maintain artificial lines of defence; but the Eastern armies were called upon to cross the streams and attack natural lines of defence.
Back of all this, in the logic of the struggle, is the fact that no defensive attitude can be maintained permanently. The belligerent that cannot prevent his own territory from becoming the seat of war must ultimately surrender his cause, no matter how valiant his individual soldiers may be, or how costly he may make it for the invader; or, to state it affirmatively, a belligerent that can carry the war into the enemy's country, and keep it there, will ultimately succeed. In most wars, the side on whose soil the battles were fought has been the losing side; and this is an important lesson to bear in mind when it becomes necessary to determine the great moral question of responsibility for prolonging a hopeless contest.
CHAPTER XII.
MINOR ENGAGEMENTS OF THE FIRST YEAR.
LARGE NUMBER OF BATTLES FOUGHT DURING THE WAR—DISASTER AT BALL'S BLUFF ON THE POTOMAC—SMALL ENGAGEMENTS AT EDWARDS FERRY, VA.—BATTLES AT FALLING WATERS AND BUNKER HILL, VA.—BATTLE AT HARPER'S FERRY—GALLANT BAYONET CHARGE AT DRANESVILLE, VA.—OPERATIONS IN WEST VIRGINIA UNDER GENERAL McCLELLAN—BATTLES AT ROMNEY AND BARBOURSVILLE—EFFORTS TO INDUCE KENTUCKY TO SECEDE—CAMP WILD CAT—ENGAGEMENTS AT HODGESVILLE AND MUNFORDVILLE AND SACRAMENTO—REASONS WHY MISSOURI DID NOT SECEDE—ENGAGEMENTS AT CHARLESTON, LEXINGTON, AND OTHER PLACES IN THAT STATE—A BRILLIANT CHARGE BY GENERAL FRÉMONT'S BODY GUARD UNDER ZAGONYI—INDIVIDUAL HEROISM—BATTLE OF BELMONT—VAST EXTENT OF TERRITORY COVERED BY WAR OPERATIONS.
The enormous number of engagements in the civil war, the extent of country over which they were spread, and the magnitude of many of them, have sunk into comparative insignificance many that otherwise would have become historic. The action at Lexington, Mass., in 1775, was nothing whatever in comparison with any one of the several actions at Lexington, Mo., in 1861; yet every schoolboy is familiarized with the one, and many well-read people have scarcely heard of the other. The casualties in the battle of Harlem Heights, N. Y., numbered almost exactly the same as those in the battle of Bolivar Heights, Va.; but no historian of the Revolution would fail to give a full account of the former, while one might read a very fair history of the civil war and find no mention whatever of the latter. In the writing of any history that is not a mere chronicle, it is necessary to observe proportion and perspective; but we may turn aside a little from the main course of our narrative, to recall some of the forgotten actions, in obscure hamlets and at the crossings of sylvan streams, where for a few men and those who were dear to them the call of duty was as stern and the realities of war as relentless as for the thousands at Gettysburg or Chickamauga.
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In the State of Virginia, the most disastrous of these minor engagements in 1861 was at Ball's Bluff, on the Potomac, about thirty-five miles above Washington. It has been known also as the battle of Edwards Ferry, Harrison's Island, and Leesburg. At this point there is an island in the river, and opposite, on the Virginia side, the bank rises in a bold bluff seventy feet high. A division of National troops, commanded by Gen. Charles P. Stone, was on the Maryland side, observing the crossings of the river in the vicinity. A Confederate force of unknown strength was known to be at Leesburg, about five miles from the river. McCall's division was at Dranesville, farther toward Washington, reconnoitring and endeavoring to draw out the enemy. At a suggestion of General McClellan to General Stone, that some demonstration on his part might assist McCall, General Stone began a movement that developed into a battle. On the 21st of October he ordered a portion of his command to cross at the island and at Conrad's Ferry, just above. They were Massachusetts troops under Col. Charles Devens, the New York Forty-second (Tammany) regiment, Col. Edward D. Baker's Seventy-first Pennsylvania (called the California regiment), and a Rhode Island battery, in all about two thousand men. The means of crossing—two or three boats—were very inadequate for an advance, and nothing at all for a retreat. Several hours were spent in getting one scow from the canal into the river, and the whole movement was so slow that the Confederates had ample opportunity to learn exactly what was going on and prepare to meet the movement. The battery was dragged up the bluff with great labor. At the top the troops found themselves in an open field of about eight acres, surrounded by woods. Colonel Baker was made commander of all the forces that crossed.
The enemy soon appeared, and before the battery had fired more than half a dozen rounds the Confederate sharp-shooters, posted on a hill at the left, within easy range, disabled so many of the gunners that the pieces became useless. Then there was an attack by a heavy force of infantry in front, which, firing from the woods, cut down Baker's men with comparative safety. The National troops stood their ground for two hours and returned the fire as effectively as they could; but the enemy seemed to increase in number, and grew constantly bolder. About six o'clock, wrote Capt. Francis G. Young, "a rebel officer, riding a white horse, came out of the woods and beckoned to us to come forward. Colonel Baker thought it was General Johnston, and that the enemy would meet us in open fight. Part of our column charged, Baker cheering us on, when a tremendous onset was made by the rebels. One man rode forward, presented a revolver at Baker, and fired all its charges at him. Our gallant leader fell, and at the same moment all our lines were driven back by the overwhelming force opposed to them. But Captain Beiral, with his company, fought his way back to Colonel Baker's body, rescued it, brought it along to me, and then a general retreat commenced. It was sauve qui peut. I got the colonel's body to the island before the worst of the rout, and then, looking to the Virginia shore, saw such a spectacle as no tongue can describe. Our entire forces were retreating—tumbling, rolling, leaping down the steep heights; the enemy following them murdering and taking prisoners. Colonel Devens left his command and swam the river on horseback. The one boat in the Virginia channel was speedily filled and sunk. A thousand men thronged the farther bank. Muskets, coats, and everything were thrown aside, and all were desperately trying to escape. Hundreds plunged into the rapid current, and the shrieks of the drowning added to the horror of sounds and sights. The enemy kept up their fire from the cliff above. A captain of the Fifteenth Massachusetts at one moment charged gallantly up the hill, leading two companies, who still had their arms, against the pursuing foe. A moment later, and the same officer, perceiving the hopelessness of the situation, waved a white handkerchief and surrendered the main body of his command."
Gen. Edward W. Hinks (at that time colonel of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment), who arrived and took command just after the action, wrote in his report: "The means of transportation, for advance in support or for a retreat, were criminally deficient—especially when we consider the facility for creating proper means for such purposes at our disposal. The place for landing on the Virginia shore was most unfortunately selected, being at a point where the shore rose with great abruptness and was entirely studded with trees, being perfectly impassable to artillery or infantry in line. The entire island was also commanded by the enemy's artillery and rifles. Within half a mile, upon either side of the points selected, a landing could have been effected where we could have been placed upon equal terms with the enemy, if it was necessary to effect a landing from the island."
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The losses in this action were about a hundred and fifty killed, about two hundred and fifty wounded, and about five hundred captured. Colonel Baker was a lawyer by profession, had been a friend of Lincoln's in Springfield, Ill., had lived in California, then removed to Oregon, and was elected United States senator from that State just before the war began. He was greatly beloved as a man; but though he was brave and patriotic, and had commanded a brigade in the Mexican war, it was evident, from his conduct of the Ball's