The Pennsylvania Reserves in Northern Virginia 1863, Part IV: Daily Life in the Department of Washington

Today's post marks the final installment in my series on the Pennsylvania Reserves in Northern Virginia during the first half of 1863. The veteran division from the Keystone State arrived in Alexandria at the start of February 1863. The Union Army had sent the men to the Department of Washington to rest and recruit away from the front lines. As I wrote last week, the Reserves spent a lot of time on picket, fatigue, and guard duty. The constant threat of attacks by Confederate guerrillas made the work a little less than pleasant, but the men otherwise settled into the daily routine of camp life.

The weather proved uncooperative during the Reserves' first few months in Northern Virginia. As Richard Woolworth of the 4th Pennsylvania Reserves told his sister on March 22, "[s]now, hail, rain and sunshine alternately make the walking very disagreeable. We have been hoping for a change for the better but have been disappointed." A regimental history of the Bucktails recalled:

The winter. . . was remarkably severe, snow alternating with heavy rain making things generally uncomfortable. Even as late as March 31st, eighteen inches of snow were recorded; nor was this the last fall, as on April 5th, another heavy snow storm obstructed the camp. (Thomson & Rauch 245.)

All of the wet weather made for hard marching. The 2nd Pennsylvania Reserves broke camp on March 28 and headed for Fairfax Station. The distance was just four miles, but constant downpours had turned the road into a nearly impassable mess. The men "plunged through the mud up to their knees" and labored for several hours to reach their destination. (Woodward 256.) Towards the end of April, the weather began to show signs of improvement. Americus Murray of Co. H, 4th Pennsylvania Reserves told his cousins that on April 21, "[t]he Weather is pleasant and warm, the buds are opening, and the grass is growing very nicely, and I hope that we have had our last cold storm for this Spring."

Despite all of the miserable weather, the men reported generally healthy conditions in camp. Private Lewis Prall of Co. A, 1st Pennsylvania Reserves, informed his sister on March 16, "There is not much sickness here now. There is no cases of smallpox around here. All the boys are well and lively." Woolworth of the 4th felt much the same. He noted to his sister on March 22 that "we mostly enjoy good health." Of the sixteen sick soldiers, most were "very trifling cases." One man, who appeared "very low spirited" and "home sick," was sent to his family. The Bucktails, meanwhile, suffered from an outbreak of smallpox, but "the cases were few and the disease did not spread." (Thomson & Rauch 246.)

Soldiers' letters back home testify to relatively comfortable conditions in camp. Prall of the 1st Pennsylvania Reserves told his sister in March:

We have a good tent with a large fireplace in it and have six woolen blankets over us. We sleep warm at night. We get plenty to eat. We get fresh bread 3 times a week, also fresh beef besides sugar, coffee, crackers, rice, beans, salt pork, salt beef, and several other things. We have plenty to wear and will soon have plenty of money – we expect to get paid this week.

Sgt. Thomas Dick, Co. A, 12th Pennsylvania Reserves wrote to his brother on March 6 that "[w]e have comfortable quarters plenty of soft br[ea]d fresh beef and other things in proportion." Family members also supplemented the soldiers' victuals with packages from home. At the end of March, Prall "went to Alexandria to the express office and brought up 21 boxes for the regiment," including his own. The contents of Prall's package were "in good order" and "nothing was spoiled, except two or three pies was a little moldy."

Camp of the 1st Pennsylvania Reserves (30th Pennsylvania Infantry) near Fairfax Court House, June 1863 (courtesy of fold3.com; information on photo from MOLLUS-Massachusetts Civil War Photographs, U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center). 

Like all soldiers, the men of the Pennsylvania Reserves found a variety of ways to pass their down time in camp. Reading and letter writing were popular. The soldiers also bet their paychecks on card games like poker. Prall turned to a more productive past time and whittled rings from wood to send to his mother and little sister. Col. Charles Taylor of the Bucktails, who would soon fall at Gettysburg, sponsored a target shooting contest and offered a fifty cent prize to the winner. Some of the Reserves spent their free time playing baseball. Sgt. Dick of the 12th Reserves seemed rushed to finish a letter to his sister so he could enjoy the weather and check out the friendly athletic competition:

For it is such a beautiful day outside, that I can scarcely content myself to remain indoors while I write it. I can hear the loud shouts of the boys who are engaged at a game of ball while I write.

Some soldiers also took advantage of the proximity of the nation's capital. Murray of the 4th Reserves wrote to his cousins of an April trip to Washington City:

I have been in Washington to day and visited some places of interest. It is a grand sight to go over the Capitol grounds and view that noble structure, which is not yet finished, and will not be for a number of years yet. The Capitol is built of marble, and when completed will be one of the finest buildings in the world. The Capitol grounds are at present covered with a growth of fresh green grass; the parks contain a great variety of trees and shrubs, which are just putting forth their green leaves. The avenues and promenades are bordered by a great variety of flowers, many of which are already in full blossom.

A wartime view of Washington showing the unfinished Capitol dome and Trinity Episcopal Church, c. 1863 (courtesy of The Atlantic). Such sights awaited the men of the Pennsylvania Reserves who visited Washington City.

Camp life also provided time for quiet reflection. Sgt. Dick spoke for many in the Reserves when he wrote to his brother on March 6 about the sacrifices of the past year:

Our company presents quite a different appearance now to what it did when we were here before It is but a skeleton of its former self. We now draw rations for over 40 men. how does that compare with last winter when we drew rations for over 90 men; and the missing where are they? The bones of some of them black in the blood stained soil of the peninsula: Some of them repose on the disastrous plains of manasses; While others who fell at south mountain and antietam received a decent burial in the faithful old state of Maryland. I thought I had done. But others yet who perished at Fredericksburg go to swell the number in the graveyard of Virginia. There are others still who may be classed among the missing of Co H. some of them are languishing in the hospitals that have become so common in our land and others I suppose you see almost daily: some with their arms hangings powerless by their sides; and others with their limbs bent in an uncomely shape. and some with an empty coat sleeve that shows to plainly that they were members of the glorious old reserve.

Dick was all too aware of the toll that the war had taken. As he and the other soldiers continued their duty in front of Washington, an even bigger fight loomed on the horizon. Before long, many of these same men would be marching off to defend their home soil against Robert E. Lee's Confederates.

Sources

Ltr. from Thomas Dick to Brother, Mar. 6, 1863; Ltr. from Thomas Dick to Sister, Mar. 25, 1863; Ltr. from Americus Murray to Cousins, Apr. 19, 1863; Ltr. from Lewis Prall to Sister, March 16, 1863; Ltr. from Lewis Prall to Unknown (likely Sister), Apr. 1, 1863; Ltr. from Richard Woolworth to Sister, Mar. 22, 1863; O.R. Howard Thomson & William H. Rauch, History of the "Bucktails" (1906); Evan M. Woodward, Our Campaigns (1865).

Spelling and grammar are as in the original letters.

I would like to thank the Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps Historical Society for publishing all of the letters referenced in this post. This group is doing invaluable work to preserve the story of the Reserves. Please check out the society's website and lend your support.

