 At the age of 13, Loretta Yeneda Velezquez, if I'm pronouncing that right and I'm probably not, was married to a U.S. Army officer, a young marrying age even by the standards of the early 19th century. By the time she was 18, she already had three children. Velezquez was born in Cuba in 1842, but she grew up in New Orleans. She was a Southern patriot. But Velezquez is famous in her memoirs, published in 1876 titled The Woman in Battle, a narrative of the exploits, adventures and travels of Madame Loretta Yeneda Velezquez, otherwise known as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, Confederate States Army. Her story was denounced as fiction at the time of its publication, and perhaps it was, but we do know that there were women in both armies who disguised themselves as men and fought in the Civil War. The details in her story do at least show plausibility. According to her memoirs, all three of her children had died by the time the Civil War broke out. With no children to raise, she tried to persuade her husband to let her serve as one of his soldiers for the Confederacy. Unsurprisingly, he refused, so she dressed up as a Confederate officer, took off to Arkansas, recruited over 200 volunteers, and brought them to Pensacola, where she put them in the hands of her officer husband. Soon afterwards, her husband was killed in an accident. In June of 1861, she picked up a slave named Bob and took him with her to Virginia, where she claims to have participated in the First Battle of Manassas, as the Confederates referred to the first major battle of the war. After surviving this battle, she went to Leesburg, where she tried to convince Colonel Nathaniel Evans to give her an officer's appointment. Again, of course, she was turned down, but when the Battle of Balls bluff broke out, Velazquez claims that she took to the field with the 8th Virginia Regiment, and when the men lost their immediate officer, she took charge of them. While they fought, she also said that her slave Bob joined the battle. In her memoir, she wrote, quote, My colored boy Bob was a better soldier than some of the white men who thought themselves immensely his superiors, and having possessed himself of a gun, he fought as well as he knew how, like the rest of us. When the enemy gave way, I could hear Bob yelling vociferously, and I confessed that I was proud of the darkies' pluck and enthusiasm, end quote. If this story is true, and it has proven impossible to corroborate, so the most that scholars have been able to demonstrate is that it is at least plausible, but if it's true, Bob would be the first African American to fight for the Confederacy. The Union side also saw its first black combatant. Almost exactly a year before the first black regiment, the 79th US Colored Infantry, fought in a battle in Missouri. Louis Bell participated in the Battle of Balls Bluff, and was one of the hundreds of prisoners taken back to Richmond after the battle was over. It wasn't until 1863 that the Confederacy decided that captured black soldiers would not be treated as prisoners of war. In October of 1861, when Bell was among the crowd of prisoners marched into Richmond, he stuck out like a sore thumb. The word contraband was thrown around, with Confederate soldiers and civilians making references to Benjamin Butler's policy of treating runaway slaves as contraband of war, according to international law. We don't know what fate befell Bell, but he is often overlooked as being the first black union combatant that we have record of, probably due to the fact that he was technically only serving as the orderly for Colonel Milton Cogswell, so he wasn't actually a soldier. The Battle of Balls Bluff, as I mentioned in the previous episode, was not a very militarily significant battle, nor was it of a very large scale, with only a little over 3,000 total men participating. But in addition to the battle's significant political ramifications, the Battle of Balls Bluff can boast some Civil War bursts that are often overlooked, perhaps because they are the stories of marginal characters, or because their accounts are historically questionable. But even if the stories are fabricated or exaggerated, as some people have claimed for the memoirs of Loretta Yenenevelezquez, the stories themselves are still part of the history of the Civil War in one way or another. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute Podcast Historical Controversies. In the previous episode, we told the story of the beginning of the Battle of Balls Bluff, although I ended the episode right as the battle was really only about to begin, the episode showed the many easily avoidable mistakes that helped set the stage for the battle. General McClellan's poor communication with General Charles Stone, the poor nighttime reconnaissance in which a field of trees was mistaken for abandoned Confederate tents, the decision by Colonel Charles Devons to hold his position on the bluff, unaware that he'd been spotted by the Confederacy. General Stone's ad hoc plan modifications that were based on information that was out of date before it even got to him, all of this turned a quote unquote slight demonstration into a raid and then turned the raid into a battle. We left the story with Colonel Edward Baker, the commander of the California Brigade, having been put in charge of the coming battle. His men having arrived at Conrad's Ferry around the time that Colonel