As I completed the manuscript for Chasing Jeb Stuart and John Mosby in 2011, I realized (on good advice) that the narrative was too long and too broad in scope. I decided to shorten the time frame of the book and to narrow my focus to the cavalry. In doing so, I cut out seven chapters in their entirety, as well as most all references to the Union infantry from the Defenses of Washington posted near the Fairfax County border with both Loudoun and Prince William Counties. In doing so I consigned accounts of numerous ambushes, raids, and reconnaissance expeditions within the contested region to the ‘cutting room floor.’ Good friend William J. Miller recently gave me reason to revisit one of those incidents.

Following the engagement of Second Manassas in late August 1862, Southern hospitals sprung up in towns throughout the Virginia Piedmont like flowers in the spring. Though John Mosby still toiled in relative anonymity and his domain over the region lay months in the future, the Loudoun Valley was still Southern territory. The improved hard-surface Little River / Ashby’s Gap Turnpike ran directly through Aldie and Middleburg to the vital Shenandoah Valley. The common real estate phrase ‘location, location,’ means one thing in the area today. During the war the phrase meant that towns like Aldie and Middleburg saw near constant Union reconnaissance patrols.

Between mid-September and the end of the year, large Union cavalry expeditions passed through the region at least 23 times and an unknown number of smaller scouting forays have probably been lost to history. The patrols covered different routes and encompassed many towns, as the troopers swept back and forth through the area. Aldie may have been the most visited, with Middleburg and Warrenton not far behind. Clashes became unavoidable and sick or wounded Southern soldiers recovering in small local hospitals found themselves, along with the townsfolk, caught in the middle.

On September 25, Col. Nathaniel McLean led a mixed force of infantry and cavalry through Fairfax and Prince William Counties. Near Bristoe Station, McLean met Brig. Gen. Julius Stahel, leading another reconnaissance force, including Lt. Col. Joseph Karge’s 1^st New Jersey Cavalry. On the morning of September 29, Karge, leading 500 troopers from the 1^st New Jersey, 2^nd New York and 1^st Pennsylvania, split off to reconnoiter Warrenton.

Arriving in the afternoon, the men found themselves in the middle of one vast, sprawling medical complex. As Karge recounted, “Every house in town I found filled with wounded and sick; the streets were crowded with convalescents, and apparently, stragglers…” He described the “accommodations” as “anything but decent. The poor sufferers were lying on the bare floor, wrapped in a poor blanket, and seldom a straw pillow under their heads. In some of the houses the sick and wounded were literally decaying in their own filth, and nobody seemed to care for them; in short, the scene I have witnessed beggars description.” Karge estimated that 50 patients a day died from insufficient care, leading, he claimed, several civilians to ask that “United States authorities” take over the care of the patients. Though he had suggested an evident lack of care, Karge counted “40 army surgeons of different ranks” treating between 1,300 and 1,400 patients. He described the medical personnel, patients and townsfolk as cordial and accommodating. In particular, he noted, “The gentlemanly surgeon of the post, Dr. Fisher, was of great service to me in procuring the register of sick and wounded, and when I bade him good-by his eyes moistened with tears.”

Three hours after arriving and having paroled the Southern soldiers, Karge and his command departed. In addition to the men paroled, the Yankees had captured Maj. Rice Payne and as many as 300 conscripts. Payne, a resident of Warrenton, had served as an assistant quartermaster in the town since the previous September.

Lt. Col. William H. F. Payne, 4^th Virginia Cavalry, also resided in Warrenton. He and Rice Payne were first cousins. Lt. Colonel Payne had been home for months, recovering from a ghastly wound to his face, suffered at Williamsburg on May 5. He had witnessed the suffering endured by his fellow convalescents in the town and he knew the danger they faced from enemy patrols. Ever eager for action, he had traveled to Richmond just days before Karge’s Yankees charged into Warrenton. In particular, Payne sought command of the 2^nd North Carolina Cavalry. He had observed the men of the regiment “doing nothing’ in Culpeper and thought he could put them to better use protecting Warrenton and the citizens and patients therein.

Though he had not been present at the time of Karge’s raid, Payne left a very different version of events, claiming the Yankees had been drunk and that during their “debauch” the signed paroles had been lost and thus “the entire fruits of the expedition.” Interestingly, Payne blamed “the Surgeon” for leading the debauch.

