The Confederates Return to Dranesville

Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Dranesville.  As readers are well aware, I have covered the engagement here and at greater length in an article for the Civil War Trust.  Dranesville shattered the relative calm that had descended on Northern Virginia by December 1861.  Because I have already discussed the battle itself, I thought that I would dedicate a couple posts to what happened in the Union and Confederate ranks following the engagement.

Dranesville was a tactical Union victory, but that didn't stop Brig. Gen. Jeb Stuart from calling the battle a "glorious success" for the Confederates.  (OR, 1:5, 494.)  After all, the Confederate commander had saved his foraging party from falling into the enemy's hands.   Stuart's self-styled triumph, however, had not come without a cost.  Among his four infantry regiments, one battery, and assorted cavalry units, Stuart lost 43 killed, 143 wounded, and eight missing.  The Union suffered only seven killed and 61 wounded.

Following the two-hour fight on December 20, Stuart's force withdrew from the battlefield towards the Alexandria, Loudoun, & Hampshire Railroad.  When it became clear that his men were out of harm's way, Stuart pushed onward to Frying Pan Church.  There, the Confederates took care of their wounded from the engagement. Meanwhile, the 18th Virginia and 9th Georgia were dispatched from the main camp at Centreville to join Stuart at the church.  The regiments arrived at some point early in the morning.

Frying Pan Church, where Stuart cared for his wounded following the battle.  The church, located along present-day Centreville Road in Fairfax County, was built between 1783 and 1791.  The Baptist congregation included both whites and blacks.  The site is preserved and maintained by Fairfax County.  (See here for more information.)

As dawn broke on December 21, Stuart intended to return to Dranesville.  He soon had the 9th Georgia and 18th Virginia organized and on the way.  As a soldier from the 18th Virginia recalled:

We marched briskly along, it being-quite cold, and we therefore felt the more inclined to exert ourselves to give warmth to our bodies. We had no idea of going so far when we started, but were willing to follow Gen. Stuart anywhere, even to the banks of the Potomac. Onward, still onward we went, winding our way up and down circuitous and zigzag roads, which, though wearisome, were in excellent condition, being entirely free from the stiffing influence of dust. (Richmond Daily Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1861.)

Stuart sent his cavalry ahead to ascertain the presence of the enemy.  The scouts reported that the Union had abandoned Dranesville and that several Confederate wounded were left in town.  The Union commander, Brig. Gen. E.O.C. Ord, had lacked a sufficient number of ambulances and was unable to take all of his wounded prisoners with him to Camp Pierpont in Langley. 

Gen. Jeb Stuart (courtesy of National Park Service)

Stuart, desiring to collect his wounded and dead, pushed his men to Dranesville and arrived around 11 a.m.  Outside of town, in a house not far from the scene of the previous day's action, Stuart's men located between eight and ten wounded Confederate soldiers.  According to the soldier from the 18th Virginia, in front of the home "stood several charmingly looking ladies, who very soon became the paramount attraction":

They were kindly attending our wounded . . . .  They say the Yankees were very kind to our wounded, in bringing them to the house; they also left with them a good many bandages, to be used in dressing their wounds. . . .  These ladies with their mothers had come up from their comfortable homes, bringing with them beds and bed clothes. They also prepared soups and such like delicacies suited to the conditions of the wounded.  (Richmond Daily Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1861).

Stuart ordered his men to place the wounded in ambulances for the return to Centreville.  Two of the men were severely injured, and it soon became clear that they could not survive the long trip back.  Stuart reported that "at their own desire and at the surgeon's advice" the two soldiers "were left in charge of the ladies" in Dranesville  (OR, 1:5, 492.) 

The Confederate general also heard wild rumors about the battle from local inhabitants.  The Union force had consisted of "fifteen regiments of infantry, several batteries, and seven companies of cavalry."  (OR, 1:5, 493.)  In fact, Ord had just five regiments of infantry, one battery, and two squadrons of cavalry, but at the time, Stuart was not entirely certain of the size of Ord's force.  (Some locals may have seen the brigades of John Reynolds and George Meade, who had arrived too late to take part in the fight, and overestimated the number engaged on the 20th.)  The residents of Dranesville also informed Stuart that Ord had left with twenty wagon loads of dead and wounded!

Stuart set about the grisly task of collecting the dead from the battlefield.  The soldier from the 18th Virginia witnessed the carnage.  He wrote:

I was horror-struck by the ghastly appearance of the dead, as they lay all besmeared with their own blood, which in the agents of death they had gotten all over their faces, having as soon as shot clapped their hands to the part affected and drawn across their faces; shots of a more deadly character, I never saw.  (Richmond Daily Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1861.) 