Devons was retreating from his position, Baker ordered all of his men to cross as fast as the boats could carry them. As Baker's Californians were making their way across the Potomac, Devons was already under attack. On the Confederate side, Colonel Evans had dispatched Colonel Epahunton and his 8th Virginia regiment, including, if it is to be believed, Velazquez and her slave Bob, to help Colonel Walter Jennifer and his 70 or so cavalry repel the Yankees. This was the smallest regiment under Evans's command, totaling less than 400 soldiers. It was hardly enough to repel a serious assault, but it was sufficient to make Devons' life difficult as he waited on Union reinforcements to cross the Potomac. When the California Brigade was still crossing, Devons did gratefully accept the reinforcements from the rest of his 15th Massachusetts regiment that had not originally crossed with him. When the Massachusetts soldiers showed up, Devons was already losing men to the Confederate gunfire. When Private George Simmons took a bullet to the thigh and started to sense his boots filling up with blood, he tried to take shelter in the woods, only to come across two other soldiers from his regiment doing the same, both having been shot themselves. Simmons pushed past them and made it to a nearby house, where he came across another man from his regiment nursing an injury in the company of five other Union soldiers. And to further strain Devons, there wasn't anybody in his regiment given the task of taking care of the wounded, so many of his uninjured soldiers were preoccupied with trying to take care of their wounded friends. But the Confederates were facing similar difficulties. Colonel Jennifer had to hold off Devons by himself until Epahunton arrived shortly afternoon. With the Virginia reinforcements, Jennifer and Hunton coordinated an attack on Devons' left. With the Confederate assault, Union men started to retreat, passing new reinforcements from the 20th Massachusetts as they made their way back toward Maryland. As one of the members of the 20th made his way, quote, up the hill, happy and gay, ready for the fight, end quote. He passed another soldier moving down the hill, who dryly told him, quote, you will have fun soon after you get to the top, end quote. This battle had lulls between these small skirmishes that we collectively refer to as the Battle of Balls Bluff. Many of the lulls were the result of individual regimental leaders not knowing what to do, waiting orders from superior officers. Colonel Lee, and remember this is a Union Lee, the cousin of Robert E. Lee, who had earlier been given instructions to back up Devons by holding the position by the river, had yet to receive any new orders, so he fell to join the fighting when Devons could have used his help. Other officers spent the first afternoon lull smoking cigarettes under a tree, chit chatting with some of the soldiers who had participated in the early morning skirmishes. As the 20th Massachusetts made their way to join the fight, they removed their heavy coats and hung them on trees. The soldiers were fortunate enough to avoid injury in the first couple of Confederate volleys sent against them, but their coats were littered with bullet holes. Meanwhile, Colonel Baker, the effective commander of the battle that was starting without him, was occupying himself with the problem of trying to get all his men across the river with the few boats they had available, rather than crossing immediately, untanking charge of the situation on the bluff. Of course, Baker didn't know it at the time, but by failing to cross immediately, he left the men who were already on the Virginia side completely in the dark about what they needed to do, so each unit was acting with no coordination with other units. As Devons faced the assault on his left, he was not aware that Nathaniel Evans was still hours away from sending any more Confederates to join the fight, so he was worried that another force would soon come to flank his right. He ordered his men to fall back. While all this fighting was going on, General McClellan and General Stone were still exchanging information that was lagging behind the battlefield needs. At 1110, McClellan received the first message from Stone that fighting had started on the Virginia side. McClellan realized at this point that General McCall, who you may remember was stationed in Dranesville, but had been ordered back to Washington, should probably stay put and help Charles Stone with the fight, which is exactly what Stone had been counting on the whole time since McClellan never informed Stone that he'd given McCall orders to leave Dranesville. Now McClellan sent word to McCall to sit tight in Dranesville to be available to reinforce Stone, but these orders came too late. McCall and his men had already left. General Stone was on his own. General Stone also received another message from McClellan. We don't know when this message arrived. In fact, a lot of the timestamps for this battle are questionable, but the message could have been received as early as noon. In it, McClellan asked Stone, quote, What force, in your opinion, would it require to carry Leesburg? Answer it once, as I may require you to take it today, end quote. Colonel Stone responded by telling McClellan the estimated size of Evan's Confederate forces, and then he ends the reply saying, I believe this command can occupy Leesburg today. We are a little