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Giants in Their Tall Black Hats
Essays on the Iron Brigade
By Alan T. Nolan, Sharon Eggleston Vipond Indiana University Press
Copyright © 1998 Indiana University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-02847-1
CHAPTER 1
John Brawner's Damage Claim
ALAN T. NOLAN
The Battle on the Farm
People interested in the Iron Brigade are generally aware of its first full-blown combat on the Brawner Farm on August 28, 1862, the eve of Second Bull Run. It was a stunning engagement in which the brigade and Battery B, surprised and outnumbered, fought to a standstill men of Stonewall Jackson's wing of Lee's army. Jackson's wing had separated from Lee and Longstreet's wing on August 25 at the Rappahannock River. Flanking Major General John Pope's Army of Virginia, Jackson had fallen on Manassas in Pope's rear on August 26. Aware that his wing was vulnerable by itself in northern Virginia, Jackson had moved his 25,000 men to wooded Stony Ridge immediately north of the Brawner Farm. There he waited for Lee and Longstreet to follow him into northern Virginia.
The farm of John C. Brawner, a tenant farmer, was located along the north side of the Warrenton Turnpike between the crossroads villages of Gainesville and Groveton, Virginia. The countryside was rolling with occasional ridges and in 1862 was marked by patches of woods and marginal farms. Brawner's farm was composed of approximately 300 acres. It was owned by the widow Augusta Douglas of Gainesville, and since 1858 had been leased to Brawner. Brawner was sixty-four years old in 1862. Prior to the war, his household included his wife, two sons, and three daughters. In August of 1862, the sons were away in the army. The whereabouts of his wife in 1862 are unknown.
Brawner's farm was not imposing. The farmhouse and barn were located a quarter of a mile north of the Warrenton Turnpike on the crest of a gentle ridge. A farm lane led from the turnpike to the farmhouse. In the yard, extending to the east, was an orchard. Except for the orchard and a small grove of trees at the house and barn, the ground near the buildings was cleared so that the fields in front and behind the buildings were open. Brawner's fields were bordered on the east by a rectangular wood that lay south and east of the farm buildings. The wood was approximately a fifth of a mile long. Its north edge, enclosed by a zigzag rail fence, began seventy-five yards south of the crest of the farm building ridge and extended down to and south of the turnpike. Inside the wood, the ground was rugged and irregular and dipped down to the level of the turnpike at the eastern edge of the wood, where another open field extended to the north from the turnpike.
A Confederate general officer later characterized the Brawner Farm as simply "a farm-house, an orchard, a few stacks of hay, and a rotten 'worm' fence," but Virginia was a border state and the farm was perilously close to Washington, thirty miles to the east. When the Virginia Convention voted on April 17, 1861, to secede, northern Virginia became a marchland. Confederate troops had advanced toward the Potomac and the Union moved divisions across the river onto Virginia soil.
Brawner's first brush with the war, a near miss for his property, had taken place in July of 1861. The Federals had undertaken their first major offensive in northern Virginia and had been defeated in the First Battle of Bull Run. Sixty thousand soldiers, Northern and Southern, had engaged in a confused and bloody struggle around the Henry House Hill and Bull Run, five miles east of the farm. The Federals had then retreated to the Washington defenses, leaving the Confederates in Brawner's neighborhood until March of 1862. Anticipating another Union advance, the Confederates had then withdrawn southward toward the Rappahannock River and the Federals had moved before marching farther south. For almost four months during the late spring and early summer of 1862, things were quiet around the Brawner Farm. Then in August of 1862, the armies had again marched into northern Virginia and the fighting had moved toward the farm.
Brigadier General Rufus King's Division, including Brigadier General John Gibbon's Brigade of Western men, mustered approximately 10,000 officers and men of all arms and was assigned to Major General Irvin McDowell's Third Corps of Pope's army. On August 28,1862, the division was marching east on the turnpike en route to Centreville as a part of Pope's inept and ill-informed effort to find Jackson before Lee and Longstreet's wing of the Army of Northern Virginia joined Jackson. The route of march was past the Brawner Farm. Immediately behind Gibbon's Brigade in King's column was the brigade of Brigadier General Abner Doubleday.
From his post on Stony Ridge, Stonewall Jackson saw King's apparently isolated division marching across his front, past the Brawner Farm. It was approximately 5:00 p.m. and the sun was beginning to set. At about the same time, Jackson heard from Lee. Longstreet had reached nearby Thoroughfare Gap, was expected to force it, and was within supporting distance. Jackson immediately disposed his troops to attack. As the head of Gibbon's column emerged from the cover of the wood at the eastern edge of the Brawner property, a Confederate battery fired on it from a position north and east of the farm. Another battery, firing from the north and west of the farm, promptly opened on other brigades of King's Division that were marching to the rear of Gibbon's men. Believing that the enemy guns were unsupported horse artillery, Gibbon ordered Battery B to the head of his column to respond to the battery firing from the east and directed the Second Wisconsin Volunteers, his only combat veterans, to silence the battery firing in his rear.
