War Becomes a Reality

Going to See the Elephant, July 1861

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

Editor’s Note: “Going to see the ele­phant” was an expres­sion used by enlis­tees to the Union Army describ­ing the expe­ri­ence of coun­try boys going off to war where they would expe­ri­ence life in ways they could not have imagined.
 
 
With the Capi­tol at Wash­ing­ton under threat of inva­sion by the Con­fed­er­ate Army, Union sol­diers trans­port the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­men­t’s stan­dard weights and mea­sures to St. Johns­bury for safe­keep­ing. Cap­tion and illus­tra­tion from the book Pio­neers In Indus­try Fair­banks, Morse & Co.
July of 1861 marked a turn­ing point. War became a grim real­i­ty with major bat­tles fought, result­ing in seri­ous injuries and loss of life. Men returned home bear­ing the phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal scars of war. Gen­er­al­ly, the real­i­ty of war did not hit home until news of local casu­al­ties arrived. The first Danville casu­al­ty was Charles D. Cook, who was just sev­en­teen years old when he died in the hos­pi­tal at Camp Grif­fin, Vir­ginia, of typhoid fever in Novem­ber of 1861. The opti­mism which had pre­vailed at the out­set of the war, regard­ing the fact that union forces would quick­ly tri­umph, began to fade.

Accord­ing to Susan­nah Clif­ford in Vil­lage In the Hills: “There was at least one fam­i­ly in Danville that had rel­a­tives fight­ing on both sides of the bat­tle lines, but in this par­tic­u­lar case kin­ship proved stronger than patri­o­tism. James Davis, son of Bliss Davis, was the only known Danville sol­dier to see the war from the Con­fed­er­ate side. James went west at age eigh­teen to live with his uncle in Ohio and then moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to study med­i­cine. When the war broke out in 1861, he joined the Con­fed­er­ate ser­vice as an assis­tant sur­geon of the Sev­enth Louisiana Reg­i­ment and lat­er became full sur­geon. He served through­out the war and was present at all the major bat­tles in north­ern Vir­ginia. James cousin, Alexan­der, who was with the Union army, was wound­ed at the bat­tle at Savage’s Sta­tion, cap­tured by the Con­fed­er­ate army and sent to Ander­son­ville Prison. While in prison, Alexan­der learned that his cousin was in Rich­mond, and he wrote to James to let him know of his sit­u­a­tion. James imme­di­ate­ly set to get­ting Alexan­der exchanged and even fur­nished him with trans­porta­tion back to his regiment.”

On the home front, local farm­ers and horse breed­ers in Danville helped fur­nish the cav­al­ry with fine hors­es. Danville’s Meri­no Sheep and Greenbank’s woolen mill con­tributed to the war effort, as did most oth­er tex­tile mills in New Eng­land, by pro­vid­ing woolen broad­cloth for the pro­duc­tion of blan­kets and uni­forms. In the autumn of 1861, Greenbank’s mill received fed­er­al con­tracts to man­u­fac­ture woolen broad­cloth for uniforms.

A pair of stir­rups made in Fair­banks fac­to­ry for use by Union cav­al­ry­men in the Civ­il War. Cap­tion and pho­to­graph from Pio­neers in Indus­try Fair­banks, Morse & Co.

Ear­ly in 1861, with the city of Wash­ing­ton in grave dan­ger, the offi­cial stan­dard weights of the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment were moved to St. Johns­bury for safe­keep­ing. E. and T. Fair­banks and Co. began the man­u­fac­ture of brass stir­rups and brass trim­mings for the North­ern cav­al­ry, as well as of artillery har­ness irons and curb bits. In addi­tion the offi­cials of the New York branch of E. and T. Fair­banks helped Gov­er­nor Eras­tus Fair­banks secure sup­plies for both infantry and cav­al­ry of the Ver­mont regiments.

THE NORTH STAR, July 13, 1861

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

It rec­om­mends that Con­gress pro­vide, by legal means, for “mak­ing this con­test a short and deci­sive one;” and the Pres­i­dent asks that body to pass an act to raise 400,000 men, and $400,000,000. to pros­e­cute the work. Should Con­gress grant it, we trust the great pow­er thus con­ferred, will be wise­ly used, in crush­ing rebel­lion, and giv­ing to this mighty con­flict a strict­ly nation­al and Union-restor­ing character.

