APPENDIX I
The Great Wagon Train Mystery
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page 1474 No precise knowledge exists even today of just how many wagons the Federals lost on the retreat to Winchester in May 1862. Colonel Gordon described a six-mile wagon train.1 Theoretically, 1,000 or more moving wagons and teams could fit along a six-mile stretch, but no one ever claimed that the total number of Banks's wagons was anywhere near that number. Nine months earlier the quartermaster in Maryland had reported 1,000 wagons present when Banks took command.2 Another report said Banks had 1,000 to 1,500 wagons in his Maryland depot, but in 1862 he did not seem to have that many of his own.3 The number of wagons ferried across the Shenandoah at Snicker's Gap in April—when supplies began coming also from Washington—was 811.4 Some of these latter wagons may have been private vehicles, and some were likely taken by General Shields when he left the valley. General Blenker's men passed through the area prior to the Front Royal attack and may have also sent wagons via Snicker's Gap to the Shenandoah. According to one Banks report, he seemed to say he had about 500 government wagons in use between Winchester and Strasburg on May 24.5 One of the difficulties in interpreting the number of government wagons lost is that it was known there were also private wagons in the Winchester procession, belonging to sutlers, officers and fleeing refugees. Strother reported several thousand refugees eventually joined the march.6 There were also possibly wagons abandoned by the theater company which had been in Strasburg.
1. Gordon, Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain in the War of the Great Rebellion, 1861-62, p. 214. 2. Report, July 1861, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 15. 3. Hall and Hall, Cayuga in the Field: A Record of the Nineteenth New York Volunteers..., p. 76. 4.Tabulation, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 79, folder 4. 5. Banks report, June 1862, I, 12, pt. I: 550-1. 6. Eby, Ibid., p. 55. |
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page 1475 It seems likely 200 to 400 wagons of the approximate 500 government wagons were already safely out of the Middletown-Newtown area when the Confederates arrived in force. In general, Confederate sources spoke of much heavier Federal wagon losses than did the Federal ones. Some historians have cited several letters excerpted in Cooke's early Life of Jackson. In particular, an officer of the Confederate Irish Battalion stated the Confederates "captured a large portion of their [Union] wagons at Middletown" and all the wagons at Strasburg.7 Neither of these assertions is correct. Cooke's 1866 version was more restrained, made more use of published Federal dispatches. In this later version he inserted a statement that there were "hundreds of abandoned, overturned or burning wagons" north of Middletown. The old version of wagon losses as supplied by a letter from the officer of the Irish Battalion had disappeared.8 Jackson's more dispassionate adjutant, Robert Dabney, may have been the source of Cooke's new information, depending on which book was published first. Dabney indicated the abandoned wagon train near Middletown was one mile in length. He also spoke of wagons on fire along a one-mile stretch nearer to Winchester at night.9 If the wagons had been spaced normally, this might have been 100 or more wagons. Jackson aide Sandie Pendleton provided another seemingly exaggerated version, saying in his contemporary letter erroneously that in the Middletown area the Confederates captured "a large part" of the enemy's wagon train.10 General Jackson reported that "the same profusion of abandoned wagons" near Middletown was also found between Newtown and Winchester.11 Confederate Algernon Wade spoke of their capturing 100 wagons that day, but he seems to have mixed together items taken at both Front Royal and Middletown.12 Henry Kyd Douglas indicated that some of the abandoned
7. Cooke, The Life of Stonewall Jackson. pp. 91-3, 155. Cooke's hagiography, written during the fog of war, is full of errors and portrays the Yankees as nearly satanic figures. In one battle, old Stonewall was described as "flashing fire" from his eyes. This does not mean all his information is incorrect, but the sources he quotes as to the wagons do not appear reliable. 8. Cooke, Stonewall Jackson: A Military Biography. pp. 148, 260. Jackson's eyes only flashed, rather than flashed fire in this second edition. 9. Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut. -Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), pp. 373-74. 10. Bean, "The Valley Campaign of 1862 as Revealed in Letters of Sandie Pendleton," The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 78, No. 3 (July 1970): 360. 11. OR, I, 12, pt. I: 704. 12. Wade to Louisa Hopkins, May 25, 1862, Lewis Leigh papers, Civil War Miscellanous Collection, USA-MHI |