The Pennsylvania Reserves Remember Dranesville -- at Gettysburg!

As many readers may know, I spent last weekend in Gettysburg. I hadn't been to the battlefield in many years, and the visit left me with a lot of impressions and emotions. (More on that in a future post!) As part of my tour, I focused on sites associated with the Pennsylvania Reserves. Two brigades from the division participated in the fighting at Gettysburg. I am fascinated by the Reserves and have written many posts about their time in Northern Virginia. Imagine my surprise when I discovered "Dranesville" inscribed on the 10th Pennsylvania Reserves Monument along with the names of other battles in which the regiment participated. The same goes for the Bucktails (13th Pennsylvania Reserves) Monument. Although I didn't get to all of the monuments for the Pennsylvania Reserves this time around, I searched the Historical Marker Database and noticed that the other regiments who fought at Dranesville (the 6th, 9th, and 12th Pennsylvania Reserves) also listed this small-scale engagement on their monuments. I've written quite a bit about the battle, including an article for the Civil War Trust. Even after experiencing all the carnage at Gettysburg (not to mention other places like Antietam), the former members of these five regiments made sure to commemorate their clash in and around a small Virginia hamlet during the first year of the war. Dranesville rarely appears in most modern accounts of the Civil War, but the hardened veterans of the Pennsylvania Reserves could never forget the sacrifices they made in one of their early and limited battles against the Confederate infantry.

Here are a few pictures that I snapped of the monuments:

Soldier atop the 10th Pennsylvania Reserves Monument at Big Round Top. The 10th Pennsylvania Reserves belonged to the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division (Pennsylvania Reserves), Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac. The Maltese Cross on the monument represents the Fifth Corps.

A list of engagements of the 10th Pennsylvania Reserves, starting with Dranesville.

I couldn't help but take this close-up of Dranesville on the 10th Pennsylvania Reserves Monument.

The 13th Pennsylvania Reserves Monument near the Wheatfield. The 13th Pennsylvania Reserves were better known as the "Bucktails." The regiment belonged to the 1st Brigade, 3rd Division (Pennsylvania Reserves), Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac. The soldier atop the monument is appropriately wearing a bucktail attached to his cap!

List of engagements in which the Bucktails participated, starting with Dranesville.

The Johnston Family and Benvenue: A Story of Civilians and the War in Northern Virginia, Part II

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a family who lived in my neck of the woods during the Civil War.  John R. Johnston purchased the 198-acre property known as "Benvenue" in 1858.  Within a few years, sectional tensions began to mount in Northern Virginia.  Johnston voted for the Ordinance of Secession in May 1861, but was anything but a Southern firebrand.  He explained to his wife that he felt pressured to vote for secession because he feared what would happen to him if he were viewed as pro-Union.  As the contending armies mobilized, Johnston largely kept to himself and tried to avoid the conflict swirling about him.  Like so many other civilians in Fairfax County, however, Johnston would soon get caught in the tempest of war.

Since the start of September 1861, the Union division of Gen. William F. "Baldy" Smith had been encamped on the Virginia side of the Chain Bridge, only a few miles from Johnston's farm.  On October 9, 1861, Smith pushed his men westward through Langley and occupied the area around Lewinsville.  The Pennsylvania Reserves under Gen. George A. McCall crossed the river at Chain Bridge on the same day and marched to Langley.  Johnston's property sat right in the middle of the Union Army's advance.
 

Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock (courtesy of Old Pictures)

Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock commanded a brigade in Smith's division.*  As Hancock's men set up their camp, Johnston's home was seized for use as a hospital.  On October 10, Alfred Castleman, the surgeon of the 5th Wisconsin, noted in his diary:

We have had much trouble and vexation to-day in establishing medical headquarters for the regiments of our brigade, but after much ordering of us and changing of orders, we are at last to take charge of the stone house of Mr. Jno. N. Johnson, in which, and in the tents we are able to pitch, we hope to make comfortable all the sick of our brigade.  (Castleman 41-42.)**

J. Harry Thompson, the surgeon of the 43rd New York, later recalled:

The house of Mr. John R. Johnston was taken as a hospital and devoted with all its furniture, beds, bedding, carpets, linens, towling, kitchen and other utensils and all the material usually appertaining to a household to the care of the sick and wounded of General Hancock's brigade and in fact of Gen. Wm. F. Smith's division. . . . (J.H. Thompson Test., Johnston SCC file, 68.)

Alfred Castleman, surgeon of the 5th Wisconsin (courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

A soldier-correspondent from the 49th Pennsylvania mentioned Johnston's house in a letter to his hometown paper:  "We occupy a fine country residence for Hospital purposes, which affords accommodation for 75 patients."  (Lancaster Daily Express, Dec. 17, 1861.)***   According to some sources, male nurses lived in a board and batten cottage behind the stone house.  (Hatch 87; Herrick 18.)  This building still stands today on the Benvenue property along Churchill Road in McLean. 

Around the same time the Union Army was converting his home into a field hospital, Johnston saw his farmland occupied by thousands of Union soldiers.  The Bucktails of McCall's division were some of the first men to arrive.  (S. Merchant Test., Johnston SCC File, 43-44.)  Their encampment formed a portion of the Pennsylvania Reserves' Camp Pierpont.  The 5th Wisconsin and 43rd New York from Hancock's brigade also established their camp at Benvenue.  (J.D. Crocker Test., Johnston SCC File, 28; S.J. Merchant Test., Johnston SCC File, 43-44; J.H. Thompson Test., Johnston SCC File, 62.)  The 6th Maine and 49th Pennsylvania -- the other two regiments in Hancock's brigade -- may likewise have encamped on Johnston's farm, although the evidence is less certain.  (J.D. Crocker Test., Johnston SCC File, 28; S.J. Merchant Test., Johnston SCC File, 43-44.)****  The regimental camps of Hancock's brigade belonged to Camp Griffin of Smith's division.

Sometime in October 1861 Johnston moved his wife and three children to the safety and security of Georgetown, D.C.  (M. Johnston Test., Johnston SCC File, 13.)  The exact timing is uncertain given contradictory accounts in the Southern Claims Commission (SCC) file.  Surgeon Thompson indicates that Johnston's wife and children went to Georgetown only after their house was taken for use as a hospital.  (J.H. Thompson Test., Johnston SCC File, 63.)   According to testimony from a neighbor, however, Marcia Johnston only learned that the Union Army was advancing during the course of her flight to Georgetown.  (J. Burke Test., Johnston SCC File, 38.)  In any event, her husband remained behind on the farm.  The Union Army permitted him to travel "at his pleasure" to Georgetown, and Johnston visited his family about once every two weeks.  (M. Johnston Test., Johnston SCC File, 16.)*****

The presence of so many Union soldiers had a devastating impact on Johnston's farm.  Potatoes and cabbage disappeared not long after the troops arrived.  Looking for an alternative to salt pork and hardtack, the solders also shot and skinned all of Johnston's pigs.  Teams of soldiers cut down acres of timber and ripped apart fencing.  They hauled the wood away by the wagon load for use in campfires and the construction of huts.  The soldiers also took all of Johnston's hay and corn to feed to their horses and mules.