Cri­sis and Gen­er­al News Items

In Ohio, a con­trac­tor made out of the sim­ple arti­cles of camp-ket­tles, tin-cups and tin plates fur­nished to the Gov­ern­ment, the sum of $25,000. The amount of pub­lic swin­dling now going on is gen­er­al­ly regard­ed as nev­er before equaled under any for­mer Administration.

Capt. Kel­logg of the 24th Con­necti­cut reg­i­ment, who was recent­ly cap­tured by the rebels, was decoyed into a house by a strange woman while on pick­et duty. It is said the same female has decoyed two oth­er pick­ets into her dwelling in order to have them pris­on­ers. Our sol­diers will find out that it is dan­ger­ous work to go into a strange house with a strange woman to picket…

THE NORTH STAR, July 20, 1861

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

The war intel­li­gence this week is unusu­al­ly impor­tant; it is also cheer­ing to the Fed­er­al cause. Gen. McClel­lan has achieved some grand results in West­ern Vir­ginia defeat­ing the rebels 10,000 strong, caus­ing them not only to retreat, but a large body of them to throw down their arms and sur­ren­der; and this is no hearsay sto­ry, but is the offi­cial report.

THE NORTH STARJULY 27, 1861

The Great Bat­tle and Repulse

Our war news of this week, presents a mourn­ful record—one that must cast gloom over the loy­al states, and car­ry sor­row to the homes of thou­sands. We have no heart to dwell upon the har­row­ing details. The Fed­er­al army has met with an unex­pect­ed and severe defeat; and yet under the cir­cum­stances, it is dif­fi­cult now to see how the result could have been oth­er­wise than dis­as­trous. The forces engaged were by no means equal—ours being infe­ri­or to the rebels, both as to num­bers and position…the “high –pres­sure” politi­cians at Wash­ing­ton, who have assert­ed all along that the Con­fed­er­ate army was weak in num­bers, mate­r­i­al and courage, and who have been insane­ly and inces­sant­ly urg­ing Gen. Scott to make a for­ward move­ment to Rich­mond, almost against his bet­ter judgment—these men must now admit that the move­ment was pre­cip­i­tat­ed, and per­ceive their fol­ly in so tena­cious­ly insist­ing upon it. Their coun­sels will here­after be of lit­tle avail.

The Third Vt. Reg­i­ment Off For Washington

The Third Reg­i­ment of Vt. Vol­un­teers, which for sev­er­al weeks has been encamped at St. Johns­bury, is final­ly off for the war…A large num­ber of friends, rel­a­tives, and spec­ta­tors, were present to see them start,

Gen Mans­field has issued the fol­low­ing order. “Head­quar­ters of the Depart­ment of Washington.—Fugitive slaves will, under no pre­text what­ev­er, be per­mit­ted to reside or be in any way har­bored in quar­ters and camps of troops serv­ing this Depart­ment. Nei­ther will such slaves be allowed to accom­pa­ny the troops on the march.”

March of the Grand Army—50,000 Strong—Arrival at Manassas—Terrible Fight­ing all the Way

Last week Tuesday, the grand advance movement of the Federal army, under General McDowell commenced. The whole column moved from the vicinity of Washington and Arlington Heights, and numbered in all, some 55,000. The 2nd Vermont regiment was among them. The enemy it was supposed would be met the whole way, to Manassas Junction, which has proved true…

The entry of the Fed­er­al troops into Fair­fax is said to have been inspir­ing beyond description.

Bat­tle at Bull’s Run (The first Bat­tle of Bull Run)

The first engage­ment of any moment took place on the 18th, at a placed called Bull’s Run, a few miles this side of Man­as­sas. But a small part of our troops were engaged, but our loss was con­sid­er­able, includ­ing sev­er­al Mass. Soldiers…

Wash­ing­ton, July 19—From a care­ful inquiry and per­son­al obser­va­tion the num­ber of wound­ed on the Fed­er­al side amounts to 60 killed and 40 wound­ed. Sev­er­al ampu­ta­tions have tak­en place. ..The rebels are still in pos­ses­sion of their prin­ci­pal bat­ter­ies. Their pick­ets approach to with­in 150 yards of ours.