short of boats, end quote. The statement, we are a little short of boats, would prove to be the understatement of the year. While all this was taking place, the battle was picking up. The Massachusetts soldiers were dragging their artillery up the hill to get them into position. This would be two 12 pound Howitzers, and they would eventually be joined with a larger James rifle, which was a rifled cannon capable of firing at longer ranges. These Howitzers were successful in slowing the 13th Mississippi, injuring a couple of its soldiers as they were on their way to join the 8th Virginia on the Confederate side. At the end of the battle, though, this would be the company that would carry the Union Howitzers back to Leesburg as part of the Confederate spoils. It was probably about two in the afternoon when Colonel Baker finally crossed the Potomac with the last of his men, after spending three or four hours trying to organize river transportation while the other Union soldiers were already taking fire. But as Baker was finally joining the fray, Devens was moving his men down the bluff, taking advantage of a lull in the Confederate assault. Baker spoke first to Colonel Lee, who advised him that the Union's left flank was their weak point. Others concurred as the right flank was protected by woods and ravines. As Baker started to place troops to form the Union line, the final reinforcement showed up, being the 42nd New York Regiment under the command of Colonel Milton Cogswell. On the other side of the river, Stone was becoming more confused by his correspondence with McClellan. In the previous message, the one that asked what force it would take to occupy Leesburg, McClellan said that if Stone took Leesburg, he would support him from Darnstown, which was in Maryland. Now in the early afternoon, while Baker was organizing the Union line, Stone received a new message from McClellan instructing Stone to keep horseback messengers at the ready, quote, to carry messages from Poolsville to Darnsville, end quote. So let me unpack this confusion really quick, because all of this is important for understanding Stone's situation, but it can be a little difficult to follow. As I detailed in the previous episode, and I've mentioned some in today's episode, McClellan had previously sent General McCall to Darnsville, Virginia, a few miles southeast of Balls Bluff, with instructions to map the region. Upon the completion of the maps, McCall was ordered to return back to Langley. When McClellan gave his original orders to General Stone about making a slight demonstration around Leesburg, he did not inform Stone that McCall had been ordered to leave Darnsville. So this entire time, Stone has believed that McCall was available to reinforce any attack on Leesburg, which is vital to understanding Stone's claim that he believed it was possible to seize Leesburg. When McClellan received Stone's message that he could take Leesburg, he was not considering the fact that due to his emotion of information, Stone was thinking about supportive forces that McClellan was not counting himself. Now to make matters even worse for this miscommunication fiasco, McClellan had offered to support the invasion of Leesburg from Darnstown, which is in Maryland. Nothing confusing there, as Stone was aware of the city. But in the follow-up message, McClellan instructed Stone to have messengers ready to communicate with Darnsville. This was an incredibly significant mistake. There was no such town as Darnsville. McClellan was actually referring to Darnstown, Maryland, but Stone thought he was referring to Darnsville, Virginia, where he still falsely believed that McCall was stationed with a body of soldiers. All of Stone's decisions were calculated with this mistaken belief in mind, which was ultimately the fault of McClellan's poor communication with his subordinate officers. At roughly the same time that Stone received this misleading message from McClellan, he also received a message from Colonel Baker with promises to advance steadily against the enemy. Since Stone was under the mistaken impression that McClellan was going to be supporting him with reinforcements from Darnsville, he believed he was in a comfortable position to take Leesburg, and he sent a new message to McClellan to let him know that he had four flatboats and four rowboats available to take soldiers across the river, and that his men were under fire, but they were advancing. All seemed to be going well from General Stone's impression. At that moment, Baker also felt no reason to worry. They were indeed taking fire on the right, as the 17th Mississippi had some skirmishers come against the Tammany Regiment, being the name for the 42nd New York, which lost a minor officer in the scuffle to a Confederate bullet. But after 30 minutes of exchanging fire around the trees, the Mississippians were ordered to fall back to the Confederate line, and the New Yorkers chose not to follow them. Nothing seemed to be particularly serious for the Union's situation at the moment. Joining the two Howitzers on the hill was now the Union's James Rifle, which referred to a rifled musket cannon through a technique that doubled the weight of the shells the cannon could use. Though these early James rifles were never very effective and they went out of use early into the war, but for now it was seen as a valuable piece of artillery, and one of the flatboats was used to bring the