Once the wounded and dead were loaded in wagons, Stuart set out for the Confederate lines at Centreville around 4 p.m.  The colonel of the 18th Virginia gave his men the option of stopping for the night, or going the entire way back to camp.  His men agreed to continue the march.  As the soldier from the 18th Virginia wrote to the Daily Dispatch:

[S]ome of our men complained bitterly of sore feet, made so by traveling so much on this hard frozen ground. Some one or two were so lucky as to get a ride on horseback. Others were obliged to remain the over-night, and come in the following (Sunday) morning. No order as to regularity of marching could be maintained, each getting along as best he could. My Captain, myself, and several others were amongst the first to get to camp — how glad were we to get there. We found hot coffee and warm fires. So, drinking the coffee and toasting our feet, we retired for the night.  (Richmond Daily Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1861.)

Back in Centreville, the Confederates attended to their wounded and buried their dead.  The 11th Virginia, which had fought at Dranesville, was brigaded with the 17th Virginia.  The men of the 17th attended the internment of the 11th's dead, "prompted by the friendly feeling that had existed between the two commands ever since the organization of the brigade."  (Warfield 66.)  As Private Edgar Warfield remembered:

The act brought forth from Colonel [Sam] Garland of the Eleventh a beautiful letter, which was read on dress parade, expressing his grateful appreciation of the soldierly friendship which induced our command to unite with them in paying this last tribute of respect to their dead comrades. (Warfield 66.)

The Confederates recovered from their setback at Dranesville and prepared to celebrate the Christmas holiday.  The battle had been an unsettling experience for many soldiers, including those who visited the scene of the fight on the 21st.  But as 1861 drew to a close, much worse awaited Confederate and Union soldiers alike in the upcoming year and beyond.

Sources

Aside from the OR, the following sources were useful in compiling this post:

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form for Frying Pan Meetinghouse; Richmond Daily Dispatch, Dec. 30, 1861; Edgar Warfield, Manassas to Appomattox: The Civil War Memoirs of Pvt. Edgar Warfield, 17th Virgina Infantry (1996 ed.).

Lewinsville, Round 2: The Confederates Encounter "Baldy" Smith's Men Once Again

Last year I wrote about a skirmish that occurred in Lewinsville a couple weeks after the better-known encounter there on September 11, 1861. (See here.)  While researching the September 25 engagement, I noticed the lack of sources telling the Confederate side of the story. In fact, the OR does not appear to contain any official Confederate reports on the skirmish. I was left wondering about the identity of the Confederate units who attacked Brig. Gen. "Baldy" Smith's men near the tiny Northern Virginian hamlet. Following additional research, I recently uncovered more about Confederate involvement in this minor and relatively bloodless action. So, for my 150th anniversary post, I'd like to take a closer look at the Confederates who participated in the skirmish at Lewinsville.

Around nine in the morning of September 25, Smith led a Union force of 5,100 infantry, 16 guns, and 150 cavalry on a reconnaissance and foraging mission to Lewinsville. Smith deployed his men and guns along the road from Langley to Lewinsville and directed the quartermaster to start loading his wagons with forage. Not long afterwards, a body of Confederate cavalry appeared just east of Lewinsville. Capt. Thaddeus Mott's artillery opened fire on the troopers and drove them away.  In all likelihood, the cavalry scouts returned to the Confederate advanced line near Falls Church to warn of the Federal expedition.

The Confederates quickly prepared for battle. Gen. James Longstreet assembled a force consisting of the 1st Georgia, 9th Georgia, 2nd South Carolina, 13th Virginia, 17th Virginia, 1st Virginia Cavalry, and Capt. Thomas Rosser's Washington Artillery of New Orleans. (Gernand 94-95; see also Wallace 21.)*  Three of these units -- the 1st Virginia Cavalry, 13th Virginia, and Washington Artillery -- had fought Smith's men only a few weeks earlier at the first "Battle of Lewinsville."  The soldiers organized around The Falls Church and set out on the road to Lewinsville (likely today's Great Falls Street). The Confederates also loaded all of their wagons and sent them to Fairfax Court House, presumably to avoid capture of supplies in the event of a Union victory.  As Longstreet's aide, Tom Goree, told his mother a couple days later, the Confederates were "expecting to have a very severe fight."  (in Cutrer 45.)

