Civil War Northern Virginia 1861

Author

Preface

Letter written for the 1911 Photographic History of the Civil War:

The White House

Washington

We have reached a point in this country when we can look back, not without love, not without intense pride, but without partisan passion, to the events of the Civil War. We have reached a point, I am glad to say, when the North can admire to the full the heroes of the South, and the South admire to the full the heroes of the North. There is a monument in Quebec that always commended itself to me—a monument to commemorate the battle of the Plains of Abraham. On one face of that beautiful structure is the name of Montcalm, and on the opposite side the name of Wolfe. That always seemed to me to be the acme of what we ought to reach in this country; and I am glad to say that in my own alma mater, Yale, we have established an association for the purpose of erecting within her academic precincts a memorial not to the Northern Yale men who died, nor to the Southern Yale men who died; but to the Yale men who died in the Civil War…William Howard Taft

The Yale Civil War Memorial was dedicated on June 20, 1915, and is located in the Memorial (Woolsey) Hall Rotunda at Yale University, at the intersection of Grove and College Streets in New Haven, Connecticut. The fact that the Yale Memorial commemorates the dead of both Union and Confederate forces is out of the ordinary and unique in Connecticut. President Taft’s father, Alphonso Taft, was secretary of war and attorney general under President U.S. Grant.

President William Howard Taft. He supported the Peace Festival in Manassas, Virginia, in 1911 to bring final healing to the nation. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Introduction

It is difficult to believe. Every weekday, drivers come into Washington, D.C., from all directions. Most from the south funnel into I-395, which takes the occupants to their jobs at the Pentagon and downtown D.C. to the alphabet soup of government agencies: DOA, DOE, FBI, DOI, DOS, etc. As the highway nears the Pentagon, it actually goes over the site of one of the forts established in 1861 to protect the Southern Gate to Washington. In some ways, the city has not changed much since the days of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who called it a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency.

My father was a World War II vet, having fought in New Guinea and the Philippines as part of the Sixth U.S. Army, Artillery. I came along late in the 1940s, part of the Baby Boom. I grew up close to Washington, in Baltimore, and my family would often take the drive over to D.C. Those were the days before the Air and Space Museum, when the Wright Brothers’ Flyer was hanging from the ceiling of the Smithsonian Castle. My first visit to the White House was in 1962, when our man (JFK) was president. Back in the day when being IrishCatholicDemocrat was all one word. I remember duck and cover; I was going to elementary school near Friendship (now BWI–Thurgood Marshall) Airport during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. We thought the world was ending then. I was just starting high school when JFK was assassinated—we prayed for the repose of his soul, and I remember the silent bus trip from Baltimore to Glen Burnie to tell my family the news.

This same period (1961–65) was the time of the centennial of the Civil War. I traveled with my family up to Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry. I still have a genuine, authentic Civil War bullet from the National Tower in Gettysburg. Even today, driving into Harpers Ferry is like going 150 years into the past. The last veterans of that conflict passed away in the 1950s. This was within my lifetime! I remember my high school history teacher, who was from Pennsylvania, in the mid-1960s telling the class that Robert E. Lee was a traitor. Most of us rebelled against that.

I’ve been often asked about my interest in the Civil War. I speak to many groups in the D.C. area, and most have an ancestor—sometimes two or two dozen—who was a proud Reb or Yank, or both. How about Bill Connery? Well, my mother’s parents got off the boat in Baltimore from Krakow (the same part of Poland as Blessed John Paul II) in the 1890s and settled in Fells Point, where Maryland’s feisty Senator Barbara Mikulski hails from. My great-grandfather John Connery (yes, the same name as the Scottish actor Sir Sean—his ancestry is Irish, although he was born in Scotland, and he received his only Oscar for playing an Irish cop in The Untouchables) came from Waterford in Ireland and settled in Baltimore in the mid-1860s, first joining the U.S. Army, after the war, and then the Baltimore City Police Department. As far as I know, I have no dog in the fight of the War Between the States.

What I do have is the timing of my birth—January 19—which I share with Confederate general in chief Robert E. Lee. It is also the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe, who happens to be buried in Baltimore. Being from Charm City, I try to keep neutral in our great internecine fight, although I am a Unionist at heart. Just don’t call me a Yankee!

My desire in this book is to relate some of the known and lesser-known events that transpired in Northern Virginia in 1861 and the chaos and uncertainty of that time. The area is now one of the richest and highly populated areas in the United States. At the start of the Recent Unpleasantness in 1861, the area contained small villages like Fairfax Court House, Falls Church, Vienna, McLean, Brentsville and Leesburg. Alexandria was a metropolis of twelve thousand souls. Most of the area was farmland, which had been advertised in the Northern papers and journals. Thus, Pennsylvania Dutch, Quakers and hardy New Englanders had recently come to the area, attracted to the cheap land and proximity to the port of Alexandria and the nation’s capital, known at that time as Washington City. About the only thing in Arlington was the mansion and eleven-hundred-acre estate of Colonel and Mrs. Robert E. Lee. Arlington and Alexandria City were combined in Alexandria County, until the city split off in 1870 and the county changed its name to Arlington County in 1920.

Map of Northern Virginia in 1861. Farmland predominated where highways and townhouses now exist.

Two counties that have kept most of their antique charms are Loudoun and Prince William Counties. The counties of Fairfax and Loudoun now usually rank in the top five of richest counties in America. Things were much different in 1861 and the years that followed. The first major battle of the war was fought in Northern Virginia in July 1861, close to the railroad station of Manassas Junction and a little creek called Bull Run, and is being covered in another book.

