Surgeon Henry Bryant  ·  Lieutenant Colonel Francis W. Palfrey  ·  Quartermaster Charles W. Folsom  ·  Major Paul J. Revere  ·  Adjutant Charles L. Peirson  ·  Colonel William Raymond Lee  ·  Assistant Surgeon Nathan Hayward

FIELD AND STAFF OF TWENTIETH MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY 1861.

A Monograph.

BALL'S BLUFF

AN EPISODE AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES TO
SOME OF US.

A paper written for the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts

By Charles Lawrence Peirson

Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General.

Privately printed by The Salem Press Company
with permission from the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts
for the information later on of
Charles Lawrence Peirson, of New York, and
Charles Peirson Lyman, of Massachusetts

THE SALEM PRESS COMPANY
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

MDCCCCXIII

THE EPISODE OF BALL'S BLUFF:
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
TO SOME OF US.

This subject, like many of the periods of the Civil War, has been often described, and is familiar to the passing generation, but has, I believe, never before been placed upon your records, nor by an eye witness. Therefore, I venture to present it here.

The Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, in which I had the honor to be a First Lieutenant and Adjutant, left Boston in the Autumn of 1861, for active service with the army. It was commanded by William Raymond Lee, as Colonel,—a West Point graduate. Paul J. Revere was the Major. It had been, before the date of the Ball's Bluff engagement, but a few weeks in the service, and was stationed first at Washington, where I remember calling with Colonel Lee, who knew them, upon General Scott, then commanding the Armies of the United States, and upon General McClellan, then Commander of the Army of the Potomac.

The men of the Regiment, like all of the troops in the East at that time, were untrained by battle, never having heard the sound of a hostile bullet, and were of no more value as soldiers than were the Militia Regiments. Soldiers are not soldiers until they have been long enough together to have acquaintance with and respect for their officers, and have learned obedience with a belief in discipline, with a willingness to abide by it. The earlier Battle of Bull Run, which became a rout for want of discipline, proved nothing and taught nothing except the after-thought of the necessity of discipline.

Up to this time (1861), the important arms of Cavalry and Artillery had been almost entirely neglected, most of the Cavalry not yet being armed or equipped.

General McClellan, who was in command when we joined the Army of the Potomac, was a thoroughly educated soldier. Soon after his graduation from West Point, he was employed in the construction of the first Pacific Railway. Later he was selected as one of a Commission to study the Art of War in Europe. For a time he was with the Allied Armies in the Crimean War, with every possibility of instructing himself in siege operations, construction of military bridges and use of pontoons, and the accepted order of battle for the different arms of the service. Always occupied with matters of large importance, and with all these