Community Corner
Civil War on the Potomac: The Battle of Ball's Bluff
Reenactors gathered at Ball's Bluff Regional Park and Lockhouse 25 on Oct. 22 to honor the Civil War soldiers who died in the Battle of Ball's Bluff and educate the public about the history of the war in the Potomac area.
Barely seven months into the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln considered evacuating Washington, D.C., as bodies of Union soldiers floated down the Potomac River past the capital. The soldiers were casualties of the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, an accidental skirmish that erupted near Edward’s Ferry, MD, in October 1861.
On Saturday, Oct. 22 -- 150 years after the original battle -- 1,000 men donned Civil War uniforms and reenacted the battle in front of a sold-out audience of 3,000 at Ball’s Bluff Regional Park in Loudon County, VA. The show marked the battle's sesquicentennial and remembered the 250 Union and Confederate soldiers who died there.
Jim Morgan, who wrote a book about the Battle of Ball’s Bluff and announced Saturday's reenactment, said the conflict at Ball’s Bluff was never planned.
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On Oct. 16, 1861, Confederate troops stationed in Leesburg, VA, retreated south, which prompted Union troops in Maryland to raid what they mistook for an abandoned Confederate camp. The Confederates returned Oct. 20 to find Union troops in Virginia and the Union regiments, unable to retreat across the river, were pushed back to Ball’s Bluff, where they were captured or killed on the shoreline.
Though the battle was small, it deeply worried President Lincoln, who feared that the Confederacy was making a push to capture D.C., according to John DePerro, a reenactor with the Union Army Balloon Corps.
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“After Ball’s Bluff, Lincoln is wondering: ‘Do we have to evacuate Washington, D.C.?’” DePerro said. Earlier that year, Lincoln appointed Thaddeus Lowe to the position of chief aeronaut of the Union Army Balloon Corps.
“[Lincoln] calls Lowe who brings his balloon down from Philadelphia and puts it up at Lockhouse 25,” DePerro added.
. Knapp and the rest of the Union Army Balloon Corps reenactors raised a quarter-scale replica of Lowe’s reconnaissance balloon on the same spot where Lowe launched 150 years ago.
Lincoln’s fears of an early attack on the capital were never realized, thanks in part to Lowe’s surveillance. But many people never hear that story.
Sitting next to the battlefield, dressed in a 19th century gown and shawl, Barbara Martindale, whose husband is a reenactor in the Union’s 1st California infantry regiment, said that’s the point of reenactors.
“This is all about preserving history,” she said. “A lot of people died for this. Too many people have forgotten how we got here. So we’re trying to remember.”