A TASTE OF THINGS TO COME

July 1860: The Occoquan Flag Incident

An introduction to the heated emotions of the era can be found in the village of Occoquan, just within Prince William County on the border with Fairfax County. On July 4, 1860, as the November presidential elections were drawing closer, a group of Republicans got together on the Rockledge property and raised a political banner embossed with the names of Abraham (Abram) Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. The group paraded with their muskets and threatened anyone who voiced disapproval of their Liberty Pole.

George Potter of Fairfax, captain of the Sixteenth Virginia Militia, wrote to the adjutant general in Richmond on July 18 asking if the pole and flag, having been raised in a Southern state, should be pulled down. Captain Potter and his neighbors saw this as a bold step toward abolition. The letter was forwarded to Governor John Letcher, who on the twenty-third sent a dispatch to Colonel William G. Brawner of the Thirty-sixth Regiment of Prince William County. The governor wrote that if the people tolerated the banner, the governor had no authority in the matter. But if the arms being used belonged to the state, they should be confiscated and returned to Richmond.

When the Prince William County officials next met in Brentsville at the county courthouse, it was decided that the flag and pole were an insult to the people of Virginia; therefore, the offensive banner should be removed. The decision was made to send troops to Occoquan on July 27 to guarantee that the Liberty Pole and Lincoln Banner were destroyed. One of the Republicans, William Athey, when he heard of the intended flagpole destruction, wired Governor Letcher for protection of the property and people of Occoquan. He pleaded that the good people of the village were about to be descended upon by a mob of three hundred men from a distant part of the county at noon on Friday the twenty-seventh because of their political opinions.

The governor’s office fired off a message to General Eppa Hunton of Prince William County. General Hunton was told that as attorney for the commonwealth it was up to him to maintain civil obedience, and if he determined this was not possible, then a military force should be called out in sufficient number to maintain it. Athey’s request was not well received in Richmond, and the governor’s office said the entreaty by Athey to protect the traitors who had raised the Lincoln Banner was about the most consummate piece of impudence and audacity that has ever come under our notice.

Commonwealth of Virginia attorney Eppa Hunton. In 1860, he was also a general in a local Prince William County militia company.

The Prince William Militia, led by Captain William W. Thornton, arrived at 3:30 p.m. on the twenty-seventh,’ arranged themselves silently around the Liberty Pole and remained so during the events. The U.S. flag was flying along with the Lincoln Banner, but the hopes of protecting their freedom with the Stars and Stripes were dashed. A company of forty soldiers led by Captain Fitzhugh soon followed the militia. The soldiers formed in a square around the pole, seemingly ignoring the militia from Brentsville.

The campaign banner of candidate Abram Lincoln, which caused such a fuss in Prince William County in July 1860.

Joseph Janney, a local miller and merchant, stepped forward and asked that his property be protected. Janney argued that he did not hold the same opinions as the Republicans but insisted that he had approved the use of his property. A number of people had signed a petition requesting the protection of the flagpole and presented it to Captain Thornton. The request was ignored, and when the command was given, James W.Jackson of Fairfax came forward from the troop formation and gave the first axe blow to the pole. The Republicans stood around and jeered the soldiers, and when the destruction of the banner and pole was complete, the troop departed, taking the U.S. flag, Lincoln campaign banner and pole pieces with them to Brentsville. Others in the crowd displaying Southern sentiment applauded the soldiers at the removal of the flagpole and standards.

That evening, there was a personal confrontation between Colonel Brawner, who resided south of Occoquan, and Mr. Janney. It was said that Janney did not have any better outcome in this showdown that ended in blows than he’d had in the one earlier in the day. The crowd went home as night approached, but the village of Occoquan had gained a reputation as a home for Republicans and abolitionists. In the November 1860 presidential election, only 55 votes were for Lincoln, out of 1,042 total votes in Prince William County. All of those Lincoln votes were cast in Occoquan. In comparison, Lincoln had received 2 votes in Alexandria County, 24 votes in Fairfax County and 11 votes in Loudoun County. Other Virginia localities, such as Clarke, Culpeper, Frederick, Madison, Orange and Stafford Counties, had cast 0 votes for Lincoln. Also, Mr. Jackson will make an important appearance later in our narrative.

1

The Deep South Leaves

Virginia Holds Steady

It is important to remember that the 1860 presidential election was divided among four candidates. The Democratic Party had split between Southern candidate John Breckinridge of Kentucky and Northern candidate Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Another party, the Constitutional Union, put forth John Bell of Tennessee. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois ran as a Republican in just that party’s second national election (John C. Fremont had lost to Democrat James Buchanan in 1856). No Democrat supported President Buchanan for a second term. Buchanan was considered a doughface—a Northerner with Southern sympathies. As 1861 dawned, Northern Virginia was keeping its powder dry, especially concerning events in the Deep South. The last Virginian to become president (not by election but because of the untimely death of Old Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison, in 1841), John Tyler contemplated a bleak future from his plantation, Sherwood Forest, along the James River between Richmond and Williamsburg. Lincoln’s election cast Tyler into gloom. He had written to a friend after the November election, All is over, and Lincoln elected. South Carolina will secede. Virginia will abide developments. For myself, I rest in quiet, and shall do so unless I see my poor opinions have due weight.

Lincoln’s name was not even on the South Carolina ballot or that of other states in the Deep South. Even in Virginia, out of 166,891 votes cast, Lincoln had received just 1,887, and most of those were from the western part of the state. On receiving the news of Lincoln’s election, the South Carolina legislature called a special state convention to meet in Charleston. On December 20, by unanimous vote, South Carolina seceded