By three in the afternoon, Smith had gathered an incredible 90 wagon loads of forage.  The general recalled his skirmishers and sent the wagons back to the Federal lines.  At about 4 p.m., just as Smith's men were preparing for their return to camp, the Confederates struck.  Smith described the opening of the skirmish in his official report:

[W]e could see advancing over the hills from the Falls Church road what seemed to be a large regiment, marching rapidly in close column and others deployed as skirmishers, with the apparent intention of turning our flank. At the same time they opened fire with seemingly one gun on our extreme left, but at too great distance for any effect, which ceased entirely. . . . Their cavalry was seen in small bodies, moving through the corn fields and woods to our left and on the Lewinsville road. (OR, 1:5, 216.)

Rosser, likely realizing that his guns were having little impact, moved them into position to the right of the Union force "at about 2,500 yards," where he opened fire on Mott's section at Mackall's House. (OR, 1:5, 216.)  Federal artillery under Mott and Capt. Charles Griffin answered the Confederate guns.  Some of the Union rounds fell among the infantry gathered at the graveyard of the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church.  The two sides exchanged about 30 rounds before the skirmish ended with little, if any, participation by the infantry.  Smith recalled that "we could see their dust as they retreated on the Falls Church road."  (OR, 1:5, 216.)  Smith's men moved slowly back to camp, where they arrived about seven that evening. 

Thomas L. Rosser, commander of the Confederate artillery at Lewinsville, who rose to become a cavalry general (courtesy of Wikipedia).

The Confederates, however, had not left the scene entirely. Rosser hauled one gun to a hill overlooking the crossroads at Langley and around dusk fired four or five shots.  Smith sent a scout to investigate, but by the time he arrived, the Confederates were gone.  First Sergeant W.H. Andrews of the 1st Georgia remembered that the Confederates returned to Falls Church "as proud as if we had really been in a battle of some consequence."  (in Gernand 95.)

Smith reported that one man was wounded "slightly in the arm" by a bursting shell.  (OR, 1:5, 217.)  Tom Goree wrote to his mother on September 27 that the Union Army "got some of the best of this fight, as they killed one of our men, and took another prisoner, who rode up to them mistaking them for friends."  (in Cutrer 45.)  Andrews' account differs in that he recalled that two men, both from the 2nd South Carolina, were killed during the skirmish.  In all, casualties had been light, just as in the encounter of September 11.

Clearly the armies were restless, and many soldiers must have felt the anticipation of a big battle approaching. Within a period of just two weeks, Confederate and Union forces had clashed at Lewinsville, a village not far from Longstreet's advanced line. The second skirmish involved even greater numbers than the first. As Goree wrote on September 27, "I think, Mother, that the fight will come off somewhere in a very few days. We will either advance or the enemy will." (in Cutrer 45.) The young aide was probably not alone in his sentiments as the two armies headed into the first autumn of the war.

Notes
*According to a first-hand account by First Sergeant W.H. Andrews, his regiment, the 1st Georgia, marched to Lewinsville with the 9th Georgia, 2nd South Carolina,13th Virginia, "Col. [Jeb] Stuart's Regiment of Black Horse Cavalry" (1st Virginia Cavalry), and Rosser's battery.  (Gernand 95.)  Wallace's history of the 17th Virginia places the 17th at Lewinsville along with the 2nd South Carolina and two guns of the Washington Artillery.  (Wallace 21.)

Sources
"Another Important Reconnoissance [sic] Near Washington," New York Times, Sept. 26, 1861; Thomas W. Cutrer, Longstreet's Aide: The Civil War Letters of Thomas J. Goree (1995); Bradley E. Gernand, A Virginia Village Goes to War: Falls Church During the Civil War (2002); Lee A. Wallace, Jr., 17th Virginia Infantry, from the Virginia Regimental History Series (1990).

Addendum, September 26, 2011
Thanks to reader Dudley Bokoski for pointing out a reference to the September 25 skirmish at Lewinsville in a report from Gen. James Longstreet in which he blamed Col. Joseph Kershaw of the 2nd S.C. for not striking a decisive blow.  (See OR, 1:51:2, 314.)  As Longstreet said, "I am inclined to think that the failure of the effort is due entirely to Colonel Kershaw's getting on a different road from the one I intended he should have taken. Had he been up to time there is no doubt but there would have been one more Bull Run affair.  As things miscarried, the enemy discovered us in time to get a good start."  Unfortunately, neither Kershaw's nor Stuart's reports of the skirmish survive.