THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY
Having safely withdrawn his division from the disastrous field, crossing
Bull Run by Red House Ford, General Stevens conducted it to the main
turnpike, now brimful with retreating troops. It was night, too, and
quite dark. Unwilling to plunge his command into the crowded throng, he
halted and allowed them to sleep on their arms by the roadside, while
the dense, dark tide of troops, trains, and artillery flowed past all
night. After daylight he resumed the march by the pike, now clear, and
halted for breakfast in the fields a mile from Centreville. The men were
ravenously hungry, having long since emptied their haversacks; the
supply trains were in the rear, no one knew where, so that a drink of
water and a tightened belt seemed destined to be the only breakfast. But
General Stevens, having observed a small herd of cattle near by
belonging to some commissary, had them driven up and slaughtered; some
wagons loaded with hard bread were also seized, and soon the entire
command were cooking and enjoying a hearty repast of beefsteak and hard
tack.
General Stevens now received orders from General Pope to act as
rear-guard. Reno's division (that officer being ill and off duty), a
brigade of cavalry, and two batteries were added to his command for that
duty, the most important and responsible in the army at this juncture.
He moved out and took position on Cub Run, two and a half miles in front
of Centreville, throwing out a strong skirmish line beyond the creek,
and disposing his batteries and troops to resist an attack. Contrary to
expectation, the enemy did not press on after his victory, although he
appeared in force, advanced his skirmish line in plain view, and opened
briskly with his artillery, to which ours as briskly replied. The day
was wet, drizzling, and dreary, but at last wore away with nothing more
serious.
At night General Reynolds and his division relieved General Stevens. He
criticised some of the latter's dispositions, which called out a sharp
rejoinder. He declared that the enemy's skirmishers were too close, and
deployed a regiment to drive them back, but his men, to his intense
chagrin, hung back. Then he said the enemy might attack at any moment.
But General Stevens did not share his apprehensions, and remarked to
him, "I think it most probable that the enemy will move around and
strike us under the ribs."
After being relieved, the division moved to Centreville, and bivouacked
on the heights half a mile south of the hamlet. The following morning,
Monday, September 1, the officers straightened out their commands and
took account of their losses; rations and ammunition were brought up and
issued; and all hoped for at least one day of much needed rest. Captain
Stevens, by direction of the general, counted the stacks of muskets, and
found the latter to number 2012. Half of the division had fallen in
battle, or on the march, since leaving Fredericksburg a fortnight
before.
Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, a very brave and intelligent young officer,
whom General Stevens treated with great kindness and consideration
during the campaign, relates that about noon the general came to his
battery,--
"and came where I was sitting. (My crutches had been broken, and I
could not rise without help.) I soon saw that he felt very
blue,--that he felt the defeat very keenly, and feared its effect on
the men. I tried to assure him that his own command felt more
devoted to him than ever, and if possible more faith in his skill
than before. And this was God's truth,--_they did_, and he had
earned it.
"Still he felt very blue. I asked him if he would write to his wife.
'Yes; but there is no way to send a letter in. I am anxious to send
word.' 'Well, general, you write, and I will send it by some
Christian or Sanitary man. We have just sent letters, and I will
have a man watch the turnpike until some one will take it.'
"He seemed much pleased with this. I brought him the envelope, etc.,
and he wrote on a book, sitting on the ground. Before he had
finished, the order came to move. He closed it hastily, after giving
some orders, gave it to me, and went to his headquarters. The letter
was given to a gentleman going to Washington with a wounded man."
It was General Stevens's last letter.
While the beaten and distracted Union commander was trying to straighten
out his forces huddled about Centreville, uncertain whether to risk
further conflict or to fall back to the defenses of Washington, Lee was
moving his whole army in one column, to fall upon his enemy's line of
retreat and rear. The very day after the battle he advanced Jackson's
wing across Bull Run by Sudley Ford to the Little River turnpike, which
runs straight to Fairfax Court House, and there intersects the
Alexandria and Warrenton pike, eight miles behind Centreville. On this
Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet
and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union
army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat;
"to strike it under the ribs," as General Stevens so clearly foresaw.
Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank
movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to
pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news
forced him to decision and to action.
[Illustration: Jackson's Flank March to turn Centreville.]
