virginia, the state convention rejected a motion to hold a referendum on secession 89 to 45. Virginia would stay in the Union for the time being. At about the same time, Lincoln met with John Baldwin, a Unionist member of the Virginia state convention. Apparently Lincoln was trying to work out some kind of deal that would keep Virginia in the Union, that he would trade a fort (Sumter) for a state. Baldwin could not make a deal to bind the convention and nothing ever became of the negotiation.