- 16 Mar 2021 13:26
#15161351
March 17, Tuesday
With General Hooker’s ascension to command of the Army of the Potomac in late January, his first task was to restore the army to fighting trim. The men have not tasted victory since Antietam in September, they had not been paid in six months, and they were falling sick by the thousands. Moreover, men were deserting at an alarming rate. Those who remained in camp were either dejected or diseased, or both. Scurvy, dysentery, and malnutrition were rife; the army’s medical inspector general, Thomas F. Perley, complained angrily about the shortage of proper food, especially fresh vegetables and bread. Poor sanitation is also a factor. In the hills near Falmouth, the men have built a city of log and canvas huts in which they live four to a shelter. Although the structures provide better protection from the winter weather than do tents, there were virtually no provisions for keeping the huts—or the men that live in them—clean; disease was the inevitable result.
Hooker has set about improving the lot of his troops with energy and determination. By enforcing sanitation regulations—requiring the use of proper latrines, regular bathing, and frequent airing of bedding—and by improving rations, he quickly cuts the sick call in half. Fresh bread, onions, and potatoes are made available several times a week, along with occasional rations of tobacco. At the same time, Hooker initiates measures designed to discourage desertion. He grants furloughs and fills the empty hours of camp life with drills and instruction periods. Congress, in the meantime, finally makes arrangements to get the soldiers their back pay. Hooker also revises his command structure. He scraps Burnside’s grand division arrangement and orders his seven infantry corps commanders to report directly to him. He detaches the cavalry units from the infantry divisions and organizes a separate cavalry corps under Major General George Stoneman. Henceforth, Federal horsemen will operate as an autonomous force, carrying out large-scale screening, reconnaissance, and offensive missions in the manner of Confederate General Jeb Stuart’s celebrated legions. Hooker sets up a Bureau of Military Information to compile and coordinate intelligence reports from such varied sources as cavalry patrols, a new corps of scouts, balloon observations, prisoners of war, and enemy deserters. The Army of the Potomac has responded favorably to Hooker’s efforts. Many of the men had put no trust in his bluster, believing that he would simply get them killed as Burnside did. But by now, attitudes have changed—between the new discipline, overhauled departments, clean camps, and better food, he is seen as “energetic, crafty, and a fighting general.”
On the other side of the river, winter has brought far greater suffering to the Army of Northern Virginia. In January the Confederate command, chronically short of supplies, was forced to impose a further, drastic reduction in meat and sugar rations. By now, Lee laments that there does not seem to be enough food to sustain the health and stamina of the men. “Symptoms of scurvy are appearing among them, and, to supply the place of vegetables, each regiment is directed to send a daily detail to gather sassafras buds, wild onions, lamb’s quarter, and poke sprouts; but for so large an army the supply obtains is very small.” Another desperate shortage, that of shoes and proper winter clothing, is outlined by a Louisiana staff officer in a letter to his Representative in the Confederate Congress. Of the 1,500 men available for duty in his brigade, the officer reports, 400 have no shoes and so cannot render effective service due to the frozen ground. Large numbers of men have no blankets, and some are without underclothing, shorts, or socks. “Overcoats, from their rarity, are objects of curiosity.” The Confederates are also handicapped by an acute shortage of manpower. Lee’s army, already heavily outnumbered at the Battle of Fredericksburg, is further depleted in February when Longstreet is dispatched with Pickett’s and Hood’s divisions to southern Virginia and coastal North Carolina to forage for provisions and defend railroad communications. Thus Lee has lost the services of 13,000 troops and three of his seasoned and reliable commanders.
With both Hooker and Lee preoccupied by supply and organization problems, there is little contact between the two armies during the later winter months except for a few cavalry raids and skirmishes. The largest and most important of these occurs today in the vicinity of Kelly’s Ford. The raid is initiated by Federal Brigadier General William Averell, a division commander in General Stoneman’s cavalry corps. In the beginning of March, Averell went to Hooker for permission to take his horsemen up the Rappahannock, cross the river, and drive off the Confederate cavalry units reported to be in the area. It seems to Averell to be a good opportunity to test the new independent cavalry organization, and perhaps in the process change Hooker’s low opinion of troopers—scathingly expressed on one recent occasion when Hooker asked, “Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?” Averell has a further, more personal motive. The Confederate cavalry commander in the Kelly’s Ford area—Brigadier General Fitzhugh Lee, a nephew of Robert E. Lee—attended West Point at the same time as Averell, and a spirited rivalry exists between the former classmates. Fitz Lee, as he is known, has sent Averell messages taunting him about the inferiority of Federal cavalry. In his latest missive, Lee has dared his old friend to come across the river and bring some coffee with him.
