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.PEIYILEGES or THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 
 HON. ROSCOE CONKLING, 
 
 OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 6, 1862. 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING said : 
 Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. 
 On the second day of the present session a 
 resolution was adopted by the House in relation 
 to the battle at Ball's Bluff. The resolution 
 proposed no investigation whatever. It did 
 not require the disclosure of any fact or cir- 
 cumstance which had been ascertained by any 
 investigation already had. It simply requested 
 the Secretary of War to inform the House 
 whether any, and if any, what measures had 
 been taken to ascertain who was responsible 
 for a disastrous battle. It did not demand the 
 name of the person, nor even ask whether there 
 was any such person. 
 
 The resolution was referred by the Secretary 
 of War to the Adjutant General, and was by 
 him submitted to the General-in-Chief, as ap- 
 pears by the report of the Adjutant General 
 laid upon our tables. The General-in-Chief, I 
 am willing to believe, did not read the resolu- 
 tion, because I would not impute to any one 
 concerned an intention to trifle with the House, 
 or to return an evasive answer If he did read 
 it, he entirely mistook its point and purport. 
 He seems to have received the impression 
 that the resolution proposed a future investiga- 
 tion, and that of a very general character ; and 
 laboring under this misapprehension he ex- 
 pressed an opinion to the Adjutant General, 
 upon which that officer made to the Secretary 
 of War a report in no sense responsive to the 
 resolution, and the Secretary, in accordance, 
 no doubt, with the practice of his office, simply 
 transmitted that report to us, and refers us 
 to it. 
 
 To a resolution asking simply whether an in- 
 vestigation has been had upon a particular 
 point, the answer is that the General in-Chiel 
 of the army is of opinion that an inquiry 
 ou the subject of the resolution would at this 
 time be injurious to the public service. If the 
 
 answer had been that it would be injarious to 
 the public service to say whether any steps or 
 proceedings had been taken to ascertain who 
 was at fault, the answer might have been in- 
 credible, but still it would have been an answer, 
 in form at least. 
 
 The SPEAKER. The Chair thinks he must 
 submit the proposition which the gentleman 
 claims to be a question of privilege to the 
 House, to decide whether it is a question of 
 privilege which they will entertain, before any 
 discussion eau be had. 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I was en- 
 deavoring to pave the way to a decision of the 
 question of privilege, by bringing to the House 
 and to the Chair the knowledge that to an ap- 
 propriate resolution, an answer has been sent 
 here, perhaps inadvertently, which is wholly 
 evasive and non-responsive to the resolution. 
 
 The SPEAKER put to the House the ques- 
 tion whether they wonld entertain as a ques- 
 tion of privilege the matter stated by the gen- 
 tleman from New York, and it was decided in 
 the affirmative. 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. I was about to 
 say that if the resolution had called upon the 
 War Department to disclose the name of the 
 person culpable, and an answer had come here 
 that it would not be compatible with the public 
 interest to disclose the name, the answer might 
 have been preposterous, but still it would have 
 been an answer in form, and responsive. But 
 here comes a communication professing to be 
 an answer, which neither answers the interroga- 
 tory, nor informs us that in the opinion of any 
 person it would be injurious to the public ser- 
 vice to answer it. The reply does not, indeed, 
 re;er at all, or relate at all, to the point of the 
 inquiry. To a question whether a particular 
 thing has been done, the Adjutant General re- 
 ports that, in the opinion of the General-in- 
 
Chief, it would be injurious to do some other 
 thin^. 
 