Bat­tle Resumes at Bull’s Run (The sec­ond Bat­tle of Bull Run)

A dis­patch dat­ed Wash­ing­ton July 21, says:–The Sec­re­tary of War has received a dis­patch that fight­ing was resumed at Bull’s Run this morn­ing. Our Troops engaged the ene­my with a full force, silenced their bat­ter­ies and drove the rebels to the Junction.

Anoth­er dis­patch says that the Fed­er­al troops have won the day. The loss on both sides is heavy, but the rout of the rebels is complete.

Lat­er reports state that the rebels were all dri­ven from the bat­ter­ies on the road, but that after hard fight­ing, they retreat­ed to Man­as­sas Junc­tion, where it is report­ed anoth­er great bat­tle was going on. The rebel forces are there com­bined under John­son and Beau­re­gard, and num­ber 75,000 or 100,000 men

Great Bat­tle near Manassas

At this time of writ­ing (Tues­day forenoon) we have var­i­ous con­flict­ing and painful reports rel­a­tive to a bat­tle at Man­as­sas. One report is, that our forces were repulsed, with a large loss, had retreat­ed some fif­teen miles, &c….Another report that our main army had not attacked Manassas—that only a detach­ment had gone for­ward to recon­noi­ter &c. and were oblig­ed to retreat to the main body.

Our Army Defeat­ed and Retir­ing on Washington

The Rebels Rein­forced by Gen. Johnson—The Union Army Dri­ven in Dis­or­der from the Ground—The Loss Great

After the severe bat­tle at Bull’s Run, our army hav­ing tak­en three bat­ter­ies, the fight was con­tin­ued at a place called War­ring­ton Turn­pike, a short dis­tance from Manassas.—Meantime the ene­my had been rein­forced by a large body under Gen. John­ston. Gen Pat­ter­son failed to join our forces, so that left us with only about 35,000 troops, against 80,000 or 90,000 of the ene­my. Yet, even with these great odds, our troops fought des­per­ate­ly and brave­ly, until over­pow­ered by the supe­ri­or numbers…Our loss in men, wound­ed, pris­on­ers, field bat­ter­ies, ammu­ni­tion, &c. must be great, tho’ the accounts rep­re­sent­ing to much less than at first, which stat­ed it as high as 5,000. It is now reduced down to 300 to 400 killed, with many wound­ed and missing.

War­ring­ton Turnpike

35,000 Fed­er­al and 50,000 Rebel Troops Engaged

Wash­ing­ton, July 22—I returned to this city from Cen­tre­ville last night. The bat­tle of yes­ter­day was fought on War­ring­ton Turn­pike, which cross­es Bull’s Run. Thir­ty-five thou­sand Fed­er­al and eighty thou­sand rebel troops were engaged.

The rebels were com­mand­ed by Jeff. Davis in per­son, assist­ed by Gen­er­als Beau­re­gard and John­ston. The lat­ter made a junc­tion with the main South­ern army on Saturday….

No descrip­tion can give an idea of the fire that belched from the enemy’s lines, as well as our own and large bod­ies of rebels could be seen fly­ing in all directions…

It is report­ed than Gen Schenck gave the order for every man to look out for him­self. There was a ter­ri­ble com­mo­tion. Artillery, infantry, bag­gage and pri­vate vehi­cles, and thou­sands of men flee­ing toward our bridge across Cub Run, a small stream west of Centreville…Our troops behaved nobly, fought brave­ly, won the field, and then were sub­ject­ed to a com­plete rout.

Our loss is severe…Undoubtedly very many strag­glers have been cap­tured by the ene­my. No cor­rect esti­mate can be obtained of our loss, but it is sup­posed that one thou­sand will cov­er the loss of the killed, with three thou­sand wound­ed and prisoners.

Many think this esti­mate is too high.

 

 

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