The old stone farmhouse likewise sustained damage.  Thompson remembered that by the time Hancock's brigade left several months later, the house was "to all intents and purposes, practically destroyed."  (J.H. Thompson Test., Johnston SCC File, 68.)  The soldiers even left inscriptions on the attic rafters that are still visible to this day.

For all the destruction going on around him, Johnston apparently remained on good terms with the Union soldiers.  His wife remembered that "[s]oon as the Union troops came, he became their friend and they treated him kindly."  (M. Johnston Test., Johnston SCC File, 19.)  Union officers even traveled to Georgetown with Johnston.  Castleman considered Johnston "a loyalist."  (Castleman 42.)  The surgeon made the doubtful claim that "every article [Johnston] had to dispose of was bought and paid for, at high prices, by the soldiers."  (Castleman 42.)  In fact, Johnston was told to get receipts for the property if he wanted to get paid, and his farm manager later testified that Johnston was not paid compensation at the time.  (S.J. Merchant Test., Johnston SCC File, 43.)

Johnston gained some name recognition on the Northern homefront.  A rise on the backside of his farm was known as "Johnston's Hill."  The Union soldiers encamped near Langley and Lewinsville, including the Pennsylvania Reserves and the Vermont Brigade, often held military reviews and parades on the flat ground in front of the hill.******  The name "Johnston's Hill" appeared frequently in news stories about the camps.  In one account, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin reviewed the Pennsylvania Reserves at Johnston's Hill following their victory at Dranesville in December 1861.  (Phila. Press, Dec. 30, 1861.)

The Union soldiers remained on Johnston's farm throughout the winter of 1861-62.  On March 10, 1862, Gen. George B. McClellan set the Army of the Potomac in motion upon receiving intelligence that the Confederates had evacuated their position around Centreville.  The Pennsylvania Reserves and Smith's Division struck camp and joined the army's general movement to the west.

Johnston surely breathed a sigh of relief as tens of thousands of Federal troops marched away from his farm and neighborhood.  Other Union soldiers would later pass through the area or perform picket duty there, but Johnston never again saw massive encampments like those he experienced during the first winter of the war.  In early September 1862, units from Gen. Franz Sigel's corps took hay and potatoes from Johnston's farm and provided him with the receipts to prove it.  (Receipt, Co. K, 1st Ohio Light Artillery & Receipt, 68th N.Y., Johnston SCC File, 3-4.)

In November 1862 Johnston finally went to Georgetown to join his family.  He died three weeks later, on December 11, at the young age of thirty-five.  (The cause of death is unknown.)  Johnston was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown.  Johnston's widow only returned to Benvenue in the summer of 1865, where she saw first-hand the dramatic impact that the war had on her family's farm.

Several years after the Civil War, Marcia Johnston filed a claim with the SCC in the amount of $5,754.  She even claimed $120 for rent of Benvenue as a hospital between October 1861 and March 1862.  Unfortunately, the Commissioners found "no sufficient justification" for Johnston's vote in support of secession despite evidence of his loyalty, and the claim was denied.  (Johnston SCC File, 73.)

Johnston's tale resonates with me on a personal level.  After all, I live on the very land that used to belong to his farm, and Benvenue is a short walk away.  But Johnston's story also has a relevance that extends beyond the immediate community of McLean.  Civilians in Fairfax County and elsewhere in Northern Virginia (or elsewhere in the South, for that matter) saw their lives transformed directly by the presence of the armies.  Johnston was one of those ordinary citizens who suffered through extraordinary times.  As a young man, he had purchased a new farm near Langley and set out to improve his lot.  Johnston surely had hopes and dreams for the future.  A few short years later, the forces of war descended on Johnston's property, disrupted his livelihood, deprived him of privacy, and upended his family life.  We are reminded that war was hell of a different kind for civilians, but hell nonetheless.

Notes

*Hancock's brigade originally consisted of the 5th Wisconsin, 43rd New York, 47th Pennsylvania, and 49th Pennsylvania.  At some point in the fall of 1861, the 47th Pennsylvania was replaced by the 6th Maine.  (Jordan 36-37; McClellan 455.)

**Castleman misspelled Johnston's name and also used the wrong middle initial.

***A special thanks to John Hennessy, who sent me a copy of this article. 

****Jonathan D. Crocker, one of Johnston's neighbors, testified to the SCC that aside from the 5th Wisconsin, "a Penna. and a New York regiment were camped" on Johnston's farm, along with "some batteries."  According to Crocker, all of these units were from Hancock's brigade.  Other testimony confirms that the New York regiment was likely the 43rd New York.  The Pennsylvania Regiment could have been the 49th Pennsylvania, or less likely, the 47th Pennsylvania before its transfer to another brigade in Smith's division.  Samuel J. Merchant, Johnston's farm manager, testified that aside from the Bucktails and the 43rd New York, the "9th Penna." and "a Maine regiment" camped on the Johnston farm.  He later referred to the "9th Penna." and the "5th Maine" as part of Hancock's brigade.  The "9th Penna." likely means the 49th Pennsylvania; the 9th Pennsylvania was not part of Hancock's brigade.  An alternative theory is that the 9th Penna. was the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves of McCall's division.  Moreover, there was no 5th Maine under Hancock. Instead, Merchant must have meant the 6th Maine or even the 5th Wisconsin.  Merchant's testimony was taken in 1877, so his recollection of the exact regiments may have been flawed due to the passage of time.

*****It is unclear whether Johnston resided in the main house on his property or in some other structure.

******Johnston's Hill is located along and to the east of the upper part of Pine Hill Road in McLean.  The parade ground was roughly located on the site of the present-day Madison of McLean townhouse community along Madison McLean Dr. off of Rt. 123. (See here for a map.)  I plan to explore the story of the parade ground in a future post.

Sources

Alfred L. Castleman, The Army of the Potomac, Behind the Scenes: A Diary of Unwritten History (1863); Winslow R. Hatch, Old Roads and New Insights: Adventures in Discovery (1985); Carole L. Herrick, Images of America: McLean (2011); Historical Marker Database, "Benvenue;" "John Richards Johnston," at findagrave.com; David M. Jordan, Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier's Life (1988); Lancaster Daily Express, Dec. 17, 1861; George B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1864); Phila. Press, Dec. 14, 1861; Phila. Press, Dec. 30, 1861; Southern Claims Commission File for Marcia Johnston, #22121, available at fold3.com ("Johnston SCC File"); J.R. Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserves Corps (1865); Wisconsin Historical Society, "Alfred Lewis Castleman," Dictionary of Wisconsin History.

The Pennsylvania Reserves at Manassas: A Drunken State of Mind

As I discussed last week, the Pennsylvania Reserves left the outskirts of Alexandria during the second week of April 1862 and established camp near Manassas Junction.  The division was on the move along with the rest of Gen. Irvin McDowell's command, which President Lincoln had recently detached from the Army of the Potomac.  Although their stay at Manassas was a short one, the Pennsylvanians found plenty of ways to pass the time. 

