Mosby at Lewinsville: August-September 1861

A few notable figures passed through the tiny village of Lewinsville, Virginia during the first year of the Civil War. At the Battle of Lewinsville on September 11, 1861, Col. Jeb Stuart led a small Confederate force against a much larger contingent of Union soldiers under Col. Isaac Stevens. Stuart, who won a brigadier's commission in part because of his actions at Lewinsville, rode on to become one of the most celebrated Confederate cavalry commanders of the war. Stevens, who later commanded a division in the Army of the Potomac, lost his life at the Battle of Chantilly the following September while leading his men against Stonewall Jackson's troops. Other well-known generals also have a connection to the village of Lewinsville and environs, including Winfield S. Hancock, George McClellan, and "Baldy" Smith.

All of this got me thinking. I had heard somewhere that partisan ranger John S. Mosby also fought at Battle of Lewinsville in the days before he became the famed "Gray Ghost of the Confederacy." This story always seemed the stuff of local legend to me, so I recently set out to discover whether Mosby actually participated in the engagement.

John S. Mosby rose to command the 43rd Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, better known as "Mosby's Rangers" (courtesy of Wikipedia)

Before the Civil War, Mosby practiced law in Bristol, Virginia. During the winter of 1861, he volunteered for a militia company known as the Washington Mounted Guard. At the outset of hostilities, Mosby, then a private, and his fellow troopers joined other Virginians preparing for the fight in the Shenandoah Valley. The Washington Mounted Guard was assigned to the 1st Virginia Cavalry as Company D under Capt. William E. "Grumble" Jones. Stuart was given overall command of the regiment.

A Brush with Death Near Lewinsville

The 1st Virginia Cavalry saw action at First Manassas in July 1861 and spent the remainder of the year on outpost duty along the Confederate lines in Northern Virginia. Mosby later recalled his time as a mounted sentinel:

We had to go on picket duty three times a week and remain twenty-four hours. The work was pretty hard; but still, soldiers liked it better than the irksome life of the camp. I have often sat alone on my horse from midnight to daybreak, keeping watch over the sleeping army.  (Mosby, Reminiscences, 14.)

At the end of August 1861, Mosby was assigned picket duty on the road running from Falls Church to Lewinsville with one or two other troopers.* The men were under orders from Capt. Jones to fire on anyone making an approach from outside the Confederate lines. Unbeknownst to the pickets, a second Confederate detachment had galloped down a different road towards Lewinsville on a mission to arrest an alleged spy. The group made the mistake of returning by the same road where Mosby was stationed without alerting the pickets in advance.

Awakened from his slumber by the sound of approaching hoof beats, Mosby mounted his horse and opened fire into the rainy night. Alarmed by the flash of the carbine, Mosby's horse bolted away, tripped over a sleeping cow, and fell on top of him. As Mosby remembered his injuries, "I was bruised from head to foot, and felt like every bone in my body had been broken." (Mosby, Reminiscences, 15.) The Confederate cavalrymen carried Mosby to Falls Church and eventually sent him in an ambulance to Fairfax Court House. As Mosby lay unconscious, Capt. Jones apparently looked at him and "swore harder than the army in Flanders." (Mosby, Reminiscences, 15.) The following week, Mosby recounted the episode in a letter to his wife Pauline, telling her that the accident "came near killing me." (in Mosby, Memoirs, 88.)

Mosby at the Battle of Lewinsville

Not long after his unfortunate spill, Mosby joined Stuart in the attack on Stevens at Lewinsville. On September 11, cavalry pickets alerted Stuart to the presence of enemy soldiers in and around the village. Stuart advanced towards Lewinsville with 305 soldiers of the 13th Virginia, a detachment of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, and two guns of Thomas Rosser's Washington Artillery. (OR, 1:5, 183.) Stuart pounced on Stevens and harassed his retiring column with artillery fire. The Union troops eventually reached the safety of their own camp near Chain Bridge.

