CHAPTER LVII
THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY

Having safely withdrawn his division from the disastrous field, crossing Bull Run by Red House Ford, General Stevens conducted it to the main turnpike, now brimful with retreating troops. It was night, too, and quite dark. Unwilling to plunge his command into the crowded throng, he halted and allowed them to sleep on their arms by the roadside, while the dense, dark tide of troops, trains, and artillery flowed past all night. After daylight he resumed the march by the pike, now clear, and halted for breakfast in the fields a mile from Centreville. The men were ravenously hungry, having long since emptied their haversacks; the supply trains were in the rear, no one knew where, so that a drink of water and a tightened belt seemed destined to be the only breakfast. But General Stevens, having observed a small herd of cattle near by belonging to some commissary, had them driven up and slaughtered; some wagons loaded with hard bread were also seized, and soon the entire command were cooking and enjoying a hearty repast of beefsteak and hard tack.

General Stevens now received orders from General Pope to act as rear-guard. Reno’s division (that officer being ill and off duty), a brigade of cavalry, and two batteries were added to his command for that duty, the most important and responsible in the army at this juncture. He moved out and took position on Cub Run, two and a half miles in front of Centreville, throwing out a strong skirmish line beyond the creek, and disposing his batteries and troops to resist an attack. Contrary to expectation, the enemy did not press on after his victory, although he appeared in force, advanced his skirmish line in plain view, and opened briskly with his artillery, to which ours as briskly replied. The day was wet, drizzling, and dreary, but at last wore away with nothing more serious.

At night General Reynolds and his division relieved General Stevens. He criticised some of the latter’s dispositions, which called out a sharp rejoinder. He declared that the enemy’s skirmishers were too close, and deployed a regiment to drive them back, but his men, to his intense chagrin, hung back. Then he said the enemy might attack at any moment. But General Stevens did not share his apprehensions, and remarked to him, “I think it most probable that the enemy will move around and strike us under the ribs.”

After being relieved, the division moved to Centreville, and bivouacked on the heights half a mile south of the hamlet. The following morning, Monday, September 1, the officers straightened out their commands and took account of their losses; rations and ammunition were brought up and issued; and all hoped for at least one day of much needed rest. Captain Stevens, by direction of the general, counted the stacks of muskets, and found the latter to number 2012. Half of the division had fallen in battle, or on the march, since leaving Fredericksburg a fortnight before.

Lieutenant S.N. Benjamin, a very brave and intelligent young officer, whom General Stevens treated with great kindness and consideration during the campaign, relates that about noon the general came to his battery,—

It was General Stevens’s last letter.

While the beaten and distracted Union commander was trying to straighten out his forces huddled about Centreville, uncertain whether to risk further conflict or to fall back to the defenses of Washington, Lee was moving his whole army in one column, to fall upon his enemy’s line of retreat and rear. The very day after the battle he advanced Jackson’s wing across Bull Run by Sudley Ford to the Little River turnpike, which runs straight to Fairfax Court House, and there intersects the Alexandria and Warrenton pike, eight miles behind Centreville. On this Monday morning Jackson was marching down the turnpike with Longstreet and his whole wing following closely in support, thus turning the Union army at Centreville, and moving to fall upon its only line of retreat; “to strike it under the ribs,” as General Stevens so clearly foresaw. Pope had taken no steps to anticipate or guard against this fatal flank movement. He was groping in the dark, utterly at a loss what course to pursue, and consequently he did nothing until noon, when startling news forced him to decision and to action.

General Stevens soon had his division under arms, moved across the fields, and entered the Alexandria pike a short distance east of Centreville. Here Ferrero’s brigade of Reno’s division, the other brigade after its heavy loss on the 29th not being again called upon, fell in behind and followed. The scanty column moved down the road a mile and a half, then turned off to the left, and followed a farm road in a northeasterly direction between the two pikes. As General Stevens and staff were riding at the head of the column the cavalrymen told how they had been out foraging that morning to the Little River pike, and had run into a heavy column of the enemy advancing down it, and had made all haste to gallop to Pope’s headquarters with the news. Thence they were at once dispatched to General Stevens with the orders already related, and directed to guide his column to the endangered road.

