Battle of Ball's Bluff

Depiction of Ball's Bluff by Alfred W. Thompson

Date	October 21, 1861
Location	Loudoun County, Virginia Coordinates: 39°07′42″N 77°31′40″W / 39.1282°N 77.5277°W / 39.1282; -77.5277
Result	Confederate victory

Belligerents

United States (Union)

CSA (Confederacy)

Commanders and leaders

Charles Pomeroy Stone
Edward Dickinson Baker †

Nathan G. Evans

Strength

1,720

1,709

Casualties and losses

921–1,002 total

155 (36 killed; 117 wounded; 2 captured)

The Battle of Ball's Bluff in Loudoun County, Virginia on October 21, 1861, was one of the early battles of the American Civil War, in which Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac (Union) suffered a humiliating defeat.

The operation was planned as a minor reconnaissance across the Potomac to establish whether the Confederates were occupying Leesburg. A false report of an unguarded Confederate camp encouraged Brig. Gen. Charles Pomeroy Stone to order a raid, which clashed with enemy forces. A prominent US Senator in uniform, Colonel Edward Baker, tried to reinforce the Union troops, but failed to ensure that there were enough boats for the river crossings, which were then delayed. Baker was killed, and a newly-arrived Confederate unit routed the rest of Stone’s expedition.

The Union losses, although modest by later standards, alarmed Congress, which set-up the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, a body which would provoke years of bitter political infighting.

Three months after the First Battle of Bull Run, Maj-Gen. George B. McClellan was building up the Army of the Potomac in preparation for an eventual advance into Virginia. On October 19, 1861, McClellan ordered Brig. Gen. George A. McCall to march his division to Dranesville, Virginia, twelve miles southeast of Leesburg, in order to discover the purpose of recent Confederate troop movements which indicated that Col. Nathan "Shanks" Evans might have abandoned Leesburg. Evans had, in fact, left the town on October 16–17 but had done so on his own authority. When Confederate Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard expressed his displeasure at this move, Evans returned. By the evening of October 19, he had taken up a defensive position on the Alexandria-to-Winchester Turnpike (modern day State Route 7) east of town.

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