 This, however inadvertent it may have been, 
 raises a very higfh question of privilege. We 
 sit here as the Representatives of the people ; 
 we sit here as their only Representatives. In 
 our organism this is the only place to which 
 the people can come, or in which their voices 
 can be heard, and among the most undeniable 
 and sacred of their prerogatives is the right to 
 inquire into their own affairs. When they do 
 inquire they are entitled, if not to an answer, 
 at least to have the servant of whom the in- 
 quiry is made say that in his opinion it is ill- 
 timed and injudicious ; and until we desert our 
 trusts and become accomplices in trampling 
 upon popular rights, we cannot pass over an 
 instance like this, even in an ordinary and unim- 
 portant case. A precedent of this sort once 
 established, such a practice once tolerated, and 
 particularly from the military element in the 
 Government, and from that hour the most robust 
 of our instincts would languish ; the most vital of 
 our reliances would decay. I say that in case 
 of an ordinary matter such a practice is not to 
 be endured, but that even in common-place and 
 trivial concerns, the right of inquiry ought to be 
 jealously preserved. 
 
 But this is no ordinary matter. The resolu- 
 tion relates to a great national concern ; it re- 
 lates to an event which I believe to be the 
 most atrocious military murder ever committed 
 in our history as a people. It relates to a lost 
 field ; to a disastrous and humiliating battle ; 
 to a decisive triumph of rebellion. It relates 
 to something more ; it relates to a blunder so 
 gross that all men can see it, and no man has 
 ever dared deny or defend it — a blunder which, 
 besides position, besides defeat, besides arms 
 and munitions of war, cost us confessedly nine 
 hundred and thirty men, many ■ of them the 
 very pride and flower of the States from which 
 they came. 
 
 The resolution proposed, in respect to the 
 memory of the lost, in sympathy to the multi- 
 tude of mourners who lament them, in defer- 
 ence to public propriety and self-respect, that 
 the nation should be assured that the military 
 authorities had taken some notice of this 
 prodigal and needless slaughter of the sons of 
 New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania; 
 it proposed that the nation should know that 
 some proceeding had taken place, something 
 open or secret, formal or informal ; if not all 
 that military usage requires, then something 
 or other, or an apology for something. 
 
 Now, sir, if there is any objection to this ; 
 if there is any objection to our knowing 
 whether the 21st of October has been passed 
 over as a mere ripple in the current of events, 
 then, in the name of my people, I demand that 
 those whose business it is to answer, should 
 stand up and stand out and say so. With that 
 view I have prepared a resolution which I 
 propose to submit, and although this question 
 
 of privilege may not allow me to do so, I shall 
 /eel gratefiil to the House if I may be indulged 
 in going into the subject of the resolution, 
 and assigning my reasons for pressing an 
 inquiry. We have a committee appointed to 
 investigate the conduct of the war, and if it is 
 known, and known at this time, that the dis- 
 aster at Ball's Bluff is likely to be embraced 
 in their inquiry, facts and witnesses will be 
 presented to the committee. 
 
 The House is no doubt aware that the battle 
 of Ball's Bluff, like many other things, has 
 been made the subject of an issue between the 
 regular army and the volunteers. Brigadier 
 General Stone, who was at the time command- 
 ing the division from which the detachment 
 came, which fought the battle, or attempted to 
 fight it, is an ofiicer of the regular army, and 
 Colonel Baker, to whom, after a time, the 
 command, or a part of the command, was as- 
 signed, was a volunteer. The friends of these 
 two officers have indulged in much angry con- 
 troversy as to which should bear the blame ; 
 and on the one side the cause has been es- 
 poused as if its appropriate office was to fasten 
 some stigma on the volunteer service, and to 
 determine certain questions of precedence and 
 merit between West Point and the volunteers 
 for the Union. A writer in the New York 
 Times stated, some time ago, that the friends 
 of Colonel Baker would move an investigation 
 but that they had better not, for if they did 
 the friends of General Stone would retaliate, 
 and make it recoil upon Baker and damage 
 his memory. Mr. Speaker, I have no sympa- 
 thy with this controversy to indulge in here. I 
 have no patience with it as an obstacle to in- 
 vestigation ; I have no toleration for it as far 
 as it has been used to trade upon the affections 
 and to hush and scare off, with the friends of 
 either party, discussion and inquiry. The effect 
 on either of these officers or on both of them, 
 of disclosing the truth, ought not in my 
 judgment to weigh one feather against an 
 investigation being had. Hit whom it may, 
 I believe the truth should be known. Sup- 
 pose its revelation shall shorten the plume 
 of a dead Senator — what then? Is that a 
 reason, in a great public concern like this, 
 why we should hush investigation, or fal- 
 sify the truth of history ? Suppose, on the 
 other hand, it turns out that a brigadier gen- 
 eral, bred at West Point, an officer of the reg- 
 ular army, holding the acting position of a 
 major general, commanding a division con- 
 taining thousands of our countrymen, charged . 
 with their safety, their honor, and their lives; J^ 
 suppose, I say, it turns out that such a briga- 
 dier general is a martinet and not a soldier : 
 suppose he turns out to be half-way, either in 
 his soldiership or his loyalty : is that a reason 
 why investigation should be muzzled or throt- 
 tled out of regard to his feelings or the feelings 
 of his caste ? Shall we proclaim indulgence 
 for ignorance and incompetency, immunity for 
 
