USA > Virginia > Loudoun County > Loudoun County > History and comprehensive description of Loudoun County, Virginia > Part 12
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It may with truth be said that the extent of the service rendered by Loudoun in this, as well as preceding wars, will never be fully known or adequately appreciated. However, certain it is that thousands of her sons espoused the cause of the Confederacy, hundreds died in its defense, and not a few, by their valor and devotion, won enduring fame ard meritor- ious mention in the annals of their government.
At home or in the ranks, throughout this trying period of civil strife, her people, with no notable exceptions, remained liberal and brave and constant, albeit they probably suffered more real hardships and deprivations than any other com- munity of like size in the Southland. There were few Con- federate troops for its defense, and the Federals held each neighborhood responsible for all attacks made in its vicinity, often destroying private property as a punishment.
Both armies, prompted either by fancied military necessity or malice, burned or confiscated valuable forage crops and other stores, and nearly every locality, at one time or another, witnessed depredation, robbery, murder, arson, and rapine. Several towns were shelled, sacked, and burned, but the worst damage was done the country districts by raiding parties of Federals. Much of the destruction is now seen to have been unnecessary from a military point of view.
Whole armies were subsisted on the products of Loudoun's fruitful acres. Opposing forces, sometimes only detachments and roving bands, but quite as often battalions, regiments, brigades, and even whole divisions were never absent from
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the County and the clash of swords and fire of musketry were an ever-present clamor and one to which Loudoun ears early became accustomed.
Also, there were times when the main bodies of one or the other of both armies were encamped wholly or in part within her limits, as in September, 1862, when the triumphant army of Lee, on the eve of the first Maryland campaign, was halted at Leesburg and stripped of all superfluous transportation, broken-down horses, and wagons and batteries not supplied with good horses being left behind; * again, in June, 1863, when Hooker was being held in bounds with his great army stretched from Manassas, near Bull Run, to Leesburg, near the Potomac; and yet again, in July, 1863, when Lee's army, falling back from Maryland after the battle of Gettysburg, was followed by the Federal forces under General Meade, who crossed the Potomac and advanced through Loudoun.
General Early, after the short and bloody battle of Monoc- acy, and following his invasion of Maryland and demonstra- tion against Washington, recrossed the Potomac at White's Ford, July 14, 1864, and, resting near Leesburg, on the 16th marched to the Shenandoalı valley by way of Leesburg and Purcellville, through Snicker's Gap of the Blue Ridge, with Jackson's Cavalry in advance.
Pitched battles and lesser engagements were fought at Ed- wards' Ferry, Balls Bluff, Snickersville (now Bluemont), Leesburg, Middleburg, Aldie, Hamilton, Waterford, Union, Aslıby's Gap, and other points in the County.
During Stonewall Jackson's investment of Harper's Ferry in September, 1862, guns were put in position on Loudoun Heights, supported by two regiments of infantry, and a por- tion of Jackson's own immediate command was placed with artillery on a bluffy shoulder of that mountain.
* On the 5th day of September, to the martial strains of " Maryland, My Maryland " from every band in the army, and with his men cheer- ing and shouting with delight, Jackson forded the Potomac at Edwards' Ferry (Loudoun County), where the river was broad but shallow, near the scene of Evan's victory over the Federals in the previous October, and where Wayne had crossed his Pennsylvania brigade in marching to the field of Yorktown, in 1781.
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The following military organizations were recruited wholly or in part in Loudoun County and mustered into the Confed- erate service: Sth Virginia Regiment (a part of Pickett's famous fighting division), Loudoun Guard (Company C, 17th Virginia Regiment), Loudoun Cavalry ("Laurel Brigade"), and White's Battalion of Cavalry (the "Comanches," 25th Virginia Battalion). Mosby's command, the "Partisan Rangers," also attracted several score of her patriotic citizenry.
The sons of Loudoun, serving in these and other organiza- tions, bore a distinguished part on every crimsoned field from Pennsylvania to the coast of Florida.
Garnett's Brigade, to which the 8th Virginia regiment was attached, was led into action during the memorable charge on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg. The brigade moved forward in the front line, and gained the enemy's strongest position, where the fighting became hand to hand and of the most desperate character. It went into action with 1,287 men and 140 officers, and after the struggle, of this number, only about 300 came back slowly and sadly from the scene of carnage. General Garnett, himself, was shot from his horse while near the center of the advancing brigade, within about twenty five paces of the "stone fence," from behind which the Federals poured forth their murderous fire.