This startling news brought him about noon by these cavalrymen was unquestionably the first intelligence that Pope received of Lee’s thrust. His own orders prove this, for he not only immediately dispatched General Stevens to seize and hold the Little River pike, but detached Hooker from his division and sent him to Germantown, a point just in front of Fairfax Court House, where the two pikes meet, to take charge of some troops there and post them to resist the threatening movement, ordered McDowell—

and soon afterwards hurried Heintzelman’s two divisions down the pike toward Fairfax. And it was while thus moving that General Kearny received General Stevens’s urgent summons, and opportunely hastened to the stricken field, as will soon be related.

After proceeding across country several miles in rather a winding or crooked course, the column was marching over an elevated tract of open country, which sloped down in front to a marshy hollow clothed with small growth, and partially timbered. Beyond the hollow, open fields appeared again, and beyond them dense pine woods. To the rear the high ground extended to the main turnpike, half a mile distant, down which were seen the white covers of the crowded wagons moving in retreat.

At this moment the little cavalcade at the head of the column was suddenly surprised by the sight of a rebel skirmish line deployed across the fields in front and cautiously advancing toward it, and the more because the Little River pike, as the cavalrymen said, was still some distance away. The skirmishers were already across the hollow and close at hand when first seen.

At the first glance General Stevens realized what that rebel skirmish line portended. It portended an attack in force upon the turnpike, the only line of retreat. Full well he knew that the movement must be arrested, or the line of retreat would be broken, the army cut in two while widely extended along the road, and a great disaster inflicted. Instantly he threw forward two companies of the Highlanders, under Captains W.T. Lusk and Robert Ives, to drive back the enemy’s advance and uncover his movement. Deploying in skirmish order, they ran forward, exchanging a sharp fire with the opposing line and driving it back, crossed the hollow, surmounted a graded railroad embankment which traversed it, and pushed on after the rebel skirmishers into the farther fields. The embankment was the grade of the same Manassas Gap Railroad over which, beyond Bull Run, Jackson made his fierce fight.

Captain Stevens, directing the skirmishers, had just ridden on top of the embankment, when a rebel soldier half way across the field in front, who was helping off a wounded comrade, withdrew his arm from his comrade’s support, deliberately aimed at the mounted officer, and fired, and the bullet passed through his hat, inflicting a sharp rap upon his head. Twenty muskets were instantly fired at the bold rebel in return, but without effect, and coolly and deliberately he shifted his piece to his left hand, replaced his right arm around his comrade’s waist, and helped him slowly off in safety.

While the Highlanders were thus pushing back the enemy, General Stevens, without halting or retarding the march of his troops an instant, was forming them as fast as they came up in a column of brigades on the hither side of the fields beyond the hollow. While thus forming, a regiment of the enemy advanced in line of battle from the woods more than half way across the fields, and the Union skirmishers fell back before it. But Benjamin’s guns, having just taken position on the right of the forming column, opened upon the regiment, and it immediately fell back and disappeared in the woods. Lusk’s company now rejoined its regiment, but Ives’s fell back to the railroad grade, and remained there during the battle.

The column was formed in the edge of quite a large open tract, the farther side of which was closed by the woods. Woods also extended on the right side all along the open ground. Near the centre of the open tract, and to the left and front of the column, was a farmhouse, with outbuildings and orchard, and just beyond it a large field of tall, waving corn extended to the woods in front, and to woods on the left. The estate was known as Fruitvale, and belonged to the family of Reid, but was occupied at this time by a family named Heath.

