In under two weeks, one of the more important D.C.-related Civil War sesquicentennial anniversaries (the 150th) is coming up: The Battle of Fort Stevens, fought on July 11th and 12th in 1864.
The story of the battle has been described in many books and articles over the years, but I was intrigued with how the citizens of the time experienced it. Today, I give the background, and next week I will be recounting this story from the perspective of the newspapers of the time.
A year after the Battle of Gettysburg, the situation looked much brighter for the Union. General Grant was besieging Petersburg, Va., a state of affairs that many assumed would lead directly to the fall of Richmond, the Confederate capital. Meanwhile, Grant had sent General Sigel down the Shenandoah Valley to interrupt the flow of goods into Richmond. (The third element in Grant’s overall plan was General Sherman’s march through Georgia, but that had not yet begun.)
Across the Atlantic, a huge victory for the Union had been achieved in the English Channel, where the USS Kearsage had sunk the CSS Alabama. The Alabama had captured some 65 Union ships, and had generally wreaked havoc among American shipping in her two years at sea. Her sinking in the Battle of Cherbourg gave an enormous boost to Union morale when it arrived in the United States on July 6th.
In fact, the most striking thing about the news of the day was how slowly it moved. Reports from Petersburg – all of 131 miles from D.C. – arrived with several days delay. The Washington Evening Star (hereinafter just ‘Star‘) of July 7th had two reports from that battle, one from July 3rd and one from the July 4th. Neither had much to report, with the correspondent on July 4th reporting that there had “been neither incident, battle, or bloodshed. Nearly every one was disappointed” (except, presumably, those whose blood was not shed).
Print showing “The combat between the Alabama and the Kearsage, off Cherbourg on the 19th of June, 1864” (LOC)
While the reports from around Petersburg that were coming back to the readers back in Washington were both regular and clear, the reports from the Shenandoah campaign were anything but clear. Thus, when news filtered back about a new series of attacks across the Potomac, they tended to sound like this from the Daily National Republican (DNR) of the 7th: “Reports from Harper’s Ferry are so contradictory that it is difficult to say what is reliable, as no two accounts agree.” The only thing that was clear was that complete uncertainty as to number of troops, where they are going, whether there had been any battles, reigned.
The Star seemed to think that the “Rebel Raiders [were] on the Retreat up the Valley to Escape from [General David] Hunter” and that none were in Maryland any more. This in spite of the fact that Hunter had effectively been demoted since his losing the Battle of Lynchburg on June 19. There was also a report of a raid on Monocacy on July 6, that rebels crossed the river, robbed a store, and “returned to the south side of the Potomac to divide the spoils.” More ominous was a small item in the afternoon edition of the Star which had Hagerstown captured. All of these bits of information were sourced to second or third hand rumors heard from people who had come down from Baltimore.
In short, what little the citizens could divine about what had actually happened on July 6th was confusing and contradictory. No wonder that most of the paper was given over to which pupils had won prizes in the schools, and which ‘entertainments’ were to be had that evening, as well as which citizens had been arrested for selling liquor to soldiers (and worse – without a license).
More concrete information about any dangers of the military sort to Washington would have to wait for another day.