cannon, as well as six horses, and to the carriage, across the river, requiring two trips to take everything. But when the cannon finally made it across the river, the hill was too muddy for the horses to pull the cannon in a position, so the barrel of the gun was removed from the carriage and several soldiers had to use ropes to drag this 900-pound barrel up the hill. Colonel Baker and Colonel Cogswell spoke briefly about what to do. Baker ordered him to send two companions to scout the Union left. Colonel Isaac Wistar, leader of the 1st California Regiment in Baker's California Brigade, stepped in to tell his commanding officer that sending the skirmishers on a scouting mission on the left flank would be suicide. He was basically sacrificing them. Baker replied, quote, I cannot help it. I must know what is there, end quote. Cogswell was advising Baker to advance the Union force immediately, but Baker wanted to know what he was up against. The order to scout the left flank fell upon Captain John Marco, Colonel Wistar's immediate subordinate, and his company A within the 1st California Regiment. Wistar gave the task to Marco because he believed his company to be the one that he could most trust with the dangerous task. Wistar followed behind him with Company D. In total, this was around 180 men. They moved up the hill with one soldier describing the march, quote, the woods were so tremendously thick that we could not keep our right hand group in sight. We had to take our hands and push the bushes apart and at times to crawl in our hands and knees, end quote. But this also meant that they had effective cover from the Confederate snipers. But as soon as Marco's men emerged from the clearing, they found themselves facing the 8th Virginia, only 30 yards away, conducting a bayonet charge. Immediately, Marco's men opened fire and struck down several of the charging Virginians. After this fighting broke out, and Wistar ordered both of his scouting companies to pull back, but only after Marco's company A had suffered heavy casualties during only 15 minutes of combat. The Californians sent on this mission lost two thirds of their force, either killed, wounded, or captured. Marco himself took a bullet to the shoulder before being taken prisoner, and every other subordinate and officer was a casualty in one way or another. Wistar was right when he warned Baker that the mission basically meant sacrificing the men sent to carry it out. The Confederates were hardly confident at this point themselves. The 8th Virginia had also been decimated in the fighting with the Californians, and Epa Huntin was begging Evans to send him reinforcements. It was instructed to hold his ground. Baker, of course, had no knowledge of the Confederate situation, but it is very likely that had he taken Cogswell's advice to immediately push against the Confederates, the outcome of the battle might have gone in a very different direction. Huntin was struggling to keep the Virginians together, but he was receiving some more reinforcements from the 18th Mississippi Regiment. These new Confederates opened fire on the forces on the bluff who were manning the two Howitzers, taking two of the canineers out, as well as some horses. As Colonel Lee later described the attack, quote, The horses had hardly appeared above the ridge before the skirmishers of the enemy appeared and opened fire upon us. Their fire was directed to this gun. I will not undertake to say how many horses were shot, but the two leading horses were very badly hurt. The head of one of them was very nearly shot away. The horses became frantic. The leading horses broke the traces, and they all rushed down the hill, dragging the limber after them, end quote. But on the bluff, the Yankees fired back with the James gun until all but two of the canineers were wounded, leaving too few men to handle the cannon. To worsen matters, the Union artillerists only had a single lanyard, and it was carried by a soldier who also held all the friction primers that were needed to fire the cannon. When he fell wounded, he crawled away from the chaos, taking everything with him. The gun was now useless, and several infantry soldiers had to start carrying it back down the hill to keep it out of enemy hands. Additional Confederates from the 13th Mississippi were showing up. More Union reinforcements were also on the way, though they would ultimately not make it to the battle in time. With new Confederate soldiers on site, Colonel Erasmus Burt, leader of the 18th Mississippi, started forming his regiment into a line to move against the Union soldiers. But it was directed at the Union right flank, which was far more defendable due to the terrain advantages. When the Mississippians attacked, members of the 15th Massachusetts Let Loose, what one Confederate officer later referred to as, quote, the best directed and most destructive single volley I saw during the war, end quote. Dozens of Confederates fell, including Colonel Burt, who was mortally wounded. This was another opportunity for Baker to potentially push the Confederates and take advantage of their vulnerability. But instead, it only produced a lull in the battle. On the other side of the river, while this was going on, there was more miscommunication causing problems for General Stone. In response to Stone's previous message, General McClellan sent another message to General Stone, telling Stone to take Leesburg and asking