(jai'barouo negligence, aileuc^ ---. lu.-.aty 
 crimes, even though a revelation of the truth 
 would soil the glittering plumasfe of the high- 
 est officer in the armies of the Kepublie .■' No, 
 sir ; whoever is responsible for that fatal field, 
 if he yet lives, ought to be nightly on his knees 
 imploring forgiveness for the mighty murder 
 he there committed. If Baker did it, " 'twas a 
 grievous fault, and grievously hath Baker an- 
 swered it." If Stone did it, he bears a weight 
 of guilt greater, far greater, than many a man 
 has atoned for with his lite, who suffered 
 under the judgment of military tribunals, whose 
 moderation and impartiality huve ncvpr been 
 denied. What is the personal fate or the per- 
 sonal fame of a dozen generals when compared 
 with the preservation, the security, the mainte- 
 nance of that great army now standing in the 
 field. With six hundred thousand men — more 
 men, I will hazard the assertion, than any man 
 knows what to do with — with sixty-three thou- 
 sand cavalry — although we were lold in July 
 we needed none — more cavalry than any man 
 will ever find a place for: with an outgo of 
 $2,000,000 a day, we have been for months , 
 guarding a beleaguered city. We have been 
 doing something more. We have been making, 
 now and then, an advance ; and almost as often 
 as we have made one we have been outnumbered 
 and ignominiously defeated. I have no doubt, 
 sir, that results of this sort sometimes occur 
 when human foresight cannot prevent them ; 
 but when they occur from gross negligence or 
 ignorance, and we all know it, I say it behooves 
 us to investigate them, and to hold them up, in 
 order that we may see round and round, who is 
 responsible for them. If we cannot have indem- 
 nity for the past, in the name of humanity let 
 us have security for the future. If we are to 
 
 cbr.nncl, nearest the Maryland side, three 'uilea 
 in length and two hundred yards acres . Jn 
 the same side of the river with Leesbu.,;, and 
 within a day's march of that place, lay G-';eral 
 McCall, commanding a division containing fif- 
 teen regiments, which marched fully eleven 
 thousand men. If Leesburg were to be attacked, 
 or if a reconnoissance in force were to be made 
 in that direction, one of the first wonders in 
 this case is that the work should have been as- 
 signed to General Stone's division, divided as 
 it was from the scene of action by a great 
 river — indeed, by two great rivers— when the 
 division of General McCall was within a day's 
 march of the spot, with neither river, mountain, 
 nor barrier to be traversed. Those who, stimu- 
 lated by the curiosity not unnatural at a time 
 like this, have refreshed their military history, 
 or dipped into military books, or picked up the 
 current smattering of military knowledge, 
 have not failed to observe that a river un- 
 bridged and unfordable is regarded as one of 
 the most formidable and perilous obstacles to 
 military advance. Of all the barriers not abso- 
 lutely impassable, nothing — if ordinary sources 
 of information are to be relied upon — is to be 
 so much dreaded by an attacking army, so 
 much to be shunned at any cost, as a deep, 
 rapid stream, without wharfage or bridges ; and 
 this even when means of floating trp^usporta- 
 tion are abundant and prepared. Common 
 sense has so much to do with this that any man 
 who has ever seen artillery move, may without 
 presumption, assume to know and comprehend 
 it. 
 
