The Flying Dutchmen

General Oliver O. Howard's Eleventh Corps, the target of Jackson's attack, stretched for more than a mile along the Orange Turnpike. Relatively new to the Army of the Potomac, its 11,000 men included a large percentage of German immigrants, among them men with names like Peisser and Buschbeck, Schurz and Schimmelfennig. Union pickets had warned Howard of the enemy's approach, but he ignored their reports after headquarters assured him that the Confederate army was in retreat. As the Southerners struck Howard's flank, the men of the corps broke ranks and fled. Although Howard and his officers eventually restored order, they could not restore the corps' reputation, and afterward the Eleventh Corps was derisively known as the Flying Dutchmen.

Virginia · United States