Battle of Ball’s Bluff

At the October 21, 1861 Battle of Ball’s Bluff, the Confederate force routed the Union force on the heights overlooking the Potomac River in Loudoun County,Virginia.

On October 20, 1861 Union Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone sent a small force across the river to reconnoiter toward Leesburg,Virginia. Due to delays, the scouting party did not depart until after dark, and it returned with information that it had located a Confederate camp near Leesburg. Stone ordered a second force to cross the river and destroy the camp. The second party crossed and ascended the heights, but failed to find the camp. Early the next day it engaged Confederate skirmishers, however, and using discretion that Stone had given it, the party decided to stay on the Virginia side until reinforced. Stone ordered Col. Edward D. Baker (a sitting U.S. Senator from California and a close friend of President Abraham Lincoln) to take command of the force on Ball’s Bluff. In a subsequent Confederate attack, the southern forces routed the Union troopers and Baker suffered a mortal wound. The Union soldiers fled down the precipitous bluff to the river, only to find that some of their boats were missing, while another became overloaded with men and overturned in the river. Some tried to swim to safety only to drown in the swollen Potomac. The Union side suffered over 500 casualties and an equal number who were captured.

While not of great military significance, the Confederate victory resulted in the formation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was formed in the U.S. Congress to determine why the war effort was floundering. Controlled by Radical Republicans, the committee made Stone the scapegoat for the debacle at Ball’s Bluff, even though he was not on the field, questioning his loyalty to theUnion. Stone was eventually arrested and held in confinement for just over six months, although no charges were brought against him. When he was released and given a field assignment, rumor and suspicion followed him until he resigned from the army in 1864.