The Battle of Brawner's Farm: 28 August 1862
...as it was remembered.
"It was a stand-up combat, dogged and unflinching, in a field almost bare. There were no wounds from spent balls; the confronting lines looked into each other's faces at deadly range, less than one hundred yards apart, and they stood as immovable as the painted heroes in a battle-piece...and although they could not advance, they would not retire. There was some discipline in this, but there was much more of true valor. In this fight there was no maneuvering, and very little tactics--it was a question of endurance, and both endured..." -- Brig Gen William B. Taliaferro, Commander, 1st Division, Jackson's Corps (Left Wing), Army of Northern Virginia
***
"Washington Star
March 16, 1913
Plan Monument of site of most Deadly and Dramatic Battle of the Civil War
August 28, 1862, within forty miles of Washington occurred one of the most dramatic and deadly battles of the Civil War yet one almost unrecorded and unmarked by public park or monumental stone. Cross the Potomac and follow the Warrenton Pike out past Annandale and Fairfax, past Centerville and the Stone House, and just beyond the picturesque little hamlet of Groveton on a ridge to the right of the road is the prosaic ground of a battle as valorous, as deadly as any that history records. On that August day of the gloomy summer Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia was moving eastward from Warrenton to Centerville in a vain endeavor to bag Stonewall Jackson. The blue-clad columns were tolling along the Warrenton Pike, the railway and all possible roads leading toward Centerville where Jackson was supposed to be and was not. That wily leader had disappeared in the woods about Bull Run and no one in the entire Union army knew where he and his 25,000 lean followers were concealed.
On the extreme left and rear of the Union army moving down the Warrenton Pike was King's Division of McDowell's Corps, four brigades , fifteen regiments, some 7,000 men in all. This division left Buckland Mills early but was delayed by Sigel's interminable wagon trains and again in the afternoon, near Gainesville, by Pope's orders. Now late in the evening, the head of the column, Hatch's brigade, was coming abreast of Groveton while in the rear, Patrick's brigade, was leaving Gainesville. Behind Hatch was Gibbon's brigade and behind Gibbon was Doubleday with three small regiments, mere battalions. The evening was calm and beautiful the men had had a good rest and coffee in the middle of the afternoon and now cheery with pipe and soldier talk, marched with easy swinging stride to cover the few miles that separated them from camp and supper. As the dying sun sank behind the western mountains it shone on the long sinuous column of men and was reflected back by many a spear tipped flag and sloping rifle along the old Warrenton Road. The bands played and why not? No enemy was near; they had Pope's word for that.
A mile west of Groveton the road dips into a swale, some tributary of Young's Branch. All along the southern side of the pike are dense woods but on the northern side, the country is clear, rising to low rolling ridges, save one wood which borders the road in the swale; a wood some 500 yards long and extending as far up the slope to the north. This wood has received from Gen. Charles King the name of the Douglas Wood. Beyond it is a long ridge and well back of that, further north, other woods that extend all the way eastward to Sudley Ford. In the southern border of this long wood is an old railway grade, in places an embankment, in places a trench. A quarter mile up from the pike near the northwest corner of the wood is a house, the Douglas or Brawner house, the only landmark in the whole area.
[Leader portraits by Bedbug]
It is almost sundown. Hatch's advance has passed Groveton and is rising the ridge where the Confederate monument now stands. Behind it marches a brigade not heard of then but destined with that solemn hour to win immortal fame, the Iron Brigade of the West, commanded by Gen. John Gibbon. It was the one distinctive western brigade in the eastern armies made up of the 2d, 6th and 7th Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana, four regiments that were never separated from October 1861 until they were mustered out of service. The 2d had been through First Bull Run and swaggered a bit as veterans, in consequence. They rather patronized the others, put on veterans airs, swore by their own officers, O'Connor, Fairchild and Tom Allen but had little use for any one else. The 6th 7th and 19th had not had the 2d's opportunities but were sure that when the time came they could fight as well and stay as long. It was this that accounts in a large measure for the stirring feat of arms that followed. The 2d having talked so much could not be the first to fall back. The others would not budge while the 2d stayed.