A road coming from the main turnpike in rear ran in a northerly course past the right of the forming column, extended along the right edge of the open ground, traversed the farther woods, and crossed the Little River pike at right angles. This has been known since colonial days as the Ox Road, and the eminence over which it runs, just north of the crossing, is Ox Hill, from which the Confederates have named the coming engagement the battle of Ox Hill. In Union reports and histories it is known as the battle of Chantilly, from the hamlet of that name six miles westward on the Little River pike.

The column was soon formed in the following order:—

28th Mass., 79th Highlanders, Col. David Morrison.
50th Penn., 8th Michigan, Col. Benjamin C. Christ.
100th Penn., 46th New York, Lieut.-Col. David A. Lecky.

The formation was nearly completed when General Reno appeared. He had been sick and off duty the day before. The conference between him and General Stevens was brief. The latter pointed out the supposed position of the enemy, in a few strong words showed the necessity of hurling back his threatened advance, and declared his intention of attack as soon as his column was formed. General Reno seemed undecided and hesitating. He seemed not to approve the movement, but he certainly did not disapprove it in words, nor did he give any orders, nor take command in any way, and soon turned and rode back.

General Stevens now dismounted, and directed his staff to dismount, and sent one of them to each of the leading regiments, with orders to go forward with it and make every exertion to force the charge home. He sent Captain Stevens to the Highlanders, and Lieutenant Dearborn, his aide, to the 28th Massachusetts.

The column now advanced, Benjamin’s guns firing shells into the woods in front. It descended a long, gentle slope, crossed a slight hollow, and swept steadily up the easy ascent in three firm, regular lines with the fixed bayonets glistening above them. Not a sight nor sound betrayed the presence of the enemy. There was nothing to be seen but the open field, extending two hundred yards in front and closed by the wall of woods, with an old zigzag rail fence at its edge. “There is no enemy there,” exclaimed Captain Lusk to Captain Stevens, as they were marching side by side; “they have fallen back; we shall find nothing there.”

Even as he spoke, the enemy poured a terrific volley from behind the rail fence. Captain Stevens struck the ground with great force and suddenness, shot in the arm and hip, and as he struggled to his feet saw the even battle line of the Highlanders pressing firmly and steadily on. A few minutes later General Stevens came up on foot, stopped a moment to ask his son if he was badly hurt, and to order a soldier to help him off the field, and, unheeding his remonstrances, moved on after the first line.

The enemy was smiting the column with a terrible and deadly musketry. The men were falling fast. General Stevens now ordered Captain Lusk to hasten to the 50th Pennsylvania, which was hesitating at entering the cornfield, and to push them forward, for, as the column advanced, the left struck and extended into this cornfield.

The troops, under the withering hail of bullets, were now wavering and almost at a standstill. Five color-bearers of the Highlanders had fallen in succession, and the colors again fell to the ground. At this crisis General Stevens pushed to the front, seized the falling colors from the hands of the wounded bearer, unheeding his cry, “For God’s sake, don’t take the colors, general; they’ll shoot you if you do!” and calling aloud upon his old regiment, “Highlanders, my Highlanders, follow your general!” rushed forward with the uplifted flag. The regiment responded nobly. They rushed forward, reached the edge of the woods, hurled themselves with fury upon the fence and the rebel line behind it, and the enemy broke and fled in disorder. The 28th Massachusetts joined gallantly in the charge, and the other brigades as gallantly supported the first. At this moment a sudden and severe thunderstorm, with a furious gale, burst over the field and the rain fell in torrents, while the flash of lightning and peals of thunder seemed to rebuke man’s bloody, fratricidal strife.

General Stevens fell dead in the moment of victory. A bullet entered at the temple and pierced his brain. He still firmly grasped the flagstaff, and the colors lay fallen upon his head and shoulders. His noble, brave, and ardent spirit, freed at last from the petty jealousies of earth, had flown to its Creator.

CHAPTER LVIII
THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY

The enemy’s troops thus struck and hurled back were Ewell’s division of Jackson’s corps. Hays’s and Trimble’s brigades were behind the fence, and were supported by Early’s and Lawton’s brigades in the woods in their rear. This was the centre division in Jackson’s column. The leading one, under Starke, had already crossed the Ox Road, and the rear division, under A.P. Hill, was closed up on Ewell’s.