Mosby described his experience at Lewinsville in a letter to Pauline dated September 1861.**  He wrote:

The Enemy had come up with three thousand men, artillery, etc. to Lewisville [sic], one of our picket stations; when we got there they were still there.*** Three men of our Company (including myself) were detached to go forward to reconnoitre. Col. Stewart [sic] was with us. While standing near the opening of a wood a whole regiment of Yankees came up in full view, within a hundred yards of me. Their Colonel was mounted on a splendid horse and was very gaily dressed.**** I was in the act of shooting him, which I could have done with ease with my carbine, when Col. Stewart told me not to shoot, — fearing they were our men. . . .  I never regretted anything so much in my life as the glorious opportunity I missed of winging their Colonel. We went back and brought up our artillery, which scattered them at the first shot. I never enjoyed anything so much in my life as standing by the cannon and watching our shells when they burst over them.  (in Mosby, Memoirs, 90.)

If Mosby is to be believed, Stevens came close to losing his life almost a year before he was fatally shot at Chantilly! In any event, Mosby's contemporaneous account demonstrates that he was present at Lewinsville during the fight. Now when I drive by the site of the skirmish, I can't help but think that before he rode to fame and glory with his Rangers, Mosby was engaged in more conventional warfare just around the corner from my house.

Notes

*This road was likely current-day Great Falls Street, which runs from VA-29 (Lee Highway) in Falls Church to the intersection with VA-123 (Dolley Madison Blvd.) in McLean. In a September 2, 1861 letter to his wife, Mosby stated that "there were only three of us at our post."  (in Mosby, Memoirs, 88.)  However, in his Reminiscences, Mosby noted that he was on picket duty "with one other."  (Mosby, Reminiscences, 15.)

**The exact date is missing from the transcription.

***Mosby exaggerated the Federal strength.  Stevens' force consisted of around 1,800 men.  (OR, 1:5, 169.)

****Mosby presumably means Col. Stevens.

Sources

John S. Mosby, The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby (1917); John S. Mosby, Mosby's War Reminiscences and Stuart's Cavalry Campaigns (1887); James Ramage, Gray Ghost: The Life of Colonel John Singleton Mosby (1999); Jeffy D. Wert, Mosby's Rangers (1991); James Joseph Williamson, Mosby's Rangers: A Record of the Operations of the Forty-Third Battalion of Virginia Cavalry from Its Organization to the Surrender (1909 ed.)

The Battle of Lewinsville Gets a Marker!

Last month I wrote about the upcoming installation of a Civil War Trails marker on the 1861 Battle of Lewinsville.  Thanks to the Fairfax Civil War Facebook page, I learned on Wednesday night that the historical marker was being installed on Thursday.  So I grabbed my camera on the way out the door the next morning and stopped by Lewinsville Park after work to check out the new marker.  Call me crazy, but as readers know, I have written extensively about Lewinsville and have waited a long time to see the marker come to fruition.  The installation pre-dates the actual dedication ceremony by over a week.  Details of that event on July 1 can be found here.  Unfortunately, I have a prior commitment and will not be able to attend the ceremony.

Civil War Trails sign at entrance to Lewinsville Park, 1659 Chain Bridge Rd., McLean, Virginia.  On September 11, 1861, a reconnaissance force under Col. Isaac Stevens proceeded down this road to the left, towards Lewinsville.  Around two in the afternoon, recall was sounded.   As the Union troops prepared for the return to camp, a much smaller Confederate force under Col. Jeb Stuart attacked from the area around today's Lewinsville Park.

The marker was installed inside Lewinsville Park, not far from a house in existence at the time of the engagement.  The well-researched text does a commendable job of explaining the battle in the limited space available, including mention of the famed 79th New York Highlanders and Thomas Rosser's Washington Artillery.  The accompanying maps, however, are a bit confusing.  Rather than showing the engagement from the vantage point of the viewer, facing south, the maps are drawn with the north at the top.

The new marker at Lewinsville Park

Photograph showing marker at edge of the parking lot at Lewinsville Park.  The marker looks south towards the location of the Gilbert House (now Meadowbrook), beyond the baseball field.  During the battle, Confederate artillery positioned to the southwest of the Gilbert House opened fire on the retiring Union soldiers. 

The community owes a debt of gratitude to Fairfax History Commissioner Carole Herrick and all those involved in the effort to erect this marker.  The Battle of Lewinsville has finally received the recognition that was missing for far too long.  And someday I hope that a couple more such markers dedicated to Camp Pierpont and Camp Griffin will join the Civil War Trails in McLean!

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.