Consumption of intoxicating beverages apparently ranked near the top of the list.  The more I read regimental histories, memoirs, and newspapers accounts, the more I am convinced that if the soldiers weren't fighting and marching, they were drinking.  And nothing stood in the way of the men procuring their own supply of liquor at Manassas.  As Archibald Hill of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves recalled:

[F]rom some source, a considerable quantity of spirits had made its way among the boys. Upon inquiring "whence such great good-fortune," I was informed that a train of cars laden with whiskey, bound for [Nathaniel] Banks' Division, via Manassas Gap, had broken down just beyond the junction, and that OUR BOYS had flocked over, and unhesitatingly appropriated said whiskey to their own use. (Hill 226-27.)

The men of Hill's regiment took full advantage of their discovery:

Scarcely a man was there who had not his canteen full; the most of the boys had already become inebriated, and were making an unwarrantable amount of noise. . . .  Before the close of that eventful day there may possibly have been ten sober men remaining in the regiment; but I doubt it.   (Hill 227-28.) 

Likewise, a few Bucktails pried open a boxcar and discovered about a dozen bottles of whiskey that were intended for use by the Pennsylvania Reserves' medical director.  The story, unfortunately, had a less than happy ending.  The Bucktails began to drink from other bottles in the stash.  A soldier tried to warn his companions that what they were drinking was "no bitters at all," but they continued to imbibe.  (Thomson & Rauch 92.)  The bottles actually contained laudanum, and two men died the next day from ingesting the bitter-tasting narcotic.

"Drunken Soldier" by A.R. Waud (courtesy of Library of Congress).  The sketch is a bit light, but I couldn't resist using the image.

A New York Times reporter visiting the Pennsylvania Reserves was appalled by the soliders' bad behavior:

It is to be regretted that at Manassas Junction the most lamentable misrule prevails. Stragglers or drunken soldiers are the only objects of interest to be seen in the vicinity. . . .  (N.Y. Times, Apr. 11, 1862.)

He singled out the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves for particular scorn:

Your correspondent, passing through the place this morning, saw a First Lieutenant and Sergeant of the Fifth Pennsylvania Reserve arm in arm, staggering together over the rail track, in a state of disgraceful inebriety. It is stated that the Colonel of the Fifth Pennsylvania Reserve serves out whisky to his men twice daily and that this morning the Conductor of a train opened six barrels of the beverage, and gave the soldiers free access thereto. . . .  It is certain that over a hundred drunken gorillas, with the number of that regiment on their caps, were occupying the place, threatening to shoot peaceful contrabands as being prime causes of the war -- insulting peaceful travelers -- subject to no rule whatever. It is to be hoped that a speedy stop will be put to such disgraceful proceedings.  (N.Y. Times, Apr. 11, 1862.)

Maj. George Dare from the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves rushed to defend his regiment's honor in a letter submitted to the Philadelphia Press.  He admitted that upon arriving at Manassas on April 10, "some of the men found there a lot of whiskey in some of the open cars."  (Phila. Press, Apr. 25, 1862.)  However, Dare denied the allegations of drunkenness and misbehavior.  He rebuked the Times for publishing an article which "vilifies a thousand of Pennsylvania's best young men, and a colonel who has occupied various positions in our regular army for the past twenty-five years. . . ."  (Phila. Press, Apr. 25, 1862.) 

The Columbia (Pa.) Spy also entered the fray.  In an article published on April 26, 1862, the Spy explained:

We have not seen the paper, and only learn the charge through Lieut. [Sam] Evans, Quartermaster of the Fifth, who authorizes us to deny it as altogether false.  (Columbia Spy, Apr. 26, 1862.)

The Spy informed readers of Evans' version of events:

He says in explanation of the origin of the report, that Government has been supplying the men with a whiskey ration in bad weather.  The Division Commissary had brought on the cars from Alexandria several barrels of whiskey, which the "Bucktails" discovered, and knocking in the heads, they, with assistance from a New York Regiment, finished it.  Of course there was a disgraceful frolic, in which we are sorry to learn, two men from the Fifth participated, one of whom got drunk.  The only officers drunk (and there were several) were of the New York regiment.  (Columbia Spy, Apr. 26, 1862.)*

The paper took aim at war correspondents from the Empire State:

The New York dailies employ a reckless set of reporters, who, deprived of their past facilities for betraying the movements of the army to the enemy, resort to the safer and equally congenial occupation for their mischievous pens--blackening the character of Pennsylvania soldiers.  No repetition of warning will ever teach these slanderous scribblers caution. . . until a half dozen of them are shot as wholesome examples.  (Columbia Spy, Apr. 26, 1862.)

The actual version of events is probably lost to history, but the seemingly trivial debate over the behavior of the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves tells us something about moral attitudes towards alcohol consumption and drunkenness in the army.  Soldiers drank to escape the realities of war (and because it was fun), but knew that intoxication could also bring contempt from the outside world.  Such an awareness goes a long way to explaining why Hill felt a bit guilty about his own drinking at Manassas and tried to ease his conscience:

Readers, perhaps you are an advocate of the temperance cause; I hope you are—I am. But I beg you will not censure me for drinking on this occasion. You may be a civilian—a lady, perhaps—and you don't know how a man feels when exposed to the inclemency of the weather—his feet wet and cold—his clothes damp, and a chill wind penetrating them! Under circumstances like these "something," dear reader, is of inconceivable service, warming one up, and making one feel good generally.  (Hill 227.)

Wartime view of officers drinking in a sutler's tent by Arthur Lumley (courtesy of Library of Congress).

Not all liquor was taken from army trains at the railroad junction.  One sutler smuggled hard cider into camp and offered the drink at a price of ten cents a glass.  Even this supply was not safe from the Pennsylvania boys.  A few enterprising men cut a hole in the sutler's tent from behind, tapped the back side of the barrel, and sold two times the cider for half the price.  According to Evan Woodward of the 2nd Pennsylvania Reserves, these soldiers were "liberally patronized" and soon drained the barrel of cider.  (Woodward 92.)

Thankfully for the sake of military discipline and sobriety, the Pennsylvania Reserves soon resumed their march.  On April 17, John F. Reynold's brigade struck camp and moved along the Orange & Alexandria Railroad towards Catlett's Station.  (OR, 1:12:3, 80; Sypher 174.)  The brigades of George Meade and E.O.C. Ord joined the advance the next day.  (OR, 1:12:3, 85; Sypher 174.)  By the start of May, the Pennsylvania Reserves had marched to Falmouth, across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg.  In June, the men would join the Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula. Amidst the carnage of the Seven Days, many soldiers from the Reserves would probably have given anything to be back in Manassas, enjoying a bottle of whiskey with their comrades.

Note
*The whiskey supply mentioned here was likely the same one discussed above in connection with the Bucktails episode.

Sources
Columbia Spy, Apr. 26, 1862; A.F. Hill, Our Boys: The Personal Experiences of a Soldier in the Army of the Potomac (1864); New York Times, Apr. 11, 1862; Philadelphia Press, Apr. 25, 1862; J.R. Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps (1865); O.R. Howard Thomson & William H. Rauch, History of the "Bucktails" (1906); Edward Morrison Woodward, Our Campaigns (1865).