Susan Caldwell, a resident of Warrenton, was present and she counted 800 men paroled by Karge. Referring to Maj. Rice Payne, she noted that he “had about three quarters of an hours notice, but instead of his leaving he mounted his horse and rode up and down the street and at last rode in their midst…he was awfully drunk [her emphasis].” She then implored the recipient to not repeat the story, “as the family would never forgive me.” She also credited the Yankees with “behaving well and disturbing neither private or public property.” All of which begs the question, who to believe?

This is essentially the way my long-buried account of the affair looked when I left it on the editing room floor and there the story would have remained but for Bill Miller’s generosity and his own diligent research. Working on a medical study of events in the Shenandoah Valley during the war, Bill found reports from Dr. Thomas H. Williams, Medical Director and Inspector for the Confederate Army and from Dr. Samuel B. Fisher, the surgeon in charge of the facilities in Warrenton at the time of the raid. Williams made his report to Dr. S. P. Moore, Surgeon General for the Confederacy in Richmond. Dr. Moore had, in early September, sent Williams on an inspection tour of medical facilities from Lovington, in Nelson County, to Warrenton, in Fauquier County. He had arrived in Warrenton just days before Karge’s ‘attack’ on the town.

Writing his report in Lynchburg on October 10, Williams explained, “Upon arriving at Warrenton, I found much confusion: between fifteen hundred and eighteen hundred patients, most of whom were wounded men, were crowded into various buildings, public and private, which had been hurriedly occupied for the exigency. Forty Medical Officers, the majority of whom were from General Lee’s army, were in attendance upon these patients – a far greater number than there was any necessity for, but little system seemed to prevail. Surgeon S.B. Fisher …was in charge. It was at once apparent that as many of the sick and wounded as could be sent to hospitals further in the rear should be removed from Warrenton, and accordingly I called upon those whose injuries were slight to volunteer to march to Culpeper C.H., and I would have their knapsacks and bedding conveyed in wagons, about two hundred (200) responded to the call, and they were at once disposed of. Six hundred (600) more were placed upon the cars and sent to the Rappahannock, where other trains were in readiness to convey them to Culpeper C.H. Others were transferred in wagons, ambulances +c. until finally the number was reduced to about six hundred (600), and these could be comfortably accommodated. As above stated there were from fifteen to eighteen hundred patients at Warrenton when I arrived there. The Hospital register exhibited the larger number, but I am confident fifteen hundred would cover all. Friends of patients were arriving and leaving continually, in vehicles of every description, carrying away the wounded without “let or hindrance,” and of course many were removed of whom no record was kept.

“When the above reduction in the number of patients was accomplished, I proceeded to organize the Hospital, by dividing it into Three Divisions, with Dr. S.B. Fisher, as Surgeon in charge + one Surgeon and two Asst. Surgeons for each Division; and two additional medical officers were assigned to the duty of attending such patients as were scattered throughout the town, but whose condition was so as not to permit their immediate removal to the Hospital. All the remaining Medical Officers were directed to report to General Lee, and others to the Surgeon in charge of the General Hospital at Winchester. My stay in Warrenton was not of sufficient length for me to state whether my orders in this latter respect were observed, or not. I however, before leaving, gave Surgeon Fisher authority to retain temporarily a few additional medical officers provided he found their services indispensable.”

Dr. Williams refers to surgeons and medical personnel, while Karge termed all of the staff as surgeons. That Lee had left behind 40 surgeons as he set out upon his first invasion of the North is unlikely. A mix of doctors and assistants, as Williams stated is more likely.

Williams does not state exactly when he left Warrenton, but he departed prior to the Federals arriving as he makes no mention of the raid. If his tabulations are correct, then Karge did not parole 1,400 soldiers. Rather he paroled about 600. And, if Colonel Payne’s assertion that the Federals lost all of the paroles is correct, then they had no way to know for certain how many men they paroled. But remember Karge’s statement that he had received the hospital register from Dr. Fisher. If Karge had taken the register with him, he may have based his parole count on that document. Whatever the true nature of events, Karge’s estimate is more than double the number of men Dr. Williams believed remained in the town when he left.

Closing his report, Williams listed the locations within the town where patients had been housed and the number of men at each location. You will again note a disparity in the number of patients in the town when Williams left and the number Karge claimed to have paroled.

“The Hospital was now organized so that it could comfortably accommodate six hundred (600) patients, and the following were the buildings occupied, with their respective capacities: R.R. Depot No. 1 – 120; R.R. Depot No. 2 – 40; Rindsburg’s Store House – 60; Catholic Church – 24; Northern Methodist Church – 30; Presbyterian Church – 50; Odd Fellow’s Hall – 30; Baptist Church – 80; White + Smith’s Store House – 24; Court House – 40; Episcopal Church – 24; Beckham Vass’ Store House – 32; Southern Methodist Church – 30; basement of the Episcopal Church – 20. Aggregate, 604.”