The brigade was passing behind the Gibbon Wood which partly hid it from sight to the north, the 6th Wisconsin was just coming into view east of the wood and the 19th Indiana was yet west of it. Doubleday's little brigade was close behind but Patrick was well back towards Gainesville. At this hour of almost sleepy calm, when every one was thinking of camp and rest beyond Bull Run, bang! bang! burst forth - an iron-shotted salute from a deep-mouthed battery on the wooded ridges to the north. And the enemy had the range so accurately that shells were exploding directly over the column, while others passed close with terrifying screech to burst in the woods beyond the pike. For an instant, the ranks paused as if uncertain what to do. Then sharp stern commands rang out, the rear was hurried forward to the shelter of the wood and all dropped behind a low bank that bordered the fence. What was this that so suddenly plunged the lovely pastoral landscape into rude war? Within that screen of wood that closed the northern horizon less than a mile away was Stonewall Jackson with his 25,000 veterans watching this jaunty division as a tiger watches its prey..." http://www.secondwi.com/wisconsinregiments/battles2.htm
The Union Commanders, their units...
and some trivia...
"Abner Doubleday was the first to be officially recognized as the creator of baseball. A turn-of-the-century national baseball panel awarded the honor to Doubleday on the strength of a letter from an old schoolmate claiming Abner devised the rules for the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. Although his name has stuck with the public, Doubleday was long ago shorn of this honor by historians who examined the evidence." -- http://www.historybuff.com/library/refearlybase.html
"The Army's campaign [of 1876] against the Lakota and Cheyenne called for three separate expeditions-Gen. George Crook's force from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming, Col. John Gibbon's command from Fort Ellis in Montana and Gen. Alfred H. Terry's troops from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory. These columns were to converge on the main group of Indians concentrated in southeast Montana under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other war chiefs...The 7th Cavalry, numbering about 600 men, located the Indian camp on June 25...When near the Little Bighorn, Custer turned north toward the lower end of the Indian camp. Reno, with orders from Custer to cross the river and attack, advanced down the Little Bighorn Valley and struck the upper end of the camp. Outflanked by the defending warriors, he retreated in disorder to the river and took up defensive positions on the bluffs beyond. Here he was soon joined by Benteen...these seven companies entrenched and held their defenses throughout that day and most of the next...The siege ended when all the Indians broke their great encampment and withdrew upon the approach of columns under Terry and Gibbon." -- http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm
Confederate Commanders and units...
Taliaferro commanded the 1st Division and Ewell commanded the 3rd Division of Jackson's Wing. Only five of Jackson's 11 infantry brigades were seriously engaged in the fight around Brawner's Farm.
(Leader portraits of Baylor, Starke, Trimble, & Lawton by Bedbug)
From the report of Brig-Gen John Gibbon:
"...The division was marching on Centerville from Gainesville, my brigade following General Hatch’s, on the Warrenton turnpike, in the following order: The Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel Cutler; Second Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel O’Connor; Seventh Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel Robinson; Nineteenth Indiana Volunteers, Colonel Meredith, and Gibbon’s Battery, 4th Artillery, Capt. J.B. Campbell. Hatch’s artillery was engaging the enemy in front, when from a point to his left and rear one of the enemy’s batteries opened on my column. I directed the men to lie down in the road, and ordered up Captain Campbell with the battery. It came up at a gallop, formed in battery under heavy fire, and opened with such vigor that the enemy’s battery was soon silenced and made to retire. In the mean time I found that two of the enemy’s pieces had been planted to our left and rear and were firing on Doubleday’s brigade, which was behind us. I had no information of the presence of an infantry force in that position, which was occupied by General Hatch in person not three-fourths of an hour before. I therefore supposed that this was one of the enemy’s cavalry batteries, and ordered the Second Wisconsin to face to the left and rear and march obliquely to the rear against the pieces to take them in the flank..."
(More to follow...)
v/r
Wrangler
...as it was remembered.