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page 1476 wagons were badly damaged; others were not.13 Confederate John Worsham seems to have traveled the full route that day, recording the capture of several hundred wagons. In the group near Newtown, he indicated "I could see portions of women's clothing..." in those wagons that had articles in sight.14 An artilleryman also noticed sutlers' supplies in some of the abandoned wagons.15 Confederate McHenry Howard observed many sutlers' wagons in the abandoned train.16 Confederate William T. Poague recorded that at Middletown, he saw abandoned wagons for two miles or more.17 A key question involving Poague's testimony was how close together the abandoned wagons were. A dispatch in the Lynchburg Republican, indicated that the soldiers passed an abandoned wagon "every few hundred yards." Toward Winchester the Federals burned up to thirty more as they moved back into the town.18 In dramatic contrast to Confederate accounts, Banks, Williams, Clark and the departmental quartermaster reported only a few dozen wagons missing. While Gordon's men were moving toward Winchester at 8 p.m., Banks telegraphed President Lincoln: "My advance guard entered this town at 5 this evening, with all our trains and stores in safety...the few wagons abandoned by teamsters nearly all recovered."19 He revised this latter phrase before the message was sent. In the first wording in his records, he had written: "...and some wagons overturned by teamsters were abandoned."20 At 8 p.m. that night when he wrote these words, Banks would not have had an accurate knowledge of at least thirty wagons potentially stranded at Strasburg.21 The Federal officer in charge of the guard at the end of the long infantry column, who would have seen all the damaged wagons along the turnpike, arriving at
13. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p 53, 54. 14. Worsham, One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry, pp. 84-88. 15. Memoir? [typescript], Robert Barton papers, Virginia Historical Society Library, MSS 5:1, B2855: 1, p. 46. 16. Howard, Recollections of a Maryland Confederate Soldier and Staff Officer under Johnston, Jackson and Lee, p. 107. 17. Cockrell, Gunner with Stonewall: Reminiscences of William Thomas Poague, p. 22. 18. Dispatch of May 27, 1862, cited in Moore, The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events..., vol. V, document pp. 140-1. 19. OR, I, 12, pt. 1: 527. 20. Draft, Banks to Lincoln, May 24, 1862, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 21. 21. An unofficial report said the detached Zouaves took possession of and brought back thrity-five loaded wagons that were stranded in the Strasburg area. ( New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, June 3, 1862.) |
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page 1477 Winchester at 8 p.m. recorded that he "found it (the wagon train) all safe."22 Someone on the march who wrote a contemporary account for the New York Worldmentioned more than 100 wagons captured.23 An unnamed soldier, likely a staff member of Banks's, reported to the New York Times that more than 100 wagons were lost in the midafternoon fight when teamsters fled.24 Van R. Willard's journal mentioned the loss of "nearly" 100 wagons, but this was partly second-hand information because he was not present for all the events along the turnpike.25 Along the route from Newtown to Winchester, Colonel Gordon's report said he counted only seven to eight abandoned wagons at nightfall. These delayed him because his men had to set them afire.26 Yet in his flawed 1883 version of events, Gordon claimed he burned hundreds of wagons on this return trip.27 Samuel Quincy, a well-educated officer in Gordon's party, wrote home that they found about twenty overturned wagons in this same area which they set on fire.28 Quincy's tabulations likely represent the most accurate recorded as he seems observant and objective in his other letters. Henry Douglas recorded that enough were burning that Jackson's men had the way lighted for them. He indicated these were only present several miles from Newtown. Just a few burning wagons could light such a route, but Douglas's comments do not prove or disprove how many wagons were burning.29 Chaplain Alonzo Quint, who may also have been with the regiment that witnessed most of the wagon losses that afternoon recorded that "few wagons and few arms were lost."30 A month later he wrote: "The stories of our immense losses are absurd."31 Captain Samuel B. Holabird provided a calculation of quartermaster items that had been lost "as far as can be known." He listed fifty-six wagons lost in
22. Richard C. Goodwin letter home, May 23, 1862, Goodwin family papers, 1840-1862, Massachusetts Historical Society. He apparently misdated the letter by one day. 23. The World [New York], May 28, 1862. 24. New York Times, May 28, 1862, p. 8. This unnamed man seems to have been in the same places at the same times as Banks's staff officer, David Strother. The details in Strother's diary account are not exactly the same as in the newspaper article. 25. Raab, With the Third Wisconsin Badgers: The Living Experience of the Civil War through the Journals of Van R. Willard, p. 68. 26. OR, I, 12, pt. I: 615. 27. Gordon, Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain in the War of the Great Rebellion, 1861-62, p. 218. 28. Samuel M. Quincy to ____, June 1, 1862, Papers relating to the Quincy, Wendell, Holmes and Upham Families at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Mass. Historical Society, Microfilm P-347, reel 57. 29. Douglas, I Rode with Stonewall, p 53, 55. 30. Quint, The Potomac and the Rapidan, p. 155. 31. Ibid., p. 161. |
