Tucked in the Virginia farmland only 30 miles west of Washington DC was the Spring Hill Farm (today called Henry Hill), a generally neglected land containing an orchard and a small garden, that was home to Judith Henry.
Judith was 84 years old and bedridden, on this farm that had been in the Henry family since before the American Revolution. Along with Judith was her daughter Ellen and a hired teenage slave Lucy Griffith. It was common practice for owners of large tracts of lands with many slaves to hire out some of their slaves to others in the vicinity.
The context can be summed up as a spurned spouse turned abuser on the former partner who desired to leave the marriage that both had entered voluntary into back in 1781 and again in 1787. There were official reasons (should the courts be considered) and unofficial reasons for the separation with the intention of divorce.
It was just a few months before in the spring of 1861 that Virginia and North Carolina had voted to stay in the Union. If the Republicans had opted for a peaceful negotiations with the seven states that had seceded, this battle would not have been necessary.
A further enlightenment is necessary to understand that Lincoln was not patient when it came to the seven states that had seceded, as pointed out by John V. Denson in a 2006 article:
… on April 4, 1861, before the start of the war on April 12, the Secession Convention in Virginia, which had convened in February of 1861, sent a delegate to visit President Lincoln in the White House to discuss the results of the action recently taken in Virginia. When the State of Virginia originally voted on its ratification ordinance approving the U.S. Constitution, it contained a specific clause protecting their right to secede in the future. The delegate was Colonel John B. Baldwin, who was a strong opponent of secession by Virginia, although he recognized the right. His message communicated privately to the president on April 4, was that the convention had voted not to secede if President Lincoln would issue a written pledge to refrain from the use of force in order to get the seceded states back into the Union. President Lincoln told Colonel Baldwin that it was four days too late now to take that action. Unknown to all except a few insiders of the administration, meaning that members of the Congress did not know, the president had already issued secret orders on April 1, to send a fleet of ships to Fort Sumter in order to provoke the South into firing the first shot in order to start the war.
President Lincoln had been in office less than a month before aggressively deciding to opt for the “nuclear” option. This is the same man that had said the following in the late 1840s:
“…Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better ..”
In addition to this, President Lincoln indicated that his primary concern was for the “Union” to be preserved, like a forever marriage.
This dovetails into what Lincoln said during the 04APR1861 visit:
Lincoln stated that he could not wait until the seceded states decided what to do and added:
“But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery? Am I to let them go on?”
Baldwin replied:
“Yes sir, until they can be peaceably brought back.”
Lincoln then replied:
“And open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten percent tariff . . .” (as opposed to the much higher forty percent Federal tariff). “What then would become of my tariff?”
So with a naval forces on its way to Charleston (Fort Sumter) and Pensacola (Fort Pickens) to instigate a first shot, Lincoln basically said “his way or the highway”.
The less known story of Fort Pickens included a Lieutenant Slemmer, like Major Anderson, who felt his position on the mainland, as well as that at nearby Fort McRee and the Pensacola Navy Yard, would be difficult to defend in the event of a full-scale attack, and he moved his troops and thirty sailors from the Navy Yard to the stronger, and then unoccupied, Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola Bay.
You may recall that Major Anderson also moved his troops from Fort Moultrie (on the mainland) to an uncompleted and unoccupied Fort Sumter under the cover of night just after Christmas 1860. This was AFTER a gentleman’s agreement had been made that indicated that all forces in Charleston Harbor, both Union and Confederate, would honor the status quo to allow peace negotiations to take place instead of hostilities.
On 15JAN1861, Colonel Chase went to Fort Pickens, a facility he had helped design and build while a captain in the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, and made an unsuccessful demand for the fort’s surrender. A few days later, General Scott gave confidential orders that a contingent of Regular Army troops under the command of Captain Israel Vogdes of the First Artillery Regiment, a former professor of mathematics at West Point, be sent to Fort Pickens aboard the twenty-one gun sloop of war “U. S. S. Brooklyn”
On 04MAR1861 Lincoln was sworn into office and on 12MAR1861 secret orders were sent to Captain Vogdes by General Scott and Navy Secretary Gideon Wells that his troops were to be immediately put ashore at Fort Pickens. This action was actually carried out on 11APR1861 the day BEFORE Fort Sumter was fired upon by the Confederates.
President Lincoln in no way entertained anything but a war answer to the legal secession of seven states. His actions after Fort Sumter, where no deaths occurred during the bombardment, mandated a continued war footing.
While two men were killed manning the cannon during the 14APR1861 ceremony (see below), many, many more would follow, almost 750,000!
The terms of surrender allowed Anderson to perform a 100-gun salute before he and his men evacuated the fort the next day. The salute began at 2:00 P.M. on April 14, but was cut short to 50 guns after an accidental explosion killed one of the gunners, Pvt. Daniel Hough, and mortally wounded another.
On 15APR1861, President Lincoln called up 75,000 volunteers from the remaining states for 90-day service. This knee-jerk reaction caused a re-vote for secession in four more states including Virginia on 17APR1861 where Judith Henry lived.
President Lincoln refused to call Congress into secession until 04JUL1861 to allow the military ramp-up to continue unimpeded so that Congress had little to decide but to back Lincoln’s war on the south-land.
Union forces numbering over 35,000 under Union General McDowell proceeded to invade Virginia from the area around Washington DC. Also joining the event were spectators who came out the 30 miles to watch these armies battle each other while having a picnic.
Confederate forces of 20,000 under General P.G.T. Beauregard from Richmond, VA combined with 12,000 under General Joseph E. Johnston who withdrew from the Shenandoah Valley unnoticed, boarded trains and arrived near Bull Run on 21JUL1861:
Union artillery assumed that the Spring Hill farmhouse was vacant and fired on that structure in an effort to disperse Confederate sharpshooters:
The 84 year old Judith Henry is the first (and definitely not the last) civilian casualty of this war. She is buried out in front of her house.
The peak of the battle occurred at 3pm as the Confederate reserves helped turn the tide sending the Union forces and civilian onlookers scurrying back to Washington DC.
General Bernard Bee (CSA) made an observation of how General Thomas Jackson’s troops were doing in the field and gave Jackson his new nickname, “Stonewall”:
If you ever have the opportunity to visit this battlefield 30 miles west of Washington DC, technology can guide you as you walk the grounds, even showing you where you are while on the battlefield in real time. This app is available in both the Apple and Google Play stores.
I highly recommend taking the time to explore this first major large scale military engagement in the Union’s War Against Southern Independence.
-SF1