"It was a stand-up combat, dogged and unflinching, in a field almost bare. There were no wounds from spent balls; the confronting lines looked into each other's faces at deadly range, less than one hundred yards apart, and they stood as immovable as the painted heroes in a battle-piece...and although they could not advance, they would not retire. There was some discipline in this, but there was much more of true valor. In this fight there was no maneuvering, and very little tactics--it was a question of endurance, and both endured..." -- Brig Gen William B. Taliaferro, Commander, 1st Division, Jackson's Corps (Left Wing), Army of Northern Virginia
***
"Washington Star
March 16, 1913
Plan Monument of site of most Deadly and Dramatic Battle of the Civil War
August 28, 1862, within forty miles of Washington occurred one of the most dramatic and deadly battles of the Civil War yet one almost unrecorded and unmarked by public park or monumental stone. Cross the Potomac and follow the Warrenton Pike out past Annandale and Fairfax, past Centerville and the Stone House, and just beyond the picturesque little hamlet of Groveton on a ridge to the right of the road is the prosaic ground of a battle as valorous, as deadly as any that history records. On that August day of the gloomy summer Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia was moving eastward from Warrenton to Centerville in a vain endeavor to bag Stonewall Jackson. The blue-clad columns were tolling along the Warrenton Pike, the railway and all possible roads leading toward Centerville where Jackson was supposed to be and was not. That wily leader had disappeared in the woods about Bull Run and no one in the entire Union army knew where he and his 25,000 lean followers were concealed.
On the extreme left and rear of the Union army moving down the Warrenton Pike was King's Division of McDowell's Corps, four brigades , fifteen regiments, some 7,000 men in all. This division left Buckland Mills early but was delayed by Sigel's interminable wagon trains and again in the afternoon, near Gainesville, by Pope's orders. Now late in the evening, the head of the column, Hatch's brigade, was coming abreast of Groveton while in the rear, Patrick's brigade, was leaving Gainesville. Behind Hatch was Gibbon's brigade and behind Gibbon was Doubleday with three small regiments, mere battalions. The evening was calm and beautiful the men had had a good rest and coffee in the middle of the afternoon and now cheery with pipe and soldier talk, marched with easy swinging stride to cover the few miles that separated them from camp and supper. As the dying sun sank behind the western mountains it shone on the long sinuous column of men and was reflected back by many a spear tipped flag and sloping rifle along the old Warrenton Road. The bands played and why not? No enemy was near; they had Pope's word for that.
A mile west of Groveton the road dips into a swale, some tributary of Young's Branch. All along the southern side of the pike are dense woods but on the northern side, the country is clear, rising to low rolling ridges, save one wood which borders the road in the swale; a wood some 500 yards long and extending as far up the slope to the north. This wood has received from Gen. Charles King the name of the Douglas Wood. Beyond it is a long ridge and well back of that, further north, other woods that extend all the way eastward to Sudley Ford. In the southern border of this long wood is an old railway grade, in places an embankment, in places a trench. A quarter mile up from the pike near the northwest corner of the wood is a house, the Douglas or Brawner house, the only landmark in the whole area.
[Leader portraits by Bedbug]
It is almost sundown. Hatch's advance has passed Groveton and is rising the ridge where the Confederate monument now stands. Behind it marches a brigade not heard of then but destined with that solemn hour to win immortal fame, the Iron Brigade of the West, commanded by Gen. John Gibbon. It was the one distinctive western brigade in the eastern armies made up of the 2d, 6th and 7th Wisconsin and the 19th Indiana, four regiments that were never separated from October 1861 until they were mustered out of service. The 2d had been through First Bull Run and swaggered a bit as veterans, in consequence. They rather patronized the others, put on veterans airs, swore by their own officers, O'Connor, Fairchild and Tom Allen but had little use for any one else. The 6th 7th and 19th had not had the 2d's opportunities but were sure that when the time came they could fight as well and stay as long. It was this that accounts in a large measure for the stirring feat of arms that followed. The 2d having talked so much could not be the first to fall back. The others would not budge while the 2d stayed.