Jackson, judging from the fury of the attack and the numbers of his men running in disorder out of the woods that he was assailed by a heavy force, and fearing for his artillery, which had taken position on Ox Hill, on the north side of the pike, when Ewell’s division advanced into the woods on the south side, at once moved his batteries half a mile back up the pike to a long ridge, and planted them in position to rally his troops upon in case of need, while at the same time he hurried Hill’s infantry division forward to maintain the battle. That officer advanced the brigades of Branch and Brockenbrough (Field’s), and successively threw into the fight those of Gregg, Pander, Thomas, and Archer, all of which, except the last, became heavily engaged and suffered severely. General Stevens’s division withstood the attack of these fresh troops stoutly. It had driven back everything in its immediate front, but the contest now raged over the cornfield on the left. It was impossible for its scanty numbers long to resist the pressure of Hill’s brigades, successively rushing into the conflict.

But aid was at hand.

At the moment of ordering the fatal charge, General Stevens sent Lieutenant H.G. Belcher, of the 8th Michigan, back to the main turnpike with instructions to ask support, and to go from commander to commander until he secured it. Belcher applied to several generals, who declined to go without orders, until finally he met General Kearny. Scarcely had he made known his mission to him, and its urgency was startlingly emphasized by the rapid and fierce musketry of the battle, when Kearny exclaimed, “By God, I will support Stevens anywhere!” and at once broke the head of his column off the pike, and struck across the fields to the sound of the battle.

It was Birney’s brigade that Kearny so promptly brought to the rescue. They arrived just in time. The 4th Maine, Colonel Elijah Walker, formed line in rear of the cornfield, considerably to the left of the farmhouse, and opened on the enemy swarming in the farther edge of the field. The remaining regiments as they came up, the 101st New York, 3d Maine, 4th New York, and 1st New York, extended the line to the right as far as the house, or the right border of the cornfield, and, as General Birney reports, “held the enemy and sustained unflinchingly the most murderous fire from a superior force.” From this position they made a gallant advance well into the cornfield, driving back the enemy to the woods, and then withdrew to their former ground. Captain George E. Randolph planted his battery of four guns immediately in rear of the line, and fired over it into the farther side of the cornfield and into the woods. The 18th New York and 57th Pennsylvania were put in later, and helped sustain the contest.

General Stevens’s troops maintained their unequal battle until after Birney’s line opened. Jackson reports, “So severe was the fire in front and flank of Branch’s brigade as to produce in it some disorder and falling back,” and other Confederate officers mention the severe flank fire, showing conclusively that both Stevens’s and Birney’s smote this brigade, one in flank, the other in front, under which double fire it was broken and driven back. “This engagement is regarded by this brigade as one of our severest,” says its commander in his report. After holding their ground for an hour in the unequal contest, and expending all their ammunition, General Stevens’s troops fell back to the Reid house from the position they had so gallantly won. The enemy did not advance into the open ground on the right of the cornfield, and Birney’s fight was continued over it until night ended the contest.

Ferrero’s brigade, of only three regiments, reached the field immediately after Stevens’s division, and was ordered by General Reno to cover his right. The 51st New York, the leading regiment, moved forward into the woods some distance on the right of Stevens’s column until it encountered the line of Starke’s division, became somewhat engaged, and retired with a loss of thirteen. The next regiment, the 21st Massachusetts, was not to escape so easily. Thrown forward on the left of the 51st New York, and disconnected from it, it advanced for a long distance in the woods, somewhat disordered by fallen trees, struck the enemy’s line, and unexpectedly received a deadly volley, and nearly one hundred brave fellows, dead and wounded, lay prostrate at the blow. The gallant regiment returned the fire as well as it could, but in the drenching rain many guns became unserviceable, and it fell back from the woods, the enemy not pursuing. The third regiment, the 51st Pennsylvania, entered the woods on the right of the 51st New York, but were not engaged.