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page 1478 total, twenty-five assigned to the department, ten assigned to the cavalry, ten assigned to Donnelly's brigade, and the rest scattered among the other units. Also 341 horses and fourteen mules ended up in Confederate hands or died.32 This report did not include the losses of the 1st Maryland Regiment at Front Royal.33 There would not be many other additional wagons lost in the return to the Potomac. In his final report, Banks claimed that only fifty-five of 500 government wagons were lost to the enemy during the retreat, and—with few exceptions—those were burned.34 Williams in his report congratulated Banks for the successful withdrawal of an immense train of supplies and stores.35 In a letter to his daughter after arriving over the Potomac, Williams wrote that "we succeeded in bringing through our long line of wagons with wonderful success."36 In summary, it seems that there might have been less than sixty wagons lost if there were a number of private wagons also lost. The massive numbers suggested by some Confederate accounts, including the inscription on the historical marker today at Winchester, seem exaggerated. A notation by Banks on a letter from General Franz Sigel mentioning 400 to 500 wagons37 seems to have led some historians to conclude this figure represented Banks's losses. The full notation on this letter in Banks's handwriting indicates a Mr. Clark heard Jackson say he meant to bag the whole Union army. A listing of 2,000 prisoners, 400 to 500 wagons and eighty cannon follows this. No one has ever argued Jackson captured so many cannon, and he probably never had nearly that number at any time during the Valley Campaign.38 Consequently, this notation most likely refers to what was thought to be in Jackson's caravan that left Winchester. Banks's original dispatch to Sigel two days earlier spoke only of being unable to move yet because of lack of blankets and equipment.39 Banks reported owning only
33. The author [RHB] has been unable to find Holabird's order for replacement wagons. There were orders for twenty hospital tents, fifty wall tents, 118 mess pans, and seventy-two kettles in late May and early June. (Natl. Archives, RG 92, entry 1027, Record of Orders for Camp & Garrison Equipment.) 34. Banks report, June 1862, I, 12, pt. I: 550-1. 35. Williams report, May 27, 1862, OR, I, 12, pt. I: 599. 36. Williams, From the Cannon's Mouth: The Civil War Letters of General Alpheus S. Williams, p. 78. 37. Sigel to Banks, June 4, 1862, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 21. 38. Dabney listed forty field guns in Jackson's possession when he descended the Luray Valley. (Dabney, Life and Campaigns of Lieut. -Gen. Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall Jackson), p. 364.) 39. Banks to Siegel [sic], June 2, 1862, Franz Sigel papers, NY Historical Society |
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page 1479 sixteen cannon in that period, which may or may not have included the two pieces lost at Front Royal.40 Jackson said in his report that "all the conveyances that...could be hired or impressed" were inadequate to the task of carrying off the captured supplies.41 Jackson had ordered additional army wagons to Winchester from the upper valley. Banks would be able within days of the retreat to provide wagons to some of the new regiments sent as reinforcements. This seems to argue that Banks's wagon losses were at least manageable. On June 6, General Williams reported the transportation train "is by no means reorganized." He had given wagons to the cavalry, and he did not think the current supply of wagons could supply all the reinforcements coming to Banks's army.42 On June 18, some seventy-two wagon bodies were sent to Banks from Washington.43 By July 1, Banks was reporting his old division was "well supplied with transportation" and ready to move.44 In contrast, Frémont's army, which suffered no wagon attacks, required an additional 150 wagons to support itself.45 One soldier in Banks's army reported receiving a new issue of clothing and equipment on May 29.46 On June 6, Lieutenant Robert G. Shaw of the 2nd Massachusetts indicated they were only waiting for additional clothes before they would be marching.47 At the end of September, Banks's corps, which was larger than his May division, had 645 wagons in camp.48 He was under orders in that period to minimize supplies in storage, and this figure thus probably provides no helpful information. Banks bypassed his chain of command, writing directly to the president on June 3, asking for promotions for his supply specialists, Beckwith and Holabird, who would be with Banks for many of his remaining active military
41. OR, I, 12, pt. I: 708. 42. Williams to Banks, June 6, 1862, N. P. Banks papers, LOC, box 21. 43. Griffith to Banks, June 18, 1862, Ibid. 44. OR, I, 12, pt. III: 437. 45. OR, I, 12, pt. III: 449, 456. 46. Marvin, The Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers: a History Compiled from Diaries and Official Reports, p. 144. 47. Robert G. Shaw to Susie, June 6, 1862, in Duncan, Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Robert Gould Shaw, p. 206. 48. Rufus Ingalls to Alpheus Williams, Natl. Archives, RG 393, pt. II, entry 2203, Army of Potomac. |
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page 1480 operations.49
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