So, who was “The gentlemanly surgeon of the post, Dr. Fisher”? With thanks again to Bill Miller, Samuel B. Fisher, almost 50 years of age at the time, had been in the Confederate service since July 1861, serving at hospitals at Manassas, Manassas Junction, Warrenton and Richmond.

When reports of the events in Warrenton reached Gen. Robert E. Lee, he called for an investigation and Fisher’s arrest and trial, if necessary. Almost certainly in response to Lee’s call for an investigation, Fisher gave his version of the events to Doctor Williams in a letter of late October.

“Your letter of the 10^th inst. inquiring about the ‘Raid’ has just been received.

I was at dinner when they made their appearance in town and saw them driving our cavalry (small number) on the road by my house. I then started for my office – at about halfway I met a squad going [unreadable]. On meeting the Col. commanding, he asked me the number of sick and wounded in the hospital. I told him in the neighborhood of 800. He then told [me to bring my register and he] would parole the men by it, considering all whose names were in it as being paroled. I told him it was an old register and by no means indicating the number in hospital… He remarked he must have a list of the sick, that he wished to keep his men amongst us as short time as possible and that he did not wish them to commit any depredations – and the sooner the list was made out the better for the town and all of us. Seeing I could do nothing…I sent to the hospital for a list of the names in each hospital, the paroling officer going also. I delivered to him the names… and he left a number of blank paroles on the table. I sent a list of the names to General [Gustavus] W. Smith [in Richmond]. The next day I found that some of the men had not accepted their parole, either orally or by sign and that the paroling officer had failed to go into some of the wards. I then got as many names on the list as possible and sent them out to General Smith. I suppose as nothing can be done without blame, I may secure my share but acting as I did, I doubtless protected the town from depredations and saved all supplies, records & property of every description. Most of the men were paroled by the officer going into the ward and making each man raise his hand reading the parole to them. Others were paroled on the street and paroles furnished by officer. Hoping my course may be approved by my superior officers.”

Prior to any proceedings against Fisher, Union troops arrested him in Warrenton the following August as a spy. Though exonerated, he remained in custody until November 1863. Southern authorities had not forgotten Lee’s complaint against Fisher, however, and Confederate Medical Director William Carrington later reported that Fisher had been found guilty of “wilful disobedience of orders.” He never held another position of authority in the army.

The fate of his wounded soldiers worried Lee, even as he marched into Maryland. He had left them in Warrenton and other towns due to a lack of adequate transportation rather than a lack of concern for their care. On September 15, he told an officer in Richmond, “The wounded at Warrenton must be brought back to a place of greater security whenever the opportunity affords, and as soon as they can bear the transportation. They were only sent there temporarily.”

In another communication on the subject, Lee’s aide, Maj. Walter Taylor, further confuses the number of soldiers Karge paroled. As Taylor stated, “Only about 400 had been removed, and there were still remaining some 1,400,” putting the tally closer to Karge’s claim.

One hundred and sixty-three years after these events, we should be grateful for the information we have, especially from such a small affair. Each account offers a different perspective and leaves us with other questions: who was drunk, did the Union troopers behave in a disciplined manner or engage in a ‘debauch,’ and how many Southern soldiers did Karge parole? Some answers will always elude us, and we will never reconcile all of the conflicts. Readers will examine the accounts through their own lens and, undoubtedly, draw differing conclusions.

Personally, I give the most weight to Susan Caldwell’s account, as she was present and wrote in the immediate aftermath of the event. That she was a staunch Southerner who credited the enemy troopers with acting in a disciplined manner carries weight for me. Colonel Payne was not present and wrote his account in a memoir. If Mrs. Caldwell is correct as to Major Payne’s condition and behavior, the colonel had reason to fudge the details. But what should we make of his claims regarding the “lost” paroles? Remember he lived in Warrenton and probably returned there shortly after the Yankee incursion. He also had other reasons to skew the events of that day. Remember that he had sought command of the 2^nd North Carolina Cavalry (a command he later received) as a means of protecting the town. Drunken marauding enemy troopers strengthened his case more than well-disciplined troops.

And what do we make of the conflicting accounts from Dr. Fisher and Lt. Colonel Karge? If we accept Dr. Fisher’s account as accurate, then Karge’s attempt to parole the patients appears to be nothing more than a charade. Remember that Southern authorities found Fisher guilty of not following orders. They did not accuse him of lying.