him what assistance he needed to support him. The problem was, Stone couldn't read the message. It was a ciphered message, and Stone did not have the code key required to decipher the message. So he wrote back to General McClellan saying, quote, I have received the box, but have no key, end quote. Obviously, Stone was trying to convey the fact that he needed a code key without explicitly revealing any information in case the message fell into Confederate hands. The box was the message, and the key was the code to decipher it. But when McClellan received the message saying, I have the box, but I don't have the key, he thought Stone was referring to a literal box and key. So he sent his adjudant to visit General Stone's family to ask for whatever key he was referring to. This is sitcom-worthy confusion at this point. For all the previous miscommunications, this only served to greatly delay any more necessary contact between the two generals. Nearly a year and a half later, when Stone would give his testimony in front of Congress about the battle, he would reveal that he still had no idea what the message said. Back at the battlefield, the Mississippi Regiment was moving along the ravines to get from the Union right flank to the more vulnerable left flank. Baker sent to Massachusetts Company to reinforce the left, but the geography was to the advantage of the Confederates this time. Several Mississippians stayed up on the highest ridge to pick off Union soldiers from afar, while the rest of the regiments moved around the smaller ridges, giving them some natural defense as they moved around to the Union's most vulnerable side. The Mississippians were protected from gunfire by the ridges, allowing them to get close enough to conduct a quick charge and then fall back to their safer position on the ridge. They did this five times. While these charges were taking place, the artillery commander, who had been managing the canineers around the James gun, had found the wounded soldier who had the percussion lanyard and friction primers and brought them back to the battlefield. The cannon was repositioned with the help of several officers, including Colonel Baker himself. The gun was set up to face the charging Confederates, and with no men to spare, it was manned by Colonel Cogswell, Colonel Lee, Captain Wistar and Captain Stewart from General Stone's staff, as well as one other lesser officer, Captain Frederick Harvey. While Cogswell and Harvey loaded the cannon, Lee and Wistar would encourage their men. Then, with the cannon loaded, Wistar and Stewart would aim the gun, while Lee took over the role of encouraging the troops. Harvey held the lanyard and fired the shots. They did this several times, significantly strengthening the Union defense against the charging Confederates. Colonel Wistar, the only survivor who safely escaped the disaster mission to survey the left flank, now took a bullet to the jaw and a second to a thigh. When Baker wrote up, he quipped to Wistar, quote, the bullets are seeking for you but avoiding me, end quote. As they spoke, Wistar took a third bullet to the elbow, shattering it. He dropped his sword, and with his eyes blurred from the pain, he groped around in the grass for it. When he found it, he asked to Baker to put it back in a scabbard for him before some other soldiers helped him to the boats, as he was no longer able to stay in the battle. Another casualty of note was a member of the 20th Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Regiment at Balls Bluff were called the Harvard Regiments, because they were composed of Harvard students. One of these students was a young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He took a bullet to the chest that he later described as filling, quote, as if a horse had kicked me, end quote. The bullet went almost all the way to the other side of his body, where another soldier helped to squeeze it the rest of the way out. Remembering it later in life, Holmes wrote, quote, I remember this sickening feeling of water in my face. I was quite faint, and seeing poor sergeant merchant lying near, shot through the head and covered with blood, and then the thinking began. Meanwhile, hardly able to speak, at least coherently. Shot through the lungs? Let's see, and I spit, yes. Already the blood was in my mouth, and once my thoughts jumped to Children of the New Forest by Marriott, which I was fond of reading as a little boy, and in which the father of one of the heroines is shot through the lungs by a robber. I remember he died with terrible hemorrhages and great agony. What should I do? Just then, I remembered and felt in my waistcoat pocket. Yes, there it was. A little bottle of Lodinum, which I had brought along. But I won't take it yet. No, see a doctor first. It may not be as bad as it looks. At any rate, wait until the pain begins. End quote. Holmes, of course, would survive the wound and face many more battles, being wounded in two after balls bluff, before eventually becoming a lawyer and going on to be appointed to the Supreme Court in 1902, where he would serve for 30 years. But the most significant casualty came somewhere around 4.30 to 5 o'clock. The details are muddy, as conflicting accounts were given. During one of the charges by the 18th Mississippi, Baker took a bullet that ended his life. In some accounts, a large red-headed confederate came out of the woods, aimed his revolver at Baker's chest, and