Battery B drove rapidly up the turnpike, unlimbered, and went into position on a knoll east of the Brawner woods and just north of the turnpike. As the Federal artillery commenced firing, the Second Wisconsin moved through the woods. Having formed line of battle in the open field south of the Brawner farmhouse and bam, it started forward. Approaching the crest of the ridge on which the farm buildings were located, the unsuspecting Federals were suddenly fired on from their right flank by skirmishers from Starke's Brigade of Brigadier General William B. Taliaferro's Stonewall Division. In spite of their surprise, the Wisconsin men did not falter. They wheeled to their right and returned Starke's fire. The flank companies of the Wisconsin regiment were sent forward as skirmishers and Starke's Confederates withdrew over the crest of the ridge followed by the Wisconsin skirmishers. Within a few yards, the Federal skirmishers confronted a larger group of Confederates posted in a small grove of trees. Shots were exchanged as the other Second Wisconsin companies, moving with the skirmish line, reached the crest of the ridge. Looking north from the crest, the Western men at last knew the truth: Long columns of Confederate infantry were filing out of wooded Stony Ridge and advancing on the Brawner property. At once Baylor's Stonewall Brigade, also of Taliaferro's Division, opened fire on the Second Wisconsin. Rejoined by its skirmishers, the embattled Second Wisconsin returned this fire and held its ground.
At last comprehending the force of the Confederate assault, having dispatched calls for help to division commander King and the other brigades of the division, Gibbon sent the Nineteenth Indiana to form on the left of the Second Wisconsin, extending his line toward the Brawner farm buildings. The Seventh Wisconsin went in to the right of the Second. Gibbon committed the Sixth Wisconsin to the right of the Seventh, to a position in the lower ground in the field east of the Brawner woods. Behind the Sixth, the guns of Battery B were at work.
The battle was now joined. Gibbon's line was just south of the crest of the Brawner farmhouse ridge. From left to right it followed the ridge line, passed along the northern edge of the wood and extended into the field east of the wood. There was a large gap in the line between the positions of the Seventh and Sixth Wisconsin. Having driven off the Confederate battery that had begun the affair, Battery B now moved to a new position so that it could fire into this gap. Both of Gibbon's flanks were in the air and were overlapped by the larger Confederate forces, even before Confederate reserves entered the battle.
In addition to Starke's Brigade, the Confederate skirmishers that had surprised the Second Wisconsin, and Baylor's Stonewall Brigade, Jackson now committed the brigade of Colonel A. G. Taliaferro from the same division. He also sent in the brigades of Brigadier Generals Isaac R. Trimble and Alexander R. Lawton from Major General Richard S. Ewell's division, and additional artillery. Although not ordered to do so, Doubleday sent the Seventy-sixth New York and Fifty-sixth Pennsylvania from his brigade into the gap between the Seventh and Sixth Wisconsin. His remaining regiment, the Ninety-fifth New York, moved to the support of Battery B. Battery D of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery of Doubleday's brigade also joined the battle. It appears that Jackson committed between 5,900 and 6,400 infantry. Gibbon was able to field between 2,500 and 2,900 infantry, including the regiments from Doubleday's brigade. The two sides were relatively even in artillery engaged.
Darkness and the tacit consent of the generals terminated the engagement. From the first Confederate artillery fire to the last desultory infantry fire, it lasted for approximately three hours, perhaps two of which were intense. The participants have adequately characterized the nature of the fight. According to Brigadier General Taliaferro, "it was a stand-up combat, dogged and unflinching, in a field almost bare. There were no wounds from spent balls, the confronting lines looked into each other's faces at deadly range, less than a hundred yards apart, and they stood as immovable as the painted heroes in a battle-piece." The Confederates held the farmhouse and the northern edge of the orchard and their line then extended in front of the Brawner wood and into the low ground in the field east of the wood. The Federals clung to the farmyard, the southern edge of the orchard, and the northern face of the wood, extending their line eastward into the same low ground. Gibbon, who was to be in many battles, later said that it was "the most terrific musketry fire I ... ever listened to." Brigadier General Taliaferro reported it was "one of the most terrific conflicts that can be conceived of." Brigadier General Trimble stated that "I have never known so terrible a fire as raged ... on both sides." And Doubleday wrote that "there have been few more unequal contests or better contested fields during the war." Perhaps Brigadier General Taliaferro provided the best summary description of the engagement. After the war, and referring to the Federal as well as Confederate participants, he wrote: "out in the sunlight, in the dying daylight, and under the stars, they stood, and although they could not advance, they would not retire. There was some discipline in this, but there was much more of true valor."
And, of course, this kind of fighting exacted a fearful toll. Thirty-seven percent of Gibbon's Western men were casualties, including three of four regimental commanders, the lieutenant colonel of the Seventh Wisconsin, and the majors of three of the four Western regiments. Doubleday's regiments also lost heavily. On the Confederate side, the total losses exceeded those of the Federals, and the Federal rifles accounted for division commanders William B. Taliaferro and Richard S. Ewell. Nine regimental commanders, including three in the Stonewall Brigade, were killed or wounded. Douglas Southall Freeman has written that the battle was one of Jackson's costliest, for the numbers engaged.