The Loudoun Rangers ( Federal ).
This volunteer organization consisted of two companies of disaffected Virginians, ali of whom were recruited in the German settlements northwest of Leesburg. Company A, at the outset, was commanded by Captain Daniel M. Keyes, of Lovettsville, who later resigned on account of wounds received in action. He was succeeded by Captain Samuel C. Means, of Waterford. Company B's commander was Captain James W. Grubb. The total enlistment of each company was 120 and 67, respectively. All the officers and privates were of either German, Quaker, or Scotch- Irish lineage, the first-named class predominating.
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The command was mustered into the Federal service at Lovettsville, the 20th day of June, 1862. Its historian, Briscoe Goodhart, a member of Company A, in his History of the Loudoun (Virginia) Rangers, has said that it "was an inde- pendent command. organized in obedience to a special order of the Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and was at first subject to his orders only, but subsequently merged into the Eighth Corps, commanded at that time by the vener- able Major General John Ellis Wool.
The "Rangers," as the name implies, were scouts and, in this highly useful capacity, served the enemies of their State with shameless ardor. But, as a body, they fought few en- gagements and none of a decisive nature. Their first and, perhaps. sharpest encounter happened in and around the old Baptist Church at Waterford.
The following absolution or justification is offered in the preface to the above-quoted work:
"As the name of their organization indicates, they came from a State which was arrayed in arms against the authority of the National Govern- ment. No Governor, or Senator, or Member of Congress guarded their interests; nor was any State or local bounty held forth to them as an allurement. Their enlistment in the Union Army-their country's army-was the spontaneous outgrowth of a spirit of lofty patriotism.
"As they saw their duty they were not lacking in moral courage to perform that duty; and with no lapse of years shall we ever fail to insist that the principles for which the Rangers contended were eternally right, and that their opponents were eternally wrong."
Far from being a weil-ordered command with a clearly de- fined modus operandi, the two companies were poorly drilled, imperfectly accoutred, only aimlessly and periodically active, and, moreover, were on the point of dissolution at the outset.
Operating, for the most part, independently and in detached parties the command offered no serious menace to citizens or soldiery, though the latter were sometimes harassed and annoyed by them.
Mosby, who had greatly desired and often essaved their capture, was finally given the opportunity for which he had eagerly waited. Learning that the Rangers were encamped
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near Millville, W. Va. (Keyes' Switch, as it was then called), he dispatched Captain Baylor with a detachment of horse to that point.
Major Scott who, in 1867, wrote Partisan Life With Mosby, has this to say of the fight which followed: "He (Baylor) took the precaution to pass in between Halltown (where there was a brigade of infantry ) and the camp. When within fifty yards of the Loudoun Rangers the order to charge was given. Two of them were killed, four wounded, and 65 taken prisoners, together with 81 horses with their equipments. The rest of the command sought refuge in the bushes. The only loss which Baylor sustained was Frank Helm, of War- renton, who was wounded as he charged among the foremost into the camp."
The day of the capture General Stevenson, commanding at Harper's Ferry, and under whose orders the Rangers had been acting, sent the following message to General Hancock at Winchester:
HARPER'S FERRY, April 6, 1865.
Mosby surprised the camp of the Loudoun Rangers near Keyes' Ford and cleaned them out. He made the attack about 10a. m.
JOHN D. STEVENSON, Brigadier-General.
When Major-General Hancock, so distinguished in the Fed- eral Army, heard of Baylor's exploit he laughed heartily and exclaimed: "Well, that is the last of the Loudoun Rangers." As indeed it proved to be!
Mosby's Command in its Relationship to Loudoun County.
From January, 1863, until the close of the war Colonel Mosby's partisan operations were mostly confined to the counties of Loudoun and Fauquier, this rich, pastoral coun- try affording subsistence for his command and the Blue Ridge a haven to which to retreat when hard pressed by the superior numbers that, from time to time, were sent against him. Here he planned and executed most of the daring coups that 45-11
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were to win for him international fame .* Here also his men were dispersed and reassembled with marvelous facility-one of countless manifestations of his great original genius. "They would scatter for safety, and gather at my call like the Children of the Mist," was what he wrote in after years. Of all his methods this has been the least clearly understood. The explanation that he has offered in his War Reminiscences can be only partially complete; for he could not, with pro- priety, point to his personal magnetism and daring as the dominant influences, though he must have known that to an extraordinary extent they were responsible for this almost unparalleled devotion. "The true secret," he says, "was that it was a fascinating life, and its attractions far more than counterbalanced its hardships and dangers. They had no camp duty to do, which, however necessary, is disgusting to soldiers of high spirit. To put them to such routine work is pretty much like hitching a race horse to a plow."