The brigade was passing behind the Gibbon Wood which partly hid it from sight to the north, the 6th Wisconsin was just coming into view east of the wood and the 19th Indiana was yet west of it. Doubleday's little brigade was close behind but Patrick was well back towards Gainesville. At this hour of almost sleepy calm, when every one was thinking of camp and rest beyond Bull Run, bang! bang! burst forth - an iron-shotted salute from a deep-mouthed battery on the wooded ridges to the north. And the enemy had the range so accurately that shells were exploding directly over the column, while others passed close with terrifying screech to burst in the woods beyond the pike. For an instant, the ranks paused as if uncertain what to do. Then sharp stern commands rang out, the rear was hurried forward to the shelter of the wood and all dropped behind a low bank that bordered the fence. What was this that so suddenly plunged the lovely pastoral landscape into rude war? Within that screen of wood that closed the northern horizon less than a mile away was Stonewall Jackson with his 25,000 veterans watching this jaunty division as a tiger watches its prey..." http://www.secondwi.com/wisconsinregiments/battles2.htm
The Union Commanders, their units...
and some trivia...
"Abner Doubleday was the first to be officially recognized as the creator of baseball. A turn-of-the-century national baseball panel awarded the honor to Doubleday on the strength of a letter from an old schoolmate claiming Abner devised the rules for the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. Although his name has stuck with the public, Doubleday was long ago shorn of this honor by historians who examined the evidence." -- http://www.historybuff.com/library/refearlybase.html
"The Army's campaign [of 1876] against the Lakota and Cheyenne called for three separate expeditions-Gen. George Crook's force from Fort Fetterman in Wyoming, Col. John Gibbon's command from Fort Ellis in Montana and Gen. Alfred H. Terry's troops from Fort Abraham Lincoln in Dakota Territory. These columns were to converge on the main group of Indians concentrated in southeast Montana under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other war chiefs...The 7th Cavalry, numbering about 600 men, located the Indian camp on June 25...When near the Little Bighorn, Custer turned north toward the lower end of the Indian camp. Reno, with orders from Custer to cross the river and attack, advanced down the Little Bighorn Valley and struck the upper end of the camp. Outflanked by the defending warriors, he retreated in disorder to the river and took up defensive positions on the bluffs beyond. Here he was soon joined by Benteen...these seven companies entrenched and held their defenses throughout that day and most of the next...The siege ended when all the Indians broke their great encampment and withdrew upon the approach of columns under Terry and Gibbon." -- http://montanagroups.com/p20.htm
Confederate Commanders and units...
Taliaferro commanded the 1st Division and Ewell commanded the 3rd Division of Jackson's Wing. Only five of Jackson's 11 infantry brigades were seriously engaged in the fight around Brawner's Farm.
(Leader portraits of Baylor, Starke, Trimble, & Lawton by Bedbug)
From the report of Brig-Gen John Gibbon:
"...The division was marching on Centerville from Gainesville, my brigade following General Hatch’s, on the Warrenton turnpike, in the following order: The Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel Cutler; Second Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel O’Connor; Seventh Wisconsin Volunteers, Colonel Robinson; Nineteenth Indiana Volunteers, Colonel Meredith, and Gibbon’s Battery, 4th Artillery, Capt. J.B. Campbell. Hatch’s artillery was engaging the enemy in front, when from a point to his left and rear one of the enemy’s batteries opened on my column. I directed the men to lie down in the road, and ordered up Captain Campbell with the battery. It came up at a gallop, formed in battery under heavy fire, and opened with such vigor that the enemy’s battery was soon silenced and made to retire. In the mean time I found that two of the enemy’s pieces had been planted to our left and rear and were firing on Doubleday’s brigade, which was behind us. I had no information of the presence of an infantry force in that position, which was occupied by General Hatch in person not three-fourths of an hour before. I therefore supposed that this was one of the enemy’s cavalry batteries, and ordered the Second Wisconsin to face to the left and rear and march obliquely to the rear against the pieces to take them in the flank..."
(More to follow...)
v/r
Wrangler
