General Stone now had all necessary information on which to base his brilliant strategy of holding Evans quiet in front of Edward’s Ferry with Gorman’s threatening force, while Colonel Baker made his brigade crossing at the island above, turning the Confederate left, forcing Evans to quick retreat to save his communications, while Gorman by a rapid advance would cut him off. Well planned, certainly, but Evans had been taking lessons.
Upon receipt of the report of his scouts General Stone ordered Colonel Devens, with four companies of his regiment, Fifteenth Massachusetts, to cross at the island and destroy the camp found by Captain Phiebrick, which order he proceeded to execute, but found the supposed tents an illusion, the scouts having been deceived by a line of trees, the opening through which presenting, in an uncertain light, somewhat the appearance of tents.
At 7 o’clock in the morning—the 21st—these enterprising gentlemen discovered Capt. W. L. Duff’s company (K, Seventeenth Mississippi) of forty men, who had been picketing the river about Smart’s Mill,[6] and arranged for their capture by putting Captain Phiebrick’s company at them in front, while two other companies were sent to outflank them and cut them off, but Duff and his men disregarded the “cut off.” They simply dropped on one knee, and when the enemy came, near enough (all the time answering Captain Duff’s challenge, “Who are you?” with the reply, “Friends”), fired a staggering volley into Deven’s three hundred, causing them also to disregard the “cut off” and retire to a better position, which they maintained for about twenty minutes, when they retreated to the thicket of woods on the right of the Jackson house.
Colonel Devens in his report says Captain Duff’s men at his first advance retreated to a corn-field and got into a ditch or trench—another illusion caused by their kneeling to take aim. Captain Duff reported his loss as one man seriously and two slightly wounded, capturing three wounded prisoners and fourteen or fifteen stands of arms, while Colonel Devens says he lost one killed, nine wounded, and two missing.
General Evans now sent Lieutenant-Colonel Jenifer with four companies of infantry, two from the Eighteenth and one each from the Seventeenth and Thirteenth Mississippi Regiments, and three companies of cavalry, Captain W. B. Ball, W. W. Mead, and Lieutenant Morehead, to support Captain Duff, making in all a force of 320 men on the battleground, while Colonel Devens reports his force strengthened to 753; and about 11 o’clock he again advanced, but was met in strong contention by Jenifer’s people for about an hour, when the Federals retired; and now was their best time to recross the river, for Hunton with his Eighth Virginia (except Wampler’s company, left at the burnt bridge to look out for McCall) was coming at a double-quick with 375 more people in bad temper.
But General Stone had not completed the development of his plan, and he again reinforced to 1,700—by the Twentieth Massachusetts, 340; Forty-second New York (Tammany), 360; First California (Colonel Baker’s own) 600, with two howitzers and one 6-pounder rifle gun. This looks by the figures given in official records like more than two thousand, but all other estimates put it at 1,700, about.
General Edward D. Baker[7] had now arrived and taken command of the Federal troops, making ready for a renewal of the conflict, and at 12:30 p.m. Colonel Hunton moved forward into the heavy timber, where Colonel Jenifer’s fight had left the Federals.
The battle opened again severely, the Virginians fighting straight ahead, with Jenifer’s force covering their left, which gave them opportunity for aggressive battle, although but one to three, with no artillery to answer the salutes of Baker’s guns.
The firing was rapid and the fighting stubborn, the Federals standing up to their work well, giving and receiving bloody blows with high courage; but, notwithstanding their superiority of force, amply sufficient to have swept the Confederates from the field at one rushing charge, they failed for lack of a proper leader, the result proving that Baker was as inferior to Hunton in skill and promptness on the battle line as was Stone to Evans in general conduct of the field operations.
The regimental and company officers did their duty well, but General Baker gave up almost without an effort the only strong military position on the field, and then so placed his reserves on rising ground immediately in view of his main line that Confederate lead, flying high, could find victims there.