Many of his followers were recruited in Loudoun County. A few before the advent of Mosby had pursued peaceable voca- tions; but the command consisted in the main of men who had seen active service in the cavalry and infantry regiments, but tiring of the routine and discipline of the camp had re- turned to their homes in Loudoun and adjoining counties. At times he had with liim dauntless spirits who had been incapacitated for infantry duty by reason of wounds received in action, some of these carrying crutches along with them tied to their saddle bows. At another time he enrolled several
* In alluding to the famous "greenback raid " (October 14, 1864), in which a party of Rangers entered a train of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- roa J, near Kearneysville, capturing, among other officers, Majors Moore and Ruggles, Federal paymasters, with their funds, Lieutenant Grogan, of the Rangers, has said that the command, the next day, "met at Bloomfield, in Loudoun County, and examined into the condition of our sub-U. S. Treasury, and finding there a net surplus of $168,000, the same was divided among our stockholders ($2,000 each) and circulated so freely in Loudoun that never afterwards was there a pie or blooded horse sold in that section for Confederate money."
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experienced fighters who had been absent from their regi- ments without leave ever since the first battle of Bull Run- a period of nearly two years.
With this promiscuous following, which at no time ex- ceeded one hundred men, he instituted a long unbroken series of successful strategems, surprises, and night attacks, harass- ing the communications of the Federal armies, confusing their plans by capturing dispatches, destroying supply trains, subjecting their outposts to the wear and tear of a per- petual skirmish, in short, inflicting all the mischief possi- ble for a small body of cavalry moving rapidly from point to point on the communications of an army.
He believed that by incessant attacks he could compel the enemy either greatly to contract his lines or to reinforce them, both of which would have been of great advantage to the Southern cause. By assuming the aggressive, a rule from which he not once departed, he could force the enemy to guard a hundred points, leaving himself free to select any one of them for attack.
But the theories, purposes, and methods of this peer of partisan leaders is best explained by himself. Simply and un- ostentatiously, but withal convincingly, expressed, they give to the man and his deeds the unmistakable semblance of fair- ness and legitimacy. These, together with his masterly de- fense of partisan warfare, follow in modified and disconnected form:
"The military value of a partisan's work is not measured by the amount of property destroyed, or the number of men killed or captured, but by the number he keeps watching. Every soldier withdrawn from the front to guard the rear of an army is so much taken from its fight- ing strength.
"I endeavored, as far as I was able, to diminish this aggressive power of the army of the Potomac, by compelling it to keep a large force on the defensive. I assailed its rear, for there was its most vulnerable point. My men had no camps. If they had gone into camp, they would soon have all been captured. . A blow would be struck at a weak or unguarded point, and then a quick retreat. The alarm would spread through the sleeping camp, the long roll would be beaten or the
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bugles would sound to horse, there would be mounting in hot haste and a rapid pursuit. But the partisans generally got off with their prey. Their pursuers were striking at an invisible foe. I often sent small squads at night to attack and run in the pickets along a line of several miles. Of course, these alarms were very annoying, for no human being knows how sweet sleep is but a soldier. I wanted to use and consume the Northern cavalry in hard work. I have often thought that their fierce hostility to me was more on account of the sleep I made them lose than the number we killed and captured."
"My purpose was to weaken the armies invading Virginia, by harassing their rear. As a line is only as strong as its weakest point, it was necessary for it to be stronger than I was at every point, in order to resist my attacks. It is just as legitimate to fight an enemy in the rear as in front. The only difference is in the danger. Now, to . prevent all these things from being done, heavy detachments must be made to guard against them."
"The line that connects an army with its base of supplies is the heel of Achilles-its most vital and vulnerable point. It is a great achieve- ment in war to compel an enemy to make heavy detachments to guard it.
"Having no fixed lines to guard or defined territory to hold, it was always my policy to elude the enemy when they came in search of me, and carry the war into their own camps."
"These operations were erratic simply in not being in accordance with the fixed rules taught by the academies; but in all that I did there was a unity of purpose, and a plan which my commanding general understood and approved."
while I conducted war on the theory that the end of it is to secure peace by the destruction of the resources of the enemy, with as small a loss as possible to my own side, there is no authenticated act of mine which is not perfectly in accordance with approved military usage. Grant, Sherman, and Stonewall Jackson had about the same ideas that I had on the subject of war."