Such was the situation,--the bulk of the Union forces grouped about
Centreville with their distraught commander, the victorious rebel army,
in one strong column, Jackson at its head, turning their flank and
striking far in their rear,--when, at one P.M., two cavalrymen dashed up
to General Stevens's headquarters. They bore orders to him from General
Pope to march immediately across country, guided by the two troopers, to
the Little River pike, and there take position and hold in check a
column of the enemy reported advancing down that road.
General Stevens soon had his division under arms, moved across the
fields, and entered the Alexandria pike a short distance east of
Centreville. Here Ferrero's brigade of Reno's division, the other
brigade after its heavy loss on the 29th not being again called upon,
fell in behind and followed. The scanty column moved down the road a
mile and a half, then turned off to the left, and followed a farm road
in a northeasterly direction between the two pikes. As General Stevens
and staff were riding at the head of the column the cavalrymen told how
they had been out foraging that morning to the Little River pike, and
had run into a heavy column of the enemy advancing down it, and had made
all haste to gallop to Pope's headquarters with the news. Thence they
were at once dispatched to General Stevens with the orders already
related, and directed to guide his column to the endangered road.
This startling news brought him about noon by these cavalrymen was
unquestionably the first intelligence that Pope received of Lee's
thrust. His own orders prove this, for he not only immediately
dispatched General Stevens to seize and hold the Little River pike, but
detached Hooker from his division and sent him to Germantown, a point
just in front of Fairfax Court House, where the two pikes meet, to take
charge of some troops there and post them to resist the threatening
movement, ordered McDowell--
"immediately to march rapidly back to Fairfax Court House with your
whole division (corps) and assume command of the two brigades there,
and occupy Germantown with your whole force, so as to cover the
turnpike from this place to Alexandria. Jackson is reported
advancing on Fairfax with 20,000 men,"--
and soon afterwards hurried Heintzelman's two divisions down the pike
toward Fairfax. And it was while thus moving that General Kearny
received General Stevens's urgent summons, and opportunely hastened to
the stricken field, as will soon be related.
After proceeding across country several miles in rather a winding or
crooked course, the column was marching over an elevated tract of open
country, which sloped down in front to a marshy hollow clothed with
small growth, and partially timbered. Beyond the hollow, open fields
appeared again, and beyond them dense pine woods. To the rear the high
ground extended to the main turnpike, half a mile distant, down which
were seen the white covers of the crowded wagons moving in retreat.
At this moment the little cavalcade at the head of the column was
suddenly surprised by the sight of a rebel skirmish line deployed across
the fields in front and cautiously advancing toward it, and the more
because the Little River pike, as the cavalrymen said, was still some
distance away. The skirmishers were already across the hollow and close
at hand when first seen.
At the first glance General Stevens realized what that rebel skirmish
line portended. It portended an attack in force upon the turnpike, the
only line of retreat. Full well he knew that the movement must be
arrested, or the line of retreat would be broken, the army cut in two
while widely extended along the road, and a great disaster inflicted.
Instantly he threw forward two companies of the Highlanders, under
Captains W.T. Lusk and Robert Ives, to drive back the enemy's advance
and uncover his movement. Deploying in skirmish order, they ran forward,
exchanging a sharp fire with the opposing line and driving it back,
crossed the hollow, surmounted a graded railroad embankment which
traversed it, and pushed on after the rebel skirmishers into the farther
fields. The embankment was the grade of the same Manassas Gap Railroad
over which, beyond Bull Run, Jackson made his fierce fight.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1862]
Captain Stevens, directing the skirmishers, had just ridden on top of
the embankment, when a rebel soldier half way across the field in front,
who was helping off a wounded comrade, withdrew his arm from his
comrade's support, deliberately aimed at the mounted officer, and
fired, and the bullet passed through his hat, inflicting a sharp rap
upon his head. Twenty muskets were instantly fired at the bold rebel in
return, but without effect, and coolly and deliberately he shifted his
piece to his left hand, replaced his right arm around his comrade's
waist, and helped him slowly off in safety.
While the Highlanders were thus pushing back the enemy, General Stevens,
without halting or retarding the march of his troops an instant, was
forming them as fast as they came up in a column of brigades on the
hither side of the fields beyond the hollow. While thus forming, a
regiment of the enemy advanced in line of battle from the woods more
than half way across the fields, and the Union skirmishers fell back
before it. But Benjamin's guns, having just taken position on the right
of the forming column, opened upon the regiment, and it immediately fell
back and disappeared in the woods. Lusk's company now rejoined its
regiment, but Ives's fell back to the railroad grade, and remained there
during the battle.