The Pennsylvania Reserves on the Move (Again): McCall's Division Heads to Manassas

The last time we visited Gen. George McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves, they had just settled into camp near Alexandria after passing several months in Langley. As part of Gen. Irvin McDowell's First Corps, the Reserves waited for orders to go to the Peninsula with the rest of the Army of the Potomac.  Instead, on April 4, 1862, the First Corps was detached from Gen. George McClellan's command and retained for the defenses of Washington as part of the newly-created Department of the Rappahannock.  McDowell, who was placed in charge of the department, wasted little time in sending his troops south along the Orange & Alexandria (O&A) Railroad.

Rufus King's division marched first on April 4.  McCall was not far behind.  On April 8, McDowell ordered McCall's division to advance to Manassas the following day.  The artillery and cavalry were to proceed "via Fairfax Court-House and Centreville," while the infantry was to move "by rail."  (OR, 1:12:3, 61.)

Gen. John F. Reynolds, commander of the First Brigade, Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps (courtesy of Wikipedia).  Reynolds would rise to lead the First Corps, Army of the Potomac.  He was killed at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863.

Gen. John F. Reynold's brigade was chosen to go first.  On the morning of April 9, his men struck camp and marched "in the midst of a furious storm of mingled rain and hail" to a point along the O&A Railroad outside of Alexandria.  (Soger Boy, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)  As Orrin Stebbins of the Bucktail regiment (13th Pennsylvania Reserves) wrote to his local paper:

We traveled three miles [from camp] in the mud boot deep and the cold wind beating the frozen rain into our faces, and wetting our clothes to freeze during the day.  We arrived at the cars about noon--stood in the storm and mud two hours, then piled into or on them five or seven deep, sat there two hours longer, then the old engine gave a few snorts and began to move off.  (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)*

Some of Reynold's soldiers were unlucky enough to ride in open cars, where they were exposed to the harsh weather on the way to Manassas.  Still others, including some men from the 5th and 8th Pennsylvania Reserves, were forced to spend the night waiting for additional transportation to arrive.  As Maj. George Dare of the 5th Pennsylvania Reserves recalled, the men sought "what comforts they could find in a few vacant houses, while others were without any other shelter than their blankets."  (Phila. Press, Apr. 25, 1862.)

The soldiers who managed to find space on the rail cars complained of the slow, arduous journey to Manassas.  Stebbins felt that the railroad was "the poorest and. . . steepest grade of any I ever saw." (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)  Another Bucktail going by the pen name "Soger Boy" told the Wellsboro Agitator:

I have seen and been on what were considered slow coaches in the railroad line, but the Orange and Alexandria road can take my hat.  This must have been the Railroad the chap referred to when he said they had to put the cow-catcher on behind to keep the cattle from running over the train.  (Soger Boy, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)

The bad weather continued unchecked as the train crawled towards its destination.  Snow was falling at a rapid clip.  By the time the trains arrived near Manassas late that night, the men had suffered through damp, freezing weather for hours on end.  As Stebbins recalled, "[t]his was the harshest storm I ever saw in the South."  (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)  He was nonetheless confident that the army brass had not made the men suffer unnecessarily:

It is useless to say that there was some tall swearing at those high in command for moving an army in such a storm to lie idle in good weather, but of course they had good reasons for doing so, for I have no reason to think that they wish to expose our lives and health without an object.  (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)

Reynold's men gladly left the train cars about two miles beyond Bull Run.  Here the soldiers discovered winter huts that the Confederates had abandoned when they left Manassas back in March.  As Evan Woodward of the 2nd Pennsylvania Reserves remembered:

We had anticipated a hard night of it, in the open fields without fires, so these proved a perfect god-send to us, as the snow was deep and the storm was raging with fury, and many of the men had been exposed through the day on platform cars, so closely huddled together that they could hardly move. We were in the cabins but a few moments before bright crackling fires were burning in the ample chimney-places and we were partaking of a bountiful supper of hot coffee, crackers and junk.  (Woodward, Our Campaigns, 90.)

The snowfall continued overnight and by the next morning, five inches coated the ground.  Reynolds men formed at 8 a.m. and marched three miles south along the O&A Railroad.  Passing through Manassas Junction, the soldiers observed the ruin that the Confederates had left behind.  Stebbins described the scene of what he perceived as a hasty retreat:

The whole country was one vast field of destruction--one barren desert, covered only with sham forts, rifle pits, barrels filled with sand, old wagons, broken down engines and cars, chimneys and walls of burnt buildings, dead horses, piles of burned cracker barrels, coffins, tomb stones and monuments of every kind and description that a panic-stricken would value less than life. . . .  (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862.)

The men continued their march and finally set up camp near the edge of a pine forest outside of the railroad junction.  The units who were left behind in Alexandria boarded cars that day for Manassas and joined their fellow soldiers in camp.

Meanwhile, McCall's Second Brigade under Gen. George G. Meade and Third Brigade under Gen. E.O.C. Ord learned that they would be advancing to Manassas by foot.  Meade, seemingly pleased with the news, wrote to his wife:

The bad storm we have had has ceased, and the weather looks favorable, so that the change from being cooped up in cars to marching is agreeable.  (Meade 258.)

Considering the logistical difficulties of going by rail, the change in plans was a wise one.  On April 11, the two brigades left Alexandria and marched down the Little River Turnpike.**  That night the men encamped about three miles beyond Fairfax Court House.  The next day the two brigades moved through Centreville and prepared their dinner along Bull Run. They joined the rest of the division outside Manassas that evening.  McCall's men would remain in the area for almost a week before bidding the region good-bye. 

Up Next
My next post will look at the the Pennsylvania Reserves in camp at Manassas.  I hope readers will indulge my recent obsession with the Reserves.  I have followed their adventures and exploits while at Langley, so it was only natural that I picked up the trail once they left.  Of course, this blog is not just about the Reserves, so my next post will be the last one on McCall's men for the time being, until they move back into the geographic space covered by this blog.

Notes
*Sources indicate that Reynold's brigade set out from Alexandria some time between  three and five that afternoon.  (Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862; Meade 257; Phila. Press, Apr. 25, 1862; Woodward, Our Campaigns, 89.) 

**J.R. Sypher's classic history of the Pennsylvania Reserves indicates that the entire division moved to Manassas on April 9, 1862, but most sources, including letters written around the time of the advance, confirm that Meade and Ord's men marched from camp near Alexandria on April 11, 1862 and arrived in Manassas the next day.  (Hardin 23; Meade 258-59; Soger Boy, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862; Sypher 172-73; Woodward, Third Reserve, 68.)

Sources
Col. Crockett, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862; M.D. Hardin, History of the Twelfth Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps (1890); A.F. Hill, Our Boys: The Personal Experiences of a Soldier in the Army of the Potomac (1864); George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1 (1913); Alan T. Nolan, The Iron Brigade: A Military History (1994 ed.); Phila. Press, Apr. 25, 1862; Stephen W. Sears, To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign (1992); Soger Boy, Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 23, 1862; J.R. Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps (1865); O.R. Howard Thomson & William H. Rauch, History of the "Bucktails" (1906); Edward Morrison Woodward, History of the Third Pennsylvania Reserve (1883); Edward Morrison Woodward, Our Campaigns (1865).