Though all his engagements were reported to Stuart till the death of that great cavalry leader, in May, 1864, and after- ward to General Robert E. Lee, Mosby was allowed the free-
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dom of untrammeled action in the sense that the operations of his command were left to his individual discretion.
The following militant verses were published in a Southern magazine, soon after the war, and won immediate popularity:
Mosby at Hamilton. By MADISON CAWEIN.
Down Loudoun lanes, with swinging reins And clash of spur and sabre, And bugling of battle horn, Six score and eight we rode at morn Six score and eight of Southern born, All tried in love and labor.
Full in the sun at Hamilton, We met the South's invaders; Who, over fifteen hundred strong, 'Mid blazing homes had marched along All night, with Northern shout and song, To crush the rebel raiders.
Down Loudoun lanes with streaming manes We spurred in wild March weather; And all along our war-scarred way The graves of Southern heroes lay, Our guide posts to revenge that day, As we rode grim together.
Old tales still tell some miracle Of saints in holy writing- But who shall say why hundreds fled Before the few that Mosby led, Unless the noblest of our dead Charged with us then when fighting.
While Yankee cheers still stunned our ears, Of troops at Harper's Ferry, While Sheridan led on his Huns, And Richmond rocked to roaring guns, We felt the South still had some sons, She would not scorn to bury.
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Battle of Leesburg * ("Ball's Bluff" t).
"After the first battle of Manassas, Col. Eppa Hunton had been ordered to reoccupy Leesburg with his regiment, the Eighth Virginia. A little later Col. William Barksdale's Thirteenth Mississippi, Col. W. S. Featherstone's Seventeenth Mississippi, a battery, and four companies of cavalry under Col. W. H. Jenifer were sent to the same place, and these were organized into the Seventh Brigade of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, which, early in August, was put under command of Brig .- Gen. Nathan G. Evans, who had been promoted for his brave conduct July 21st. General Beaure- gard's object in locating this strong force at Leesburg was to guard his left flank from a Federal attack by way of several good roads that led from the fords of the upper Potomac, near that town, directly to his Bull Run encampment; to watch the large Federal force that McClellan had located on the opposite side of the Potomac; to keep up a connection with the Confederate force in the lower Shenandoah Valley by a good turnpike that led from Leesburg across the Blue Ridge, and to save for his army the abundant supplies of the fertile County of Loudoun.
"On the 15th of October (1861) General Banks' division of the Federal army was located at Darnestown, Md., about fifteen miles due east from Leesburg, with detachments at Point of Rocks, Sandy Hook, Williamsport, etc .; while the division of Brig .- Gen. C. P. Stone, composed of six companies of cav- alry, three of artillery, and the infantry brigades of Gens. W. A. Gorman and F. W. Lander and Col. E. D. Baker, was located at Poolesville, eight miles north of east from Leesburg. The object in this disposition of so large a force was, not only to guard the right of the big Federal army that General Mcclellan was gathering at Washington, but especially to cover the im- portant approaches from the northwest to Baltimore and the
* Virginia Military History, by Jedediah Hotchkiss.
+ Also called "Battle of Harrison's Island " and "Battle of Conrad's Ferry."
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Federal city, particularly those from the lower Shenandoah Valley and northeastern Piedmont, Virginia.
"On October 19th, McCall's Federal division advance 2 to Dranesville, on the road to Leesburg and about 15 miles fr. m that place, 'in order to cover the reconnaissance made in ar directions the next day;' and later, Smith's Federal division) advanced along a parallel road to the west, acting in concert with General McCall, and pushed forward strong parties in the same direction and for the same purpose. About 7 p. m. of the 19th, Stone's advance opened a heavy cannonade on the Confederate positions at Fort Evans, on the Leesburg pike, and at Edwards' Ferry, and at the same time General Evans heard heavy firing in the direction of Dranesville. At midnight General Evans ordered his whole brigade to the front, along the line of Goose Creek, 3 miles southeast of Lees- burg, where he had a line of intrenchments, to there await an expected attack from General McCall, the next morning, Sun- day, October 20th, as it had been reported that the Federal advance was moving in force from Dranesville toward Lees- burg. Evans' scouts captured McCall's courier bearing dis- patches to General Meade, directing him to examine the roads leading to Leesburg. The Federal batteries kept up a de- liberate fire during the day, but no assault was made.