Meantime Starke withdrew his whole division from the woods back to the Little River pike, and moved to the rear. Whether his line, struck by an unaccountable panic, fell into disorder, or whether Jackson drew back the troops for the support of Hill, all of whose brigades were then going into the fight, is uncertain, but probably the latter. Early moved to the left and covered the front vacated by Starke, but with a contracted line, while Trimble’s and Lawton’s brigades were content to hold their ground in the woods considerably to the rear of the fence from which Hays and Trimble had been so roughly driven.

Longstreet deployed Toombs’s and Anderson’s brigades of his leading division (Jones’s), and advanced them into the woods in support of Jackson’s troops, but they were not called upon, as night soon closed the contest.

As the stricken 21st Massachusetts emerged from the woods, near where General Stevens formed his column, it was met by General Kearny, who was searching for troops to cover the right flank of Birney’s line.

Supposing from the non-return of General Kearny that he had fallen or been captured, General Birney assumed command of his division, and after the battle was over relieved his hard-fought troops with General Poe’s brigade. Robinson’s brigade was posted during the battle on the high ground near the main turnpike, and was not engaged. The Union troops held the ground upon which they fought until half past two in the morning, brought off their wounded, and then retreated to Fairfax Court House after the last of the troops from Centreville had passed.

Only sixteen Union regiments, viz., six of Stevens’s division, three of Ferrero’s brigade, and seven of Birney’s brigade, with six guns, Benjamin’s two 20-pounder rifles, and Randolph’s four 12-pounders, fought this battle against Jackson’s whole corps of seventy regiments, of which at least forty-eight were in the fight. The Union force numbered 5500 effective, the Confederate at least twice as many.

In this brief and fierce battle the losses on each side were from 800 to 1000. The following statement is made up from Confederate official reports and, on the Union side, from regimental histories, for there are no official reports of Union losses, except four in Poe’s brigade, and from estimates based on all available data, but undoubtedly falls short of the actual losses.

How exactly General Stevens grasped the military situation when he caught sight of the rebel skirmish line, and instantly decided to stay Jackson’s impending advance by an attack that would throw even him on the defensive, is clearly shown by the Confederate leader’s objective, and the dispositions he had made of his troops to accomplish it.

Jackson had moved down the pike from Chantilly slowly and carefully, to give time for Longstreet to close up in support. His troops were well in hand, the infantry of one division, and probably of all three, marching in two columns, one on each side of the road, and the artillery on the road between them. Already he had thrown this solid column, prepared for battle rather than for the march, athwart the Ox Road, which led straight across to the coveted line of retreat. Already his skirmishers, supported by a regiment, had pushed southward half a mile, and were advancing across country to the other pike, and in another half mile—in ten minutes more—would come in plain sight of the wagons moving back upon it. His whole corps was in position,—Ewell’s division (under Lawton) in the centre, Starke on the left, Hill on the right. It lay wholly in Jackson’s will and power, advancing but little over a mile, to hurl this mighty mass, seventy regiments strong, upon Pope’s only road and his retreating troops and trains. Who that knows Jackson’s career can doubt his will and power to seize the golden opportunity?

At the very instant of launching the thunderbolt, Jackson learns that the enemy is advancing upon him, his skirmishers are driven in, his centre division is hurled headlong from its position, the fugitives pour out of the woods, he hurries his artillery to the rear, is forced to throw the whole of his right division into the fight, brigade after brigade, and to withdraw his left division for his last reserve. The possibility of striking his enemy is gone. He can only say, “I hope it will prove a victory to-morrow.”

And the troops that General Stevens led to this desperate and victorious charge were the same who, but ten weeks since, suffered the slaughter on James Island, and had just lost half of their number in the bloody encounters on the plains of Bull Run. Can more be said for the gallantry and devotion of the soldiers, or the hold upon them of their heroic leader?