Snapshots of Alexandria at the Start of the Peninsula Campaign

A few of my recent posts have focused on George A. McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves as they moved across Northern Virginia from Langley to Hunter's Mills and Alexandria in March 1862.  The division established camp on the outskirts of Alexandria at a spot near the Fairfax Seminary (today's Virginia Theological Seminary).  During the course of my research, I discovered several fascinating newspaper accounts about occupied Alexandria at the start of the Peninsula Campaign.  Some of these articles were written by soldiers for their hometown papers back in Pennsylvania.  The Philadelphia Press also published special dispatches by war correspondent George Alfred Townsend, who came to Alexandria as the divisions of the Army of the Potomac converged on the town in mid-March.  These news articles paint a portrait of wartime Alexandria as seen through the eyes of Northern observers.  Together, they reveal a city profoundly transformed by military occupation and civil strife.

Starting around March 17, 1862 and continuing for a few weeks, the Union Army moved 121,500 soldiers, 14,592 horses, 1,150 wagons, 74 ambulances, 44 batteries, and mountains of other supplies and equipment to Ft. Monroe at the tip of the Peninsula.  (McClellan 109.)  Gen. George McClellan used Alexandria as his primary point of embarkation for the campaign.  Most of the Union soldiers waiting in Alexandria were struck by the sheer magnitude of this logistical feat unfolding before them.   The scene made quite an impression on a soldier from the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (or "Bucktails").  As he wrote to the Wellsboro Agitator on April 3:

From the hills adjoining our camp, we have a fine view of Alexandria . . . also the old Potomac is clearly seen for ten miles in extent, thickly dotted with vessels of all descriptions.  The wharfs in Alexandria are crowded with vessels for the embarkation of troops, who are leaving daily for Fortress Monroe, and other places down in "Dixie."  (Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.)

A soldier from Clearfield, Pennsylvania realized that he was witnessing a truly historic moment:

Last night at its mid-hour I stood on the brow of the gentle eminence on which we are bivouacked, and grazed on the sublime spectacle before me.  The glancing of the [P]otomac moonbeams, the blazing camp fires of a vast army scattered over thousands of acres, and the myriad twinkling lights of the national capital formed a night scene, the likes of which I may probably never look upon again.  (Democratic Banner, Mar. 26, 1862.)

Townsend provided newspaper readers with a dramatic description of his view from atop Seminary Hill outside of Alexandria:

The monument to Washington lifted its stumpy shaft against the hills, and the great dome of the Capitol was purely and beautifully white.  A hundred steam transports lay in the river; half as many clusters of white tents stretched along Arlington Heights; a score of forts bristled upon as many hilltops, and the foreground was a confused plain of wagons, mules, artillery, and men.  The pregnancy of the time and the power of the Government was here revealed at a winkfull, as never, for all ages, it shall be again.  What other generations shall only read I had seen!  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)

Orrin Stebbins, another soldier-correspondent from the Bucktail regiment, editorialized on McClellan's personal involvement in the preparations for the upcoming campaign:

Gen. McClellan is as busy as a bee, every moment of his time; either dashing from camp to camp--at the wharf, or the Capital, or else in his room laying plans to puzzle the brains of common politician, and to crush this great rebellion.  His boat is now anchored in the bay, with his staff and body guard on hand, ready to start at a moment's warning. . . . (Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.) 

Townsend rode to McClellan's headquarters at "a cosy farm house on a hill top."  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)  He captured the sense of importance that had descended on the place:

Here. . . paymasters, quartermasters, commissaries, and brigadier generals have quarters.  Forage of every description surrounds the house; teamsters come lumbering through the rents in the garden fence, and discharge their burdens under the apple tree boughs in the orchard.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)

The nearby Fairfax Seminary also attracted Townsend's attention.  He considered it "a noble building, with wings, dormitories, and chapels."  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)  The Union Army had converted the seminary into a hospital to treat the sick and wounded.  With a touch of characteristic melodrama, Townsend lamented that "where tuitions were once made in the quiet mysteries of religion, lives now go out in pain, and the wounded and diseased toss and tremble in the agonies of death."  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)

Wartime view of the Fairfax Seminary outside of Alexandria (courtesy of Library of Congress). Townsend took note of "the lofty cross" atop the cupola.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 20, 1862.)  Stebbins described the seminary as "a splendid building. . . situated on a high and beautiful hill, in the midst of a splendid grove."  (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862.)

Stebbins had an opportunity to visit town and offered readers a few observations. He felt that "Alexandria, next to Cumberland, Maryland, is the most forsaken and dilapidated place I ever saw." (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862.) He noticed that "[h]undreds of houses are deserted, and the whole city looks as though it was built before the flood, and had never repair." (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862.) Stebbins passed by the Marhsall House, scene of Col. Elmer Ellsworth's slaying the year before, and discovered that "[t]he old secesh flag-staff is still standing on the top of the house." (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26,1862.)

Townsend contemplated the changes that the war and occupation brought to Alexandria.  As he wrote in an article entitled "Transition Period in Alexandria":

If one fact in Alexandria is more apparent that any other, it is that the city is losing its Southern character.  Alexandria will never again be a Virginia town.  The Yankees have occupied its dwellings, hotels, and warehouses; driven out the negro and the negro-trader, and put his foot upon the old customs, institutions, and laws.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 28, 1862.)

He was particularly struck by the war's impact on slavery in Alexandria:

The slave-pen, as such, is no more. . . .  whatever Congress may enact relative to bondage, here or elsewhere, I am sure that slavery is at an end wherever the Northern army goes.  The soldiers, unused to such scenes, will not tolerate them; and the slave auctioneer -- an old favorite in Alexandria -- would provoke the cry of "shame" if he mounted the block to auction off either man or woman in the presence of these hard-fisted freemen of Vermont, Michigan, or Pennsylvania.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 28, 1862.)

The former slave pen in Alexandria, located at 1315 Duke Street (courtesy of Library of Congress).  Before the Civil War, the city was a major center of the domestic slave trade.  Franklin & Armfield, located here prior to Price, Birch &  Co., was one of the largest slave dealers in the United States.  The firm sent over 3,750 slaves to cotton and sugar plantations in the Deep South.  Following occupation in May 1861, the Union Army used the slave pen as a guard house. 

Townsend may have exaggerated the strength of anti-slavery sentiment prevailing in the Union Army at the time.  He also overlooked the complicity of the Federal authorities in holding fugitive slaves at the city jail or in taking money from absentee masters to keep slaves locked up.  But some soldiers, like Stebbins, surely were appalled by the vestiges of slavery in Alexandria and elsewhere in Northern Virginia.  As Stebbins explained to readers:

I always, from my earliest recollections, had a natural hatred for that Southern institution, but that hatred grows stronger and stronger, as I see the ignorance and immorality which follows in its train, and the desolated country, dilapidated towns and cities which might hum with industry, with the grass growing in their streets.  (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862.)

