Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of guiding three Licensed Battlefield Guides from Gettysburg and several of their friends over the June 1863 battlefields in the Loudoun Valley. While standing at the site where the men of the 1st Rhode Island Cavalry met their demise on June 18, we had a long discussion regarding Col. Alfred Duffie and Gen. Alfred Pleasonton. Mentioning the letter Pleasonton wrote on June 29 regarding Duffie’s conduct and the supporting statement he submitted from a captured Southern officer, I realized that some of you might appreciate seeing the full text of both documents.
On June 29, Pleasonton sent the following to the Adjutant General in Washington, as a cover letter to an account written by Lt. Col. Meriweather Lewis, 9th Virginia Cavalry, then a wounded prisoner of war.
“General,
I respectfully request the enclosed statement of the conduct of Colonel Duffie at the affair of Middleburg be submitted to the Secretary of War.
In my official report of the battle of Beverly Ford I censured Colonel Duffie for his conduct on that occasion in permitting one regiment of rebel cavalry to hold his Division in check for six hours.
In his last affair his conduct is censured by everyone who knows of the affair for not [fighting] his men properly and for neglect in not seeing they were supplied with ammunition before they went into the fight as was ordered.
The statement enclosed is that of a rebel officer whose men put Col. Duffie to flight. This officer was badly wounded at Upperville and is now in our hands.
I request that Colonel Duffie may either be tried for his conduct or that his commission as Brigadier General be revoked. I make this request in justice to the many gallant officers of the cavalry who have really distinguished themselves, and who have been mentioned as doing so in my report.
I am very respectfully…”
Indicative of his still simmering anger, Pleasonton pointedly refers to Duffie as a colonel rather than a general. Pleasonton also accuses Duffie of failing to properly supply his men with ammunition prior to leaving camp on the morning of June 17. Readers of my previous account may recall that Duffie had clearly failed to do so prior to the fight at Brandy Station. Had Pleasonton confused this point or had Duffie failed to see that his men had been properly supplied for a second time in the same month?
On June 26, Lt. Col. Meriweather Lewis, wrote the following statement from his hospital bed in Aldie. Lewis had suffered a gunshot wound to the chest in the June 21 fight with Gen. John Buford’s cavalry along the Trappe Road near Upperville.
“On the 17th inst. my regiment (9th VA Cavalry) fell back from Thoroughfare Gap before a force of Federal cavalry commanded by Col. Duffie. We took the road to Salem and the Federal cavalry the road to Middleburg.
At that place [Middleburg] I understand they met with Gen’l [Robertson] and after some skirmishing in which Gen’l [Robertson] lost three killed and ten wounded, and Col. Duffie over sixty killed, wounded, and prisoners; Col. Duffie fell back about one half mile and camped for the night.
At about ten o’clock on that night I came up with my regiment and camped between Col. Duffie and Gen’l [Robertson] and within five hundred yards of Col. Duffie’s camp on the side towards Middleburg not knowing that the Federal troops were in the vicinity. Soon after daylight next morning our forage detail of about one hundred and fifty soldiers and Negroes in charge of a Lieutenant Acting [Quartermaster], came upon the enemy camp and at once commenced firing. [A]t the same time sending intelligence back to the regiment, upon the [receipt] of which a squadron of the 9th VA Cavalry was sent after the Federals.
Col. Duffie’s troops at once broke in confusion and ran without fighting at all. We took prisoners, killed, and wounded one hundred and sixty of them, having no one killed or wounded on our side.
At no time during the night was the road between Col. Duffie and Hopewell Gap or Thoroughfare Gap occupied by our troops and many of his troops escaped on those roads that morning.
The nature of the country is such that a single squadron might easily have fallen back on that road without receiving much injury.”
A couple of thoughts and clarifications are in order. Having been instructed to avoid bringing on an engagement, the main body of the 9th Virginia had fallen back in the face of Duffie’s advance through Thoroughfare Gap. However, skirmishers had also followed and harassed the Federals throughout the morning and early afternoon.
Lewis refers to Brig. Gen. Beverly Robertson as Robinson throughout the letter, which I have corrected.
The distance between the site of the initial skirmish and where I believe Duffie bivouacked is much greater than a half mile. As he was not involved in the skirmish on the evening of June 17, Lewis may have, understandably, given an inaccurate estimate of the distance.
I offer my thoughts regarding casualties in my book, but determining the number of Federals lost during the June 17 skirmishing is probably impossible. Lewis’s claim of more than 60 men killed, wounded, or captured strikes me as high. An unknown number of men had certainly been captured, but Lt. Col. Thompson, 1st Rhode Island, stated in his report, written in September, that no one had been killed or wounded on June 17.
Lewis’s statement that his men arrived at their June 17/18 bivouac site after Duffie is worth noting, for several reasons. When I relate the events on tours, I rely upon my aging memory, and, as I did the other day, have Duffie’s men going into camp after the Virginians. Quite frankly, I do not see how the men of either side could have gone into camp near the other without revealing their presence, if the force already in bivouac had established a proper picket force. The admission of this curious fact by men from both sides suggests either carelessness or utter exhaustion.
Lewis’s statement that he went into camp at 10 o’clock is also worth noting. Duffie does not tell us when he went into camp, and I think we all know the problems reconciling time estimates in such accounts. But Duffie does relate in his report, written on the 18th, that he sent 20 men “at 10 p.m.,” to try and reach the Federals at Aldie. If both accounts are accurate then these men were all moving at the same time and possibly on the same roads.
According to Lewis, the road south to Thoroughfare Gap remained open during the night, and, indeed, Capt. George Bliss, 1st Rhode Island, reconnoitered the road and reported the same to Duffie moments before the fighting began in the morning.
Once the Virginians fired the first shots, the Rhode Islanders were immediately on their heels, turning first one way and then another, as the enemy arrived from several directions nearly at once. I believe Duffie tried to make a stand, but cavalry could not resist a mounted attack from one direction, much less multiple directions by standing still. Duffie needed to attack, and he did not. Lt. Joseph Chedell, on his own accord, I believe, tried to make a stand to cover the retreat of the regiment but his valiant effort proved both futile and fatal, as he was killed almost immediately.
With the remainder of the 9th Virginia now arriving at a gallop, Duffie ordered Capt. Augustus Bixby to punch a gap through the enemy force between them and Bull Run Mountain. Seconds later a bullet pierced Bixby’s leg and wounded his horse. With Bixby now struggling to coax his wounded and fractious horse along, Duffie abandoned any pretext of resistance and ordered his men to flee. He later claimed, “we were intermixed with them [the enemy] for more than an hour,” but exactly what he means cannot be known. Any real attempt to resist the Southern attack may have lasted no longer than it takes you to read this brief description and led Lewis to conclude that Duffie and his man “ran without fighting at all.”
Still seething when he wrote his report in September, and still referring to Duffie as a colonel, Pleasonton wrote, “Colonel Duffie himself has never joined this command since, and his conduct on that occasion as testified by the men of his command shows that he is totally unfitted to command a regiment.”
My thanks to Mike Musick for first locating these documents and making me aware of them years ago.
Sources:
Documents from the National Archives
Small But Important Riots 