Lt. Col. Karge found himself in enemy territory with an unforeseen challenge ahead of him. Regardless of whether 600 patients remained in town or 1,400, they were scattered between 14 locations. Issuing proper written paroles and keeping the records to support the paroles would take time – a lot of time. Having chased some enemy troops from the town, Karge may be forgiven if he assumed a larger body of Southern troops might appear at any minute. I also appreciate his concern for keeping his men in check. The longer they remained in the town, the greater the chance their discipline would dissolve. But leaving blank forms on a table in some cases and accepting verbal paroles in others strikes me as little more than a waste of time. Paroled prisoners had to be exchanged through a formal process but what proof did Karge bring back to support the process? I suspect he brought back the register and accepted the highest numbers therein.

This story was essentially ‘in the can,’ when I made an unrelated trip to the archives. Unexpectedly, I found several letters from Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter inquiring as to the very topic of paroling Southern convalescents. Moreover, the timing of his inquiries is spot on.

On September 24, 1862, Porter wrote to army headquarters, explaining in part, “I call [your] attention …to the fact that the prisoners taken from the enemy and paroled, have not been furnished with any evidence to show their condition, as paroled men, while in our lines or after they are passed beyond them, to exempt them from liability to serve in the enemy’s ranks. A prisoner applying at these Headquarters for permission to pass my lines in charge of the body of an officer, although he has been duly paroled, has no evidence whatever to show the fact.” I believe this is exactly the problem the men would have faced who had been paroled in Warrenton.

In response, an officer from the provost marshal’s office, attached to army headquarters, told Porter, “All prisoners of war paroled at this office have been escorted through our lines and sent across the Potomac, each commissioned officer being furnished with a duplicate of his parole and the senior officer with the duplicate paroles of the enlisted men. I do not know what course has been promised by other officers who have paroled prisoners of war.”

But Porter wrote again to army headquarters, this time on September 29, asking specifically about hospital personnel and patients. “…the sick and wounded of the Confederate army frequently apply for certificates that they are paroled soldiers. Nurses also apply …all for the purpose of returning to their homes.

“I…recommend,” Porter continued, “that the surgeons attending or having in care the various hospitals be supplied with these parole certificates to be given the patients or nurses only when they are to be relieved from their care…

“I also suggest that on the recommendation of the surgeon, endorsed on the certificate having charge of a patient or nurse (paroled) the Comd’g officer in his vicinity controlling the guards through which the paroled will have to pass, be authorized to pass them to the enemy’s lines.

“I make these suggestions to get rid of a great many applications made daily to remove wounded men to their friends in Virginia. A general rule of this kind, I think will obviate annoyances to all parties.”

In response, the same officer attached to the provost marshal’s office, explained that the Surgeon “in charge of the hospitals … of the rebel army has been furnished with parole certificates and authorized to issue them to the patients and nurses when they are relieved from his care. To facilitate the discharge of such prisoners, I…recommend that commanding officers of guards, in the vicinity of those hospitals, be authorized to pass to the enemy’s lines all paroled prisoners of war having the proper certificates.”

Clearly, some level of confusion reigned, on both sides, regarding paroled prisoners in September 1862. As I had only the most basic idea of how the system worked, I looked a little further. Representatives from both sides took more than a year to reach a partial agreement to some of the questions regarding paroles and exchanges in July 1862, but the men never agreed to an all-encompassing final policy. The lack of any firm set of rules may have played a part in the Union abandoning the exchange of prisoners in 1863.

The parole system relied upon each paroled prisoner honoring his oath to not take up arms again until officially exchanged. Yet leaving a stack of blank parole slips on a table or in the hands of an official from the other side seems, to me, to push the bounds of the honor system too far. Learning that the Provost Marshal advocated leaving blank forms with a Southern surgeon in a more controlled setting than that faced by Karge, I re-evaluated my criticism of his charade. Rather than a sham, his actions appear to reflect the lack of a firm policy agreed to by both sides and may have been the norm at the time.

With thanks to William J. Miller and Robert E. L. Krick

Sources:

Unpublished documents in the National Archives

Newark Daily Mercury

John Coski, “Forgotten Warrior, General William Henry Fitzugh Payne,” North & South, September 1999

The Official Records

Patricia Faust, ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War

John B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary

Robert E. L. Krick, Staff Officers in Gray, A Biographical Register of the Staff Officers in the Army of Northern Virginia

J. Michael Welton, editor, ‘My Heart is so Rebellious,’ The Caldwell Letters 1861-1865

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