shot him several times. In descriptions that are common hyperbole in such stories, the confederate who killed him was nearly 7 feet tall. But this is obviously an exaggeration, if not entirely fabricated. It's more likely that Baker took a bullet or a few bullets in one of the many volleys of gunfire sent by the charging Mississippians. There was no autopsy done on the body, but it's likely that the number of bullets that took him down were exaggerated or miscounted, as soldiers may have counted both an entry wound and an exit wound for the bullet as two different shots. It seems unlikely that a single soldier would successfully get to within point blank range of a commanding officer on a battlefield, empty the barrel of his revolver, and make it out without being harmed himself. But we don't know the actual details of Baker's death with any certainty, except that he died immediately, or at least very shortly after falling. I haven't told you much about Colonel Baker yet, but this was an extraordinarily significant death. Baker wasn't just a brigade leader. He was a sitting United States senator from Oregon. In fact, he was originally offered a general ship, but he turned it down so that he wouldn't have to resign his post in Congress. But even though he wasn't a general, his men often referred to him as General Baker. He was a founding member of the Republican Party in Oregon and California, and he had a long and distinguished political career that earned him tremendous respect. But perhaps even more significantly than all of that is that Edward Baker was Abraham Lincoln's closest friend and had been since long before Lincoln was somebody that anybody in the country cared much about. They had been lawyers together in Springfield, Illinois during the early days of their legal careers. When Lincoln's second son was born in 1846, he was given the name Edward Baker Lincoln. To say that Lincoln was friends with Colonel Baker is to grossly understate how close they were. This is the first death in the Civil War that really made the conflict personal for the president. Upon learning of Baker's death, the president wept. And in the Senate, as we will see in the next episode, Baker's death was largely the basis for launching a witch hunt as they wanted to find a scapegoat. But for now, we have to finish the story of Balls Bluff. With Baker dead, Colonel Lee believed that he became the commanding officer. Colonel Cogswell thought the responsibility fell to him though. Lee conceded the dispute and Cogswell took charge. He returned to his Tammany regiment and bombastically told them, quote, boys, we will cut our way through to Edward's fairy, end quote. He ordered a charge and the New Yorkers rushed forward. They were cut to ribbons. The devastation was so bad that the story eventually became that it was a Confederate officer who ordered the charge. Some soldiers even created the legend of a phantom spirit who emerged from the underworld to lead the Tammany men to their deaths. Part of the reason for these stories is that Cogswell was taken prisoner, where he languished for a year before he was finally able to give his report of the battle, taking responsibility for the order. But by then the story was widespread and little care was paid to Cogswell's report. It was roughly 6 p.m. when the Tammany soldiers conducted their suicide charge. Following it was a Confederate charge conducted by members of both the 17th and 18th Mississippi regiments. The order was given by Colonel Winfield Scott Featherston, leader of the 17th, who yelled to his men, quote, Mississippians Ford, charge, drive the damn Yankees into the Potomac or into hell, end quote. Featherston later denied this account of the order, never wanting to admit to using language like damn and hell, claiming that all he said was drive them into the Potomac or into eternity. But anytime he spoke to members of the 17th Mississippi after the war, he would wink and say, quote, all I can say is I hope the recording angel got the revised version, end quote. One Mississippi soldier who participated in the charge said that the Confederates, quote, swept across that field yelling like wild Indians, end quote. They faced a quote, unquote, stream of flame from the Yankees, referring to the gunfire sent to the Mississippians and several of the Confederates fell. But the charge was successful. The Union line broke during the charge. Elijah White rode his horse in front of the Mississippians leading away. When the Union line broke and they started to retreat, one member of the 20th Massachusetts took aim from behind a tree and fired at White before tossing his musket and fleeing the scene. 