The column was formed in the edge of quite a large open tract, the
farther side of which was closed by the woods. Woods also extended on
the right side all along the open ground. Near the centre of the open
tract, and to the left and front of the column, was a farmhouse, with
outbuildings and orchard, and just beyond it a large field of tall,
waving corn extended to the woods in front, and to woods on the left.
The estate was known as Fruitvale, and belonged to the family of Reid,
but was occupied at this time by a family named Heath.
A road coming from the main turnpike in rear ran in a northerly course
past the right of the forming column, extended along the right edge of
the open ground, traversed the farther woods, and crossed the Little
River pike at right angles. This has been known since colonial days as
the Ox Road, and the eminence over which it runs, just north of the
crossing, is Ox Hill, from which the Confederates have named the coming
engagement the battle of Ox Hill. In Union reports and histories it is
known as the battle of Chantilly, from the hamlet of that name six miles
westward on the Little River pike.
The column was soon formed in the following order:--
28th Mass., 79th Highlanders, Col. David Morrison.
50th Penn., 8th Michigan, Col. Benjamin C. Christ.
100th Penn., 46th New York, Lieut.-Col. David A. Lecky.
The formation was nearly completed when General Reno appeared. He had
been sick and off duty the day before. The conference between him and
General Stevens was brief. The latter pointed out the supposed position
of the enemy, in a few strong words showed the necessity of hurling back
his threatened advance, and declared his intention of attack as soon as
his column was formed. General Reno seemed undecided and hesitating. He
seemed not to approve the movement, but he certainly did not disapprove
it in words, nor did he give any orders, nor take command in any way,
and soon turned and rode back.
General Stevens now dismounted, and directed his staff to dismount, and
sent one of them to each of the leading regiments, with orders to go
forward with it and make every exertion to force the charge home. He
sent Captain Stevens to the Highlanders, and Lieutenant Dearborn, his
aide, to the 28th Massachusetts.
The column now advanced, Benjamin's guns firing shells into the woods in
front. It descended a long, gentle slope, crossed a slight hollow, and
swept steadily up the easy ascent in three firm, regular lines with the
fixed bayonets glistening above them. Not a sight nor sound betrayed the
presence of the enemy. There was nothing to be seen but the open field,
extending two hundred yards in front and closed by the wall of woods,
with an old zigzag rail fence at its edge. "There is no enemy there,"
exclaimed Captain Lusk to Captain Stevens, as they were marching side by
side; "they have fallen back; we shall find nothing there."
Even as he spoke, the enemy poured a terrific volley from behind the
rail fence. Captain Stevens struck the ground with great force and
suddenness, shot in the arm and hip, and as he struggled to his feet saw
the even battle line of the Highlanders pressing firmly and steadily on.
A few minutes later General Stevens came up on foot, stopped a moment to
ask his son if he was badly hurt, and to order a soldier to help him off
the field, and, unheeding his remonstrances, moved on after the first
line.
The enemy was smiting the column with a terrible and deadly musketry.
The men were falling fast. General Stevens now ordered Captain Lusk to
hasten to the 50th Pennsylvania, which was hesitating at entering the
cornfield, and to push them forward, for, as the column advanced, the
left struck and extended into this cornfield.
The troops, under the withering hail of bullets, were now wavering and
almost at a standstill. Five color-bearers of the Highlanders had fallen
in succession, and the colors again fell to the ground. At this crisis
General Stevens pushed to the front, seized the falling colors from the
hands of the wounded bearer, unheeding his cry, "For God's sake, don't
take the colors, general; they'll shoot you if you do!" and calling
aloud upon his old regiment, "Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your
general!" rushed forward with the uplifted flag. The regiment responded
nobly. They rushed forward, reached the edge of the woods, hurled
themselves with fury upon the fence and the rebel line behind it, and
the enemy broke and fled in disorder. The 28th Massachusetts joined
gallantly in the charge, and the other brigades as gallantly supported
the first. At this moment a sudden and severe thunderstorm, with a
furious gale, burst over the field and the rain fell in torrents, while
the flash of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to rebuke man's
bloody, fratricidal strife.
General Stevens fell dead in the moment of victory. A bullet entered at
the temple and pierced his brain. He still firmly grasped the flagstaff,
and the colors lay fallen upon his head and shoulders. His noble, brave,
and ardent spirit, freed at last from the petty jealousies of earth, had
flown to its Creator.