The South

Colonel Nathan Evans, Colonel Eppa Hunton, Colonel Winfield Featherston, Colonel Elijah White, Colonel Erasmus Burt, Colonel Walter Jenifer, and Captain William Duff were prominent Confederate officers whose wartime service included Ball's Bluff and many other Civil War campaigns. Evans, a South Carolinian born in 1824 and a West Point graduate of 1848, had earlier fought Plains Indians and later distinguished himself at First Manassas, Ball's Bluff, 2nd Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg, Vicksburg, and in the defense of South Carolina before dying in 1868 from war injuries received in 1864. Hunton, born in Fauquier County in 1822, had been a schoolteacher, lawyer, politician, and militia general before the war; he commanded the 8th Virginia Infantry at 1st Manassas, took tactical command around the Jackson House at Ball's Bluff, later fought in the Seven days, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg, was captured at Sailor's Creek on April 6, 1865, and after the war served as a lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, and member of the electoral commission in the disputed Hayes-Tilden presidential election of 1876 before dying in 1908. Featherston, a veteran of the Creek Indian Wars and a former Mississippi congressman, led the 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment at Ball's Bluff, where his men captured the James Rifle artillery piece, then served from the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days through Second Manassas and Fredericksburg and later in the western theater from Vicksburg to Atlanta, Nashville, and Bentonville before postwar service in the Mississippi legislature and death in 1891. White, born in Poolesville, Maryland, in 1832, had attended Granville College and fought in bleeding Kansas; at Ball's Bluff he served as a civilian scout and courier and captured some 300 Union soldiers along the Potomac River bank after the battle, later commanded the 35th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, known as White Comanches, and after the war became a banker, farmer, sheriff, and active Confederate veteran before dying in 1907. Burt, born in South Carolina and serving as Mississippi State Auditor at the outbreak of war, led the 18th Mississippi Infantry Regiment at Ball's Bluff from Fort Evans to Ball's Bluff, deployed it into line of battle in the Cleared Field on October 21, 1861, charged the two howitzers and the 15th Massachusetts, and was mortally wounded and died five days later in Leesburg. Jenifer, born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, in 1823, had attended West Point and served in the U.S. Cavalry before joining the Confederate service; at Ball's Bluff he commanded the Confederate cavalry attack at the Jackson House and the envelopment of the Union right flank, later developed the Jenifer saddle, served in southwestern Virginia, Richmond, and Mobile, and after the war served in the Egyptian army before dying in Richmond in 1878. Duff, born in Mississippi in 1843 and educated at the University of Mississippi, served in Company K, the Magnolia Guard, of the 17th Mississippi Infantry Regiment, surprised and defeated a much larger force of the 15th Massachusetts under Colonel Devens near Jackson House early on October 21, helped notify Evans of the Union crossing and fight at Jackson House and Ball's Bluff, was promoted to major in 1862, wounded in the Chancellorsville Campaign, and later commanded the 8th Mississippi Cavalry.

Leesburg, Virginia · United States