"On the morning of the 20th the Federal signal officer on Sugar Loaf Mountain, in Maryland, reported 'the enemy have moved away from Leesburg.' This Banks wired to McClellan, whereupon the latter wired to Stone, at Pooles- ville, that a heavy reconnoissance would be sent out that day, in all directions, from Dranesville, concluding: 'You will keep a good lookout upon Leesburg, to see if this movement has the effect to drive them away. Perhaps a slight demon- stration on your part would have the effect to move them.' McClellan desired Stone to make demonstrations from his picket line along the Potomac, but did not intend that he should cross the river, in force, for the purpose of fighting. Late in the day Stone reported that he had made a feint of crossing, and at the same time had started a reconnoissance
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from Harrison's Island toward Leesburg, when the enemy's pickets retired to intrenchments. That 'slight demonstra- tion' brought on the battle of Ball's Bluff on Monday, Octo- be- 21st. On the morning of the 21st, McCall retired from
van's front to his camp at Prospect Hill, 4 miles up the river from the Chain bridge. From his point of observation, at the earthworks called 'Fort Evans,' to the eastward of Leesburg, overlooking the fords at Conrad's and Edwards' ferries and Ball's Bluff, Evans, at 6 a. m. on the 21st, found that the enemy of Stone's division had effected a crossing at Edwards' Ferry and at Ball's Bluff, 4 miles above. He promptly sent four companies from his Mississippi regiments and two companies of cavalry, under the command of Lieu- tenant-Colonel W. H. Jenifer to the assistance of Captain Duff, to hold the enemy in check until his plan of attack should be developed. Colonel Jenifer immediately engaged the Federal advance and drove it back toward Ball's Bluff.
"The force that had crossed at Harrison's Island, about mid- night of the 20th, was part of the command of Colonel Baker, some 300 men under Col. Charles Devens, of the Fifteenth Massachusetts. Its object was to capture a Confederate camp that had been reported to be about a mile from the river. This force advanced to an open field surrounded by woods, where it halted until it could be joined by a company from the Twentieth Massachusetts, which had been left on the bluff, on the Virginia side, to protect the Federal return. Devens, at daybreak, pushed forward with a few men to reconnoiter, and, in person, went to within sight of Leesburg. Thinking he had not been discovered Devens determined to remain and sent back to his brigade commander, Colonel Baker, for reinforcements. The latter consulted his division commander, General Stone, and obtained permission to either withdraw Devens or to send over reinforcements to him. He promptly directed Devens to hold his position and said that he would support him in person with the rest of his brigade. The boats and flats that had been provided for crossing the Potomac from the Maryland shore to Harrison's Island and
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from the latter to the Virginia shore were entirely inadequate, and it was nearly noon before Devens' regiment of 625 men was closed up on the Virginia shore.
"Convinced at about 10 a. m. that the main Federal attack would be at Ball's Bluff, four miles northeast of Leesburg, Evans ordered Colonel Hunton with the Eighth Virginia * to the support of Colonel Jenifer, directing him to form the line of battle immediately in the rear of Jenifer's command, and that the combined force should then drive the enemy to the river, while he, General Evans, supported the right of the movement with artillery. This movement was made soon after noon and the opposing forces at once became hotly en- gaged, the Confederates advancing on the Federals, who held a strong position in front of the woods. Learning, at about this time, that an opposing force was gathering on his left and that he would soon be vigorously attacked by a body of in- fantry that appeared in that direction and by a body of dis- mounted cavalry that had deployed in his front, and appre- hensive of being flanked, Devens retired his regiment to an open space in the woods, in front of the bluff, and prepared to receive an attack. To ascertain about reinforcements Devens went back to the bluff about 2 p. m., where he found Colonel Baker, who directed him to form his regiment on the right of the position that he proposed to occupy, while Baker placed 300 of the Twentieth Massachusetts on the left and advanced in front of these his California regiment, with two guns, sup- ported by two companies of the Fifteenth Massachusetts. At about the same hour General Stone ferried a strong force across the river at Edwards' Ferry to make a demonstration on Evans' right, leaving Colonel Baker in command at Ball's Bluff. Stone then telegraphed to McClellan: 'There has been a sharp firing on the right of our line, and our troops appear to be advancing there under Baker. The left, under Gorman, has advanced its skirmishers nearly one mile, and, if the move- ment continues successful, will turn the enemy's right.'
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