Had General Stevens remained on the defensive and given time—and time counted by minutes—for Jackson to advance, disaster were inevitable. How long could his scanty force of nine regiments, outflanked and overborne, have resisted the avalanche? True, Kearny was on the pike, and perhaps others would have joined in the defense, but where was the army or corps commander to put them in, and order and control battle against Jackson’s onslaught, backed by Longstreet? Pope was at Centreville; Sumner, with his second corps, north of it; Sigel’s, McDowell’s, Franklin’s troops scattered from Fairfax to Alexandria and Washington; Banks retreating down Braddock road,—all scattered and out of reach. The closest study of the situation strengthens the conviction that General Stevens that day saved the army and the country from an appalling disaster.

General McDowell, hurrying to Fairfax Court House as directed by General Pope, met Patrick’s brigade near that point and posted it behind Difficult Run, just in front of Germantown,[21] where it was supported by Ricketts’s division. General Stuart, who with his cavalry preceded Jackson’s column down the pike, after passing the Ox Road some two miles found his advance arrested by these troops, and, after some skirmishing, moved off northward toward Flint Hill in a fruitless effort to flank the Union line. Patrick’s brigade lost twenty wounded. Neither force took any part in the battle of Chantilly.

UNION LOSSES.

* Estimated. No report in war records or histories.

CONFEDERATE LOSSES.

* Estimated. General Hill reports his loss as 306. It is impossible to reconcile these small losses with the Confederate reports of the severity of the fighting.

CHAPTER LIX
FINAL SCENE

After the successful charge Colonel Morrison sent an officer to report that General Stevens had fallen, and that the enemy had been driven back. General Reno, to whom the report was made, returned orders to bury General Stevens on the field, and to fall back. The Highlanders reverently and tenderly bore away the body of their beloved commander and placed it in an ambulance, from which one of their number, although wounded, willingly alighted to give room. The remains were taken to Washington to the house of his dear friend, John L. Hayes, and thence to Newport, R.I.

General Reno’s apparently unfeeling order excited great indignation among the Highlanders.

At the very moment of his heroic death General Stevens was being considered by the President and his advisers as commander of the armies in Virginia. Mr. Hayes was assured of the fact by a member of the cabinet, and it was currently stated in the press. Certain it is that ignoble personal rivalries and jealousies could not have kept him down much longer.

He was appointed and confirmed a major-general, to rank from July 4, 1862.

He was only forty-four years, five months, and seven days of age when he fell.

The stern old Puritan Abolitionist, his aged father, died August 22, only ten days previous. He frequently declared that he should never see Isaac again, that he knew his spirit too well, that he would surely be killed in battle, and it was thought that brooding over this idea hastened his own death.

General Stevens was buried in the Island Cemetery in Newport. The obsequies were attended by Governor Sprague, of Rhode Island, and Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, Professor Bache and officers of the Coast Survey, the mayor and council of Newport and other dignitaries, and a large military escort. The city of Newport erected beside his grave a massive granite obelisk, bearing the following simple and appropriate inscription, composed by his brother-in-law, the Rev. Charles T. Brooks:

IN MEMORY OF
MAJOR-GENERAL ISAAC INGALLS STEVENS,
BORN IN ANDOVER, MASS.,
MARCH 25, 1818,
WHO GAVE TO THE SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY
A QUICK AND COMPREHENSIVE MIND,
A WARM AND GENEROUS HEART,
A FIRM WILL AND A STRONG ARM,
AND WHO FELL WHILE RALLYING HIS COMMAND
WITH THE FLAG OF THE REPUBLIC IN HIS DYING GRASP,
AT THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY, VA.,
SEPTEMBER 1, 1862.

THIS MONUMENT
IS ERECTED AS A TOKEN OF
ADMIRING GRATITUDE
BY THE
CITY OF NEWPORT.

When the Highlanders were mustered out of service, the flag under whose folds General Stevens fell was sent to his widow, with the following letter from the brave Colonel Morrison:—