Battles & Campaigns · 1861
Battle of Ball's Bluff
Ball's Bluff, Leesburg, Virginia, USA
What happened
A small Union scouting party crossed the Potomac and mistook a row of trees for an enemy camp, so a raid was sent across. There were too few boats, and reinforcements crossed slowly. Confederate troops drove the Union soldiers back to the river, and Baker, a US senator, was killed.
Why it matters
Why it matters: The defeat and the loss of a sitting senator alarmed Congress. It led to the creation of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War.
What came next
The committee caused years of political quarrels among Union leaders. The site is now Ball's Bluff Battlefield and National Cemetery.
Did you know?
Baker is the only sitting US senator ever killed in battle; he was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln.
Timeline
- 21 October 1861Battle of Ball's Bluff.
- 1902 CEOliver Wendell Holmes Jr., badly wounded here, becomes a Supreme Court justice.
- 1984 CEThe battlefield becomes a National Historic Landmark.