The North

At Ball's Bluff, several Northern officers and soldiers played notable roles whose later lives reflected the war's costs and consequences. Brigadier General Charles P. Stone, born in Massachusetts in 1824, commanded Union forces overall at Ball's Bluff and became the scapegoat for the Union disaster and for the death of Senator and Colonel Edward Baker; after earlier service in the Mexican War and in charge of Washington, D.C., security from January through May 1861, he was arrested on February 12, 1862, and imprisoned without writ of habeas corpus for 189 days, later served in the Port Hudson and Red River campaigns, resigned from the Army in 1864, served the Egyptian army for 13 years, selected the site, built the pedestal, and served as grand marshal at the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in October 1886, and died in January 1887. Edward D. Baker, born in London in 1814 and raised in Illinois with Abraham Lincoln, served with Lincoln in the Black Hawk War, became a colonel in the Mexican War, a Whig congressman, and a senator from Oregon, helped keep California and Oregon in the Union at the start of the Civil War, commanded the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment raised in New York and Philadelphia, and his death led to the formation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War. Colonel William Lee, born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1807, graduated from Norwich Military Academy, attended West Point with Jefferson Davis, served in the Seminole War, became colonel of the 20th Massachusetts Regiment, was captured at Ball's Bluff and exchanged in 1862, later fought in the Peninsula and Seven Days battles, at Antietam, and at Fredericksburg before resigning because of ill health. Colonel Milton Cogswell, an Indiana native and West Point graduate, led the 42nd New York at Ball's Bluff, urged an advance toward the ridge line toward Leesburg when Baker arrived, was taken prisoner there and exchanged in September 1862, was later recognized at Petersburg on July 30, 1864, for gallant and meritorious service, remained in the Army after the war, and died in 1882. Colonel Charles Devens, born in Massachusetts in 1820, was a lawyer, state senator, and militia general before becoming colonel of the 15th Massachusetts in 1861; historians attribute the Union defeat at the Jackson House early in the battle to his inexperience, and after being wounded there and in later fighting, he served after the war as attorney general and as a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Captain Francis Bartlett, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1840, commanded the company that made the final rear guard delaying charge at Ball's Bluff, killing the color bearer of the 8th Virginia Regiment and then leading 80 men to escape upriver by Smart's Mill Ford; he later lost a leg at Yorktown, served at Port Hudson and in Grant's Overland Campaign, was commissioned a brigadier general just before being taken prisoner at The Crater, and died in 1876. Lieutenant Oliver Wendell Holmes, born on March 8, 1841, in Massachusetts, was wounded at Ball's Bluff, again at Antietam, and at 2nd Fredericksburg, was later discharged because of his injuries, became a prominent Massachusetts lawyer and from 1902 to 1932 an associate justice of the Supreme Court, and reflected on the Civil War by saying, "in our youth our hearts were touched with fire."

Leesburg, Virginia · United States