Ball's Bluff...Big Little Battle

Ball's Bluff had some really significant action that played a role in what would happen for the remainder of the war. Some of these repercussions may have effected the outcome of the war....or at least the length of the war. Other results were that some careers were ruined....in more ways than one.

Result #1: Col. Edward D. Baker was killed. Now a Colonel being killed at a battle isn't big news....it happened in every battle that took place. The significance of Baker's death was that he was the only sitting Congressman to have ever been killed in battle. Edward Baker was a Congressman from Oregon. He had put together a brigade which he called the "California Brigade" because he wanted to bring California into the battle. However, most of the men in this brigade were actually from Philadelphia. After Baker's death, the brigade renamed itself and they became the Philadelphia Brigade. The regiments in the brigade had been known as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th California. They later became known as the 69th, 71st, 72nd, and 102nd Pennsylvania. We never had before...nor since....an acting Congressman being killed in a war.

Result #2: Because this was the 2nd major disaster for the Union, Congress decided that they needed to find out why the North was losing these battles (the first one was 1st Bull Run). So they put together a group and named themselves "The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War"....a group that would be looking over the shoulders of each and every Union commander for the remainder of the war. Now, what possible significance could this have? Well, these commanders were afraid to make a mistake and possibly slowed things down a bit because they certainly didn't want to end up arrested for a mistake. Could things have come to an end sooner if they weren't afraid of these men who were Monday Morning Quarterbacking back in Washington days later. Its hard to say, but that possibility does exist. And this is something to think about when studying each battle.

Result #3: Charles P. Stone. Charles Stone was an up and coming commander in the Union army. Its quite possible that if the battle at Ball's Bluff hadn't happened or ended the way it had, he might be one of the more highly respected commanders from the North. His name could be up there with the "BIG" names: Lee, Grant, Hancock, Meade, Longstreet, and Stone????. Here is why his life was changed. Because this battle was a huge fiasco, the Committee decided that they needed a scapegoat. Funny thing about this: Stone NEVER set foot on the battlefield at Ball's Bluff. The highest ranked commander on the battlefield at Ball's Bluff for the Union was Edward Baker. Well, Baker couldn't get blamed for the battle for three reasons: (1) he was killed in the battle, (2) he was really good friends with President Lincoln (after all, Lincoln named his second son after Baker) and (3) he was a Congressman. So, who do you blame? Well, you go up one rung on the ladder and that person happened to be Charles Stone. They went into his house early in the morning and arrested him. He was thrown into a prison which is no longer in existence, but it sits in the area of one of the bridges in New York Harbor. And he was left there for 6 months. No one told him why he was being arrested or what this was all about....NOTHING. Just as suddenly as he was arrested, he was left go. There was no evidence that he had done anything wrong. When he went to come back to the army, there was such a stigma attached to his name that he was forced to resign from the army. Stone didn't leave the world without leaving his own mark out there: he was the one who built the base that the Statue of Liberty sits on.

Ball's Bluff was such a tiny battle...4 regiments on either side. Maybe a total of 2500 men. But the repercussions of this battle were felt for years afterward. To this day, this battle has been long forgotten, except by the ones who really truly understand the Civil War, but it lived forever in the lives of those who fought there and those whose lives it effected. As a student of the Civil War, I find that its the minor battles that made a permanent scar on the large battles and how we know they were fought.