32 years later, Elijah White was giving a tour of the battlefield to a group of Civil War veterans from the 20th Massachusetts. And he overheard one man telling his friends the story of firing this shot, ending with, quote, I don't know whether I killed him or not. To which Elijah White piped up and said, quote, No, thank God you did not. But while this story from 1893 is amusing, the Union retreat is hard to see as anything but tragic. No longer adhering to any semblance of order, the soldiers tumbled down the bluff to try to make it to the edge of the Potomac. Several soldiers leapt over the cliffs, tumbling on top of the soldiers below them. Some got pierced with the bayonets of their comrades when they fell. One soldier from California had a New Yorker land on him, with the New Yorker's boot banging his head against the rocks before breaking his own neck on the fall. One minor company officer later tried to describe the scene for his local newspaper in San Francisco, quote, tumbling down the steep heights, the enemy following, murdering and taking prisoners, hundreds plunged into the rapid current and the shrieks of the drowning added to the whore. All was tear, confusion and dismay, end quote. The panicking men were fighting for access to the boats. It now is clear what an understatement General Stone made earlier in the day when he told McClellan we are a little short of boats. More than a thousand men were fighting for a place on the boats that could carry maybe a few dozen of them across the river at a time. In their panic, they made the situation worse. One flat boat, which was made to carry maybe 45 men and was pushing it to carry 65, was crammed with 100 soldiers, many of whom were wounded, to try to carry them across the Potomac. It capsized after making it about 15 feet across the river, leaving only one survivor. The sight of seeing the Boko down was even more jarring than watching soldiers fall to Confederate bullets. One Massachusetts man said that the boats capsized in quote, this was a terrible sight. But a few moments before this, I had stood on the battleground and witnessed a score or more of brave men fall by the bullet. But I was not so much affected, as I was when I saw that boat go down with its living freight. End quote. The choice then fell between either staying and risking getting shot, or at least taking prisoner, or taking the chances in the river. Confederate stood at the top of the bluff now, firing downward on the massive Union soldiers trapped by the Potomac. Soldiers began piling into the water. In Velezquez's memoirs, she wrote about the scene, quote, All the woman in me revolted at the fiendish delight which some of our soldiers displayed at the side of the terrible agony endured by those who had, but a short time before, been contesting the field with them so valiantly, I was sick with whore, and as the cold shivering ran through me, and my heart stood still in my bosom, I shut my eyes for a moment, wishing that it was all over, but only to open them again to gaze on a spectacle that had terrible fascination for me, in spite of its horror, end quote. Even if her memoirs were fabricated, she appears to have captured the scene relatively well. The Union officers gave orders for the men who could swim to toss their weapons and try to make it across, but some were reluctant to give up their weapons. One Massachusetts soldier made the swim of his sword around his neck. Others who had been lucky enough to receive a rifled musket before the battle wanted to keep them, so they tied their guns to their backs before making the swim. Some were successful, some were not. Another soldier tried to carry his regiments flag with him across the river, but halfway across, he was forced to let it float away. Another soldier from Massachusetts, undressed and successfully swam to Harris Island in the middle of the river, only to remember that he had $18.25 in his coat pocket, as well as his pipe, so he swam back to retrieve it, and was still able to get back across to Maryland safely. But not all were so lucky. After the battle, one Confederate soldier found $126 in gold on the body of a Union officer who died trying to retrieve it. Even some of the soldiers who couldn't swim decided to try their fate in the river, rather than face the Confederates. For others, the current simply proved too strong and sucked them under. The official death tolls for the battle were grossly understated, as many men suffered unknown fates, only to have their bloated bodies washed up on the shores of the Potomac sometime later. One soldier started to drown after the board he was using to carry his pistol and sword fell to hold his equipment. In his testimony, quote, I was anxious to save my sword as it looked too much like surrendering to lose that. I pushed off quite deliberately, although the water was full of drowning soldiers and bullets from the rebels on the top of the bluff. I made slow progress with one hand and had to abandon my raft and cargo. I got along very well, a little more than halfway, when I found that every effort I made only pushed my head under water and suddenly it flashed upon me that I should drown. I didn't feel any pain or exhaustion. This sensation was exactly like being overcome with drowsiness. I swallowed water in spite of all I could do, till at last I sunk unconscious. There was a small island near Harrison's against which the current drifted me and aroused me enough to crawl a step or two, but not enough to know what I was doing till I dropped just by the edge of the water with my head in the soft clay mud, end quote. Even as hundreds of soldiers tried their fates in the water, hundreds of others were taken prisoner. Out of the 1700 or so men who fought for the Union at Balls Bluff, more than half were either killed, wounded, or captured. The Battle of Balls Bluff, the accidental battle that was only supposed to have been a slight demonstration, ended in a Union disaster and prompted Congress to form an investigative committee that would change the course of the war. The joint committee on the conduct of the war will be the topic of the next episode. Please visit Mises.org. That's M-I-S-E-S dot O-R-G.