Leaving their dead and wounded on the farm, the surviving Federals returned to the turnpike and ultimately made a painful night march to Manassas. Jackson's men returned to Stony Ridge. Confederate physicians tended the Federal wounded as well as their own and Confederate burial parties buried the dead of both sides in shallow graves on Brawner's property. On the next two days, August 29 and 30, Second Bull Run, a major battle and a spectacular Confederate victory, took place just east of the farm. The Confederates remained on the farm and Southern artillery batteries placed there participated in the Confederate victory.
Stonewall Jackson's admiring biographer, the Englishman G. F. R. Henderson, was later to write of Brawner Farm: "The men who faced each other that August evening fought with a gallantry that has seldom been surpassed. ... The Federals, surprised and unsupported, bore away the honors. The Western Brigade, commanded by Gen. Gibbon, displayed a coolness and steadfastness worthy of the soldiers of Albuera." Brawner Farm was in fact the prophetic beginning of a storied career for the soldiers from the Old Northwest and for Battery B. Later reinforced by the newly raised Twenty-fourth Michigan Volunteers, the Western brigade went on to earn the sobriquet "Iron Brigade."
The Claim
In 1871, the Forty-first Congress of the United States enacted a war claims statute. The legislation authorized the payment of claims "of those citizens who remained loyal adherents to the cause of the government ... during the war, for stores or supplies taken or furnished during the rebellion for the use of the army of the United States in States proclaimed as in insurrection against the United States." A three-member commission was created, to sit in Washington, to adjudicate the claims on the basis of "testimony of witnesses under oath, or from other sufficient evidence." The commissioners were required to keep a journal of their proceedings and a register of claims. These papers are now in the National Archives.
John C. Brawner was quick to file his claim. The statute was approved March 3, 1871. Brawner hired Uriah B. Mitchell, a Washington attorney, and filed his claim on April 27, 1871. Identified in the claim form as a resident of Prince William County with a Gainesville Station post office address, Brawner apparently still lived on the wartime farm or close by. Taken down in longhand by someone acting for the Commission, the testimony of Brawner, his daughter Mary, and two witnesses in his behalf, Richard Graham and John Crop, are in the claim file. Also included in the file is the statement of one Jackson Tippins.
Sworn before Justice of the Peace G. A. Simpson, Brawner asserted that he had supplied com, hay, wheat, bacon, oats, salt, and flour to the soldiers of General King's Division. These men, he said, had also killed and eaten a cow and twenty-two hogs and taken $23.00 worth of fowls. His horse was shot and died from wounds. Some of his household and kitchen furniture was taken for use by wounded men. His vegetable garden was destroyed. Finally, axes, hoes, spades, and other farm tools were appropriated. The total claim was for $1,153.75. The claim concluded with Brawner's certification that he did not "voluntarily serve in the Confederate army or navy ... that he never voluntarily furnished any stores, supplies or other material aid to said Confederate army or navy, or to the Confederate government ... or yielded voluntary support to the said Confederate government."
In support of his claim, Brawner testified that he was a native of Maryland and had moved to Virginia at seven years of age. He had witnessed the First Battle of Bull Run in July of 1861. When the Confederate army had fallen back toward the Rappahannock in March of 1862, Brawner had remained on the farm although his neighbors in the area had left. When the Federals moved in during the spring of 1862, officers had visited Brawner and had asked him why he had remained. According to his testimony, he had explained that he was crippled and could not leave and that he did not believe that the Union soldiers were "barbarians." The officers, he said, had then given him "protection papers."
Brawner also stated that he had stayed inside during the August 28 battle on his farm, although bullets had crashed through the house. His home and farm were "broken up" by the battle of August 28 and he and his family were "driven away." They left the morning after the battle and went to a neighbor's house to the north of the combat area.
To perfect his claim, Brawner needed to establish three things: the identification and value of the goods furnished by him, that Federal troops had taken those goods, and that he had been loyal to the United States. Having listed the goods, Brawner's statements were principally directed to two issues, presumably reflecting the questions with which the claims commissioners were concerned: whether the Federals or Confederates were responsible for his losses and whether or not he met the statute's loyalty requirement.
On the issue of which army was responsible, Brawner asserted that "General King sent to my house and officers came for supplies." Regarding the loss of the hogs included in his claim, these, he said, were butchered by the soldiers and then carried off. When he left the farm on August 29, the day after the Iron Brigade's fight, Union soldiers were in his house. When he returned, they were still there, but the furniture was gone or "used up." Among the soldiers were Union wounded. Brawner and his daughter waited on them, he said. The farm tools, presumably the spades, were used by the soldiers to dig graves.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Giants in Their Tall Black Hats by Alan T. Nolan, Sharon Eggleston Vipond. Copyright © 1998 Indiana University Press. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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