Stebbins saw the slave pen in Alexandria, but the words would not come:  "I would describe it if I knew what to compare it to, but I do not, for nothing but a slave-pen can be compared to it."  (Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862.)

The Northern presence in Alexandria encouraged migration of all kinds.  Townsend commented on one such demographic shift:

The importation of Northern ladies. . . has not been calculated, thus far, to impress the Virginians with our social superiority.  There are about five hundred women in Alexandria, all of the migratory description, many of whom should have been camp vivandiers.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 28, 1862.)

When all was said and done, Townsend betrayed a sense of affection for the natives, or at least those of wealth and power:

The leading families have gone, and in many respects, Alexandria will miss them.  There was much of hospitality, ingenuousness, and real nobility about these Virginians.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 28, 1862.)

The war correspondent also expressed his hope for the future and his belief in Northern superiority:

With the ascendancy of the wild tribes of the North. . . a new era will dawn upon this beautiful, but neglected country.  I hope to see Pennsylvania barns and stack-houses upon these hills, and Yankee mills by all the steams.  (Phila. Press, Mar. 28, 1862.) 

Townsend and the solider-correspondents witnessed and wrote about the movement of the very army that could win a victory and bring peace to the land.  However the war would unfold in the coming months, they also captured the dramatic changes that had already arrived in Alexandria along with the Union Army.  Lucky for us, their articles survive to tell the story.

Sources

City of Alexandria/Alexandria Black History Museum, "Alexandria's African-American History" (web page); Civil War Washington, D.C., "Alexandria's Jail and Contrabands;" The Friends of Freedmen's Cemetery (website); Democratic Banner, Mar. 26, 1862; George B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1864); Philadelphia Press, Mar. 20, 1862; Philadelphia Press, Mar. 28, 1862; Wellsboro Agitator, Mar. 26, 1862; Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.

Military Reviews to Pass the Time: McDowell's Corps Waits in Alexandria

As I discussed in last Thursday's post, Federal commander George McClellan ordered the scattered elements of his army to concentrate at Alexandria in mid-March 1862.   Tens of thousands of men soon boarded transports at the city docks and headed down the Potomac, destined for the Peninsula and the advance on Richmond.  The soldiers in Gen. Irvin McDowell's First Corps, however, remained in camp near Alexandria as the rest of the army moved south.  McClellan had originally intended to send McDowell to the Peninsula first, but plans changed for logistical and strategic reasons.  Private A.F. Hill of the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves recalled the prevailing sentiment among many of his fellow soldiers:

Day after day passed away; troops were continually embarking, and still our turn did not come. Anxiously and impatiently did we await the order to go on board; for we wanted to be off for Dixie. All felt that some important movement was about to be made, and we were eager to begin active operations—to meet the rebels. (Hill 210.)

The days spent in camp presented the perfect opportunity for one of Little Mac's favorite pastimes.  On Tuesday afternoon, March 25, the entire First Corps -- three whole divisions -- assembled outside of Alexandria near Fairfax Seminary and Ft. Ward for a grand review.  The sights and sounds of such pageantry made quite an impression on many of the young men that day.  William Ray of the 7th Wisconsin observed that "[t]he whole country seemed to be alive, so great were the number of men of all grades and in all positions of modern warfare."  (Ray in Herdegen & Murphy 72.)  The review stirred a sense of pride and patriotism.  As Orren Stebbins, a Bucktail from George A. McCall's Pennsylvania Reserves, wrote to his hometown paper:

There were 45,000 in one solid mass, which looked like a moving forest of bayonetts [sic] -- they looked invincible, and I believe they are, when fighting for that which is dearer than life itself -- "Liberty and Union." (Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.) 

The review also gave soldiers the opportunity to get a glimpse of McClellan himself.  In words reminiscent of a proclamation that Little Mac had recently issued to his men, Stebbins told the Agitator that "McClellan sat upon his fiery steed, and moved not, but watched every move as a father would watch the movements of his children."  (Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.)*  All in all, the Bucktail felt that "I never saw but one thing surpassed it, and that was the grand review [at Bailey's Crossroads] last fall."  (Wellsboro Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.)

Gen. Irvin McDowell with Gen. George McClellan, from The Photographic History of the Civil War in Ten Volumes, Vol. 1: The Opening Battles (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The day was not without a comedic moment.  An entourage of journalists followed a group of high-ranking Union officers as they rode past the assembled soldiers at the start of the review.   William Howard Russell of The London Times was an "awkward rider" and struggled to keep up.  (Ray in Herdegen & Murphy 72.)  According to Ray, Russell's poor horsemanship "caused a great deal of sport," and the men of the 7th Wisconsin "just hooted at him."  (Ray in Herdegen & Murphy 72.)

The grand review elicited a generally favorable reaction from the newspapers. A headline in the Philadelphia Press proclaimed, "A Magnificent Display."  (Phila. Press, Mar. 26, 1862.)  Betraying a sense of pride in McDowell's men, the New York Times reported that "[t]he troops never looked better."  Russell noted that British officers who attended the grand review had an "exceedingly favorable" impression of the event, "partly owing, perhaps, to the idea they had formed of this great volunteer army, and partly in consequence of the undeniably good physical properties of the troops."  (as reprinted in N.Y. Times, Apr. 30, 1862.)  Surely these soldiers were destined for great things in the name of the Union.

Lord Lyons, British Minister to the United States, 1858-65 (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Most of the men had little down time before the next big event.  McDowell decided to hold a review in honor of Lord Lyons, the British Minister to the United States.  On March 27, the corps commander hosted a lunch for the Minister and several British Army officers.  After the repast, Lord Lyons and the other dignitaries proceeded to the nearby parade ground outside of Alexandria.  Around two to three thousand spectators had gathered to watch the review, including "many carriages of ladies and several equestriennes."  (N.Y. Times, Mar. 28, 1862.)  McDowell's wife also attended.  Starting at 2:30, the divisions of Gen. William B. Franklin and Rufus King paraded before the dignitaries under a beautiful spring sky. (OR, 1:51:1, 64.)  Gen. McCall's Pennsylvanians, however, were not invited to attend the review.   According to Gen. George G. Meade, a brigade commander in McCall's division, McDowell claimed that "the ground was limited, and that he found it took too much time to review three divisions, and therefore he only ordered two on the ground." (Meade 254-55.)

Following the review, Lord Lyons and the other guests joined McDowell for tea, a most English of traditions.  By all accounts, the foreign guests were impressed with what they saw.  According to a glowing report in the Weekly Mariettian:

[T]hese gentlemen spoke in terms of unqualified approbation of the general appearance of the troops, not only in point of discipline, but of physique, and in addition, remarked that they had never seen a finer body of men in any army.  They also spoke in the highest terms of Gen. McDowell.  (Weekly Mariettian, Apr. 5, 1862.) 