With Hooker’s approval, Averell eagerly accepts the challenge and sets out with six full regiments and portions of two others—3,000 cavalrymen in all—together with a battery of artillery. The bulk of the horsemen arrive at Kelly’s Ford in the morning. First on the scene is an advance guard of the 4th New York Cavalry, commanded by Captain William Hart. The troopers soon spot an abatis blocking the road on the far bank, and Hart sends a message back to Averell asking for men with axes to cut through the obstacle. Twenty dismounted troopers of the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry soon arrive and wade into the frigid, waist-deep water, only to be driven back by heavy carbine fire from the Confederate defenders. Two fieldpieces are then ordered forward to rake the Confederates; under the covering fire, nineteen troopers of the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry ride into the ford, followed by the Pennsylvanians, who are still on foot and carrying their axes. Only three of the Rhode Island horsemen make it to the far shore, but these survivors and the Pennsylvanians gain a foothold and succeed in breaching the abatis. More members of the 1st Rhode Island swiftly splash across the stream, scattering the Confederate pickets and taking 25 prisoners.
When word of the encounter reaches Fitz Lee at Culpeper, ten miles west of the ford, he surmises that the Federals are moving against the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. He rides forward and deploys his 800 cavalrymen in a blocking position on the road between Kelly’s Ford and Brandy Station, a small town on the railroad line six miles northwest of the ford. As Fitz Lee’s skirmishers probe forward toward the Rappahannock, they find to their surprise that the Federal cavalrymen, some of them dismounted and stationed behind a stone wall, are deployed in defensive positions just a mile and a half from the ford. Averell, a conscientious and thorough professional soldier, is also a cautious one. He is not confident that his force outnumbers Fitz Lee’s and has decided against rushing headlong into a fight with his resourceful classmate. Averell faces some formidable opponents he doesn’t know about. By chance, Fitz Lee has at his side not only the redoubtable Jeb Stuart, but also the dashing artillery officer who was one of the heroes of Fredericksburg, Major John Pelham. Stuart has joined the action because he happened to be in Culpeper attending a court-martial. The handsome young Pelham, who is known for his interest in the ladies, is there because he wrangled a brief leave of absence to pay a call on a young woman at nearby Orange Court House. Fitz Lee orders a squadron to dismount, take a forward position, and open fire on the Federals behind the stone wall as a preliminary to a charge by the rest of the regiment; Stuart himself watches over the movement. Pelham goes to the rear to advise Lee’s artillery commander in the placement of his guns, then dashes back to the front just as the mounted men reach the wall. The troopers turn to their left, firing at the Federals with their pistols as they ride, searching for an opening or a low spot in the wall where they can break through. Pelham draws his sword and gallops across the field at an angle to join the charge at its head. Just as he catches up with the Virginians, they find a gate and pour through it to try to turn the Federal right. Pelham reins in, stands in his stirrups, and waves his sword as he shouts encouragement to the attacking horsemen. Just then a shell explodes with a flash and a roar above Pelham’s head, knocking him from his horse to the ground. Though there is no immediately visible sign of a wound, a sliver of metal has entered the back of his head—he survives an ambulance ride to Culpeper but dies soon after arriving.
Shortly after Pelham is hit, a Federal countercharge drives the Virginians from the stone wall. Meanwhile, on the Federal left, Averell’s most dashing subordinate, Colonel Alfred Duffié, moves up his 1st Brigade, hoping to entice the rest of the Confederate cavalry into attacking his position. The Virginians on their right oblige, and are startled to find Duffié responding with a charge of his own. As Duffié’s four regiments sweep forward, the outnumbered Confederates turn to retreat, but not in time for all of them to escape. A number of Virginians are killed or captured in the melee. Duffié’s success doesn’t embolden Averell, however, and he orders the charging horsemen to rein in. Then he mandates a cautious pursuit, halting once again barely a mile beyond the stone wall. Fitz Lee’s horsemen charge this line, reinforcing Averell’s conviction that he faces a strong enemy. At this point he learns from Confederate prisoners that Jeb Stuart is in the fight. This news quenches any desire Averell might have for further action, and he “deems it proper to withdraw.” A bugle sounds recall, and the Federal troops head back across the Rappahannock. Averell leaves behind two wounded Confederate officers, a sack of coffee, and a message for his old classmate: “Dear Fitz. Here’s your coffee. Here’s your visit. How do you like it?”
The engagement is notable on two accounts. The Federal cavalry corps in its first large-scale fight demonstrates unprecedented spirit. And the engagement has cost the Confederates dearly—they have lost 133 men, compared to the Federals’ 78 casualties, and the price is magnified by the death of one of the Confederate Army’s most promising young officers. John Pelham is revered throughout the South, and he holds a special place in the esteem of both his commander, General Stuart, and his general in chief, Robert E. Lee. Accompanied by a guard of honor, the body of the fallen artilleryman is taken to lie in state at the Capitol at Richmond, then returned to Pelham’s native Alabama.
There are skirmishes at Bealeton Station, Herndon Station, and near Franklin, Virginia.
On the Mississippi Farragut is off Natchez with USS Hartford and Albatross.
Lincoln answers a complaining telegram from General Rosecrans, “ ... you wrong both yourself and us, when you even suspect there is not the best disposition on the part of us all here to oblige you.”
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
—Edmund Burke