Not everyone was so pleased with the review.  The Pennsylvania boys in McCall's division were still smarting from McDowell's decision to exclude them.  Meade wrote to his wife on March 28 that many of the Pennsylvanians had a sneaking suspicion that McDowell "did not consider them sufficiently presentable for his English friends."  (Meade 255.)  He elaborated on the reaction of McCall's men to the perceived slight and provided his own assessment of the Pennsylvanians in his division:

. . . some little feeling has been excited by [McDowell's] course, particularly as he has had the bad taste to come out to-day with an order extolling the troops for their yesterday's appearance, and announcing that the English officers pronounced them equal to any troops in the world. I was quite satisfied with the inspection of the appearance and movements of the men, that our Pennsylvania ragamuffins are fully equal to them, though in some few instances, like Phil Kearney's brigade (who had spent a mint of money on them), their uniforms were in rather better order. Our fellows console themselves with the reflection that the only troops in the First Army Corps that have beaten the enemy in a fair field, with equal numbers, are the Pennsylvania ragamuffins, whereas of the divisions deemed worthy to be presented to the Englishmen the greater portion were regiments who either did nothing or else behaved shamefully at Bull Run.  (Meade 255.)**

Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. Chase worried about the message that the spectacles were sending to a Northern public hungry for action against the Rebels.  He wrote to McDowell "as a true friend" not long after the March 25 review:

It grieves me to see the confidence of the country, which was revived by the late movement of the Army of the Potomac, already relapsing into distrust. Let me beg you to do all that is possible to inspire vigor and energy. Permit me also to suggest the expediency of having no more reviews. The country is in no mood to hear of anything, however useful and valuable in itself, which savors of show rather than action. Think how much is to be done and how near is midsummer.  (in Warden 422.)

Some of the men in McDowell's corps were also getting tired of the reviews and wanted nothing more than to join their fellow soldiers on the Peninsula.  John Chase of the 1st Massachusetts Light Artillery in Franklin's division told his brother about the recent spate of reviews in a March 29, 1862 letter.  As he wrote, "we have had Lord Lyons and all the rest of the great men to see us. . . ."  (in Collier & Collier 71.)  But Chase had already become jaded. The artilleryman was starting to "grow sick of this cleaning up carriages and harnesses and uniforms and I think if they dont [sic] want us to fight they had better send us home."  (in Collier & Collier 71.)  Unfortunately for Chase and others like him,  McDowell's men had a while to go before the Union Army would put them to good use against the Confederates.

Notes

*On March 14, 1862, McClellan issued a proclamation to the "Soldiers of the Army of the Potomac," in which he expressed his affection for the men under his command:

I am to watch over you as a parent over his children, and you know that your General loves you from the depths of his heart. It shall be my care -- it has ever been -- to gain success with the least possible loss. But I know that if it is necessary you will willingly follow me to our graves for our righteous cause.  (N.Y. Times, Mar. 16, 1862.)

**Meade's reference is to Dranesville, a battle won by soldiers from the Pennsylvania Reserves on December 20, 1861.

Sources

Russel Beatie, Army of the Potomac: McClellan's First Campaign, March-May 1862 (2007); John S. Collier & Bonnie B. Collier (eds.), Yours for the Union: The Civil War Letters of John W. Chase, First Massachusetts Light Artillery (2004); Lance Herdegen & Sherry Murphy (eds.), Four Years with The Iron Brigade: The Civil War Journal of William R. Ray, Company F, Seventh Wisconsin Volunteers (2002); A.F. Hill, Our Boys: The Personal Experiences of a Soldier in the Army of the Potomac (1864); George B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (1864); George Meade, The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. 1 (1913); New York Times, Mar. 26, 1862; N.Y. Times, Mar. 16, 1862; N.Y. Times, Mar. 28, 1862; N.Y. Times, Apr. 30, 1862; Official Records, 1:51:1, 63-64; Philadelphia Press, Mar. 26, 1862; Edmund J. Raus, Jr., Banners South: A Northern Community at War (2005); J.R. Sypher, History of the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps (1865); Robert B. Warden, An Account of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (1874); Weekly Mariettian (Marietta, Pa.), Apr. 5, 1862; Wellsboro (Pa.) Agitator, Apr. 9, 1862.

The Presentation of the Colors to the Victors of Dranesville

The month of January 1862 was cold, damp, and miserable for the Pennsylvania Reserves encamped at Langley.  The men huddled inside their crude huts as the snow and rain fell and the ground outside turned into mud.  The winter weather even interfered with the daily routine of army life.  As a soldier from the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves wrote to the Philadelphia Press, "owing to the unfavorable weather with which we have been visited, drill and other duties have been almost suspended."  Nothing, however, not even the elements, could get in the way of bestowing honors on the victors of Dranesville. 

The Pennsylvania Reserves had become the darling of  the political and military establishment ever since the battle.  At the end of the December, Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin visited the Reserves at Camp Pierpont and declared that the regiments involved at Dranesville would have the name of the battle inscribed on their standards.  (See here for a recent post on the governor's visit.)  The flags were soon sent to Washington to be painted with the battle honors. 

Flag of the 6th Pennsylvania Reserves with a barely visible "Dranesville" inscription (courtesy of Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee)

Flag of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves with a faded "Dranesville" inscription (courtesy of Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee)

A couple weeks later, on January 11, the entire division participated in the presentation of the colors to the men who had won the day at Dranesville.  All fifteen regiments, "in full uniform," formed and marched out to the parade ground, which was "in a wretched condition, occasioned by the rains of the previous day."  ("Letter from Camp Pierpont," Phila. Press, Jan. 20, 1862.)  A fifteen-gun salute was fired by the Reserves' artillery, and various regimental bands "returned the compliment."  ("Letter from Camp Pierpont," Phila. Press, Jan. 20, 1862.)  Speaker of the House Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania traveled to Langley for the occasion and met the Reserves on the parade ground.  As the soldier from the 7th Pennsylvania Reserves described the scene:

. . . the color companies attached to the different regiments in [E.O.C.] Ord's brigade took an advanced position, when the flags on which were neatly inscribed the word "DRANESVILLE," in honor of the late victory, were presented by [Grow] -- the ceremony winding up with a few complimentary remarks from that gentleman.  The cavalry and artillery that accompanied the brigade were also on the ground, and were presented with new flags similarly inscribed.*

Rep. Galusha Grow,  Speaker of the House, 1861-63 (courtesy of Wikipedia)

The regiments then filed past Grow and the other notables gathered on the parade ground.  Overall, the soldier from the 7th considered that "the affair passed off admirably" despite the muck and mire.  Perhaps the review lifted more than a few spirits in the middle of the harsh winter.  The glow of Dranesville, however, would grow dimmer as the new year progressed and the war's toll grew to unimaginable proportions.

Note
*Ord's brigade was comprised of the 6th, 9th, 10th, and 12th Pennsylvania Reserves.  All of these regiments were engaged at Dranesville. The 1st Pennsylvania Rifles ("the Bucktails"), although not part of Ord's brigade, also participated in the battle, and it is likely that they also received the inscribed flag during the ceremony.

Sources
"Letter from Camp Pierpont," dated Jan. 14, 1862, Philadelphia Press, Jan. 20, 1862;  O.R. Howard Thomson & William H. Rauch, History of the "Bucktails" (1906).