 Another fact which a civilian may be allowed 
 to state, is that an army or detachment attempt- 
 ing to cro3s a stream of this sort, in the face of 
 an enemy, should be provided not only with 
 
 preserve the military principle at all, let us : means of transportation sufficient to throw it 
 preserve the whole of it. If not, introduce into , over to the attack, but to bring it off, and bring 
 the army the democratic principle, and when , it off expeditiously and securely in case of a 
 an order is given put it to a vote whether it I defeat. A pontoon train, if an intrenched 
 shall be obeyed or not ; but if orders are to be , bridge cannot be had, a flotilla of batteaux, 
 implicitly obeyed, let us have responsibility, I boats, rafts, something, is the very least, if we 
 rigid responsibility, on the part of those who ! may rely on ordinary authorities, which will 
 give them. : suffice to meet the requirements of common 
 
 Now, sir, let me look a few moments at the i prudence. But in this case two rivers seem 
 battle of Ball's Bluff, in order to see whether i not to have been considered of much account 
 those who managed it exercised that care and | in hindering the advance of an army ; they 
 caution which the law exacts of the pilot of a ! were held of importance so slight that a divis- 
 ship, of the engineer who runs a railroad train, , ion lying on the fighting side of the river was 
 of the captain of a steamboat carrying passen- not brought into requisition at all, not even to 
 gers; or whether it was managed with an ab- protect the crossing and the landing, nor to 
 sence of care and skill, with a reckless disre- ' cover a retreat ; but the whole work was as- 
 gard of ordinary prudence. i signed to the trans-Potomac division of Gen- 
 
 On the 21st of October, Leesburg, in the | eral Stone. 
 State of Virginia, was occupied by insurgents. ; The movement was not an unexpected or 
 The force with which they held it amounted to ' impulsive one. On the contrary, crossing the 
 not less than five or six thousand men. At the | river thereabouts, and crossing at or about that 
 same time Poolesville, in the State of Maryland, i time, had occupied for days the attention of 
 was occupied by Union forces, and was the head- { officers and men. The landing-place had been 
 quarters of a brigadier general. Between these | selected before the battle day, for, on the day 
 two positions, thus occupied, there rolled a before, several hundreds of the Massachusetts 
 swift and swollen river, with an island m the ' fifteenth and twentieth had been thrown over 
 
to the island, and from the island to the 
 bluff. The crossing-place was one of the mdet 
 remarkable — confessedly one of the most dan- 
 gerous that could have been possibly selected. 
 The landintj-place was a bank of clay ten or fif- 
 teen feet high, abrupt, almost perpendicular, 
 surmounted by a rugged bluff one hundred or 
 one hundred and fifty feet in height. 
 
 The region around about was what lumber- 
 men would call a " wooden country." Timber 
 grew in great abundance in every direction. 
 "Within twelve miles of the crossing-place was 
 a saw-mill. From that saw-mill — which was 
 situated some half a mile from the river and 
 canal — to the river and canal ran a railroad, for 
 the purpose of transporting lumber. Robnd 
 about this mill, on the railroad, and piled 
 on the canal, was an abundance of tim- 
 ber, round, square, and sawed. What could 
 have been dene with it, we all know, and 
 ■we all know how quickly it would have 
 been done. We know what could have 
 been done if nobody but Massachusetts had 
 been there. Not to know that would be to for- 
 get that when General Butler called upon the 
 working men of a Massachusetts regiment to 
 step forward, the whole regiment advanced, and 
 that in the regiment were found a plenty of 
 men who could sail the " Ironsides," and build 
 and run a locomotive engine. Boats and rafts 
 enough to float thousands could have been put 
 afloat in a few hours, and a bridge would not, 
 I am informed, have been the work of more 
 than a day and a night. 
 
 But timber was not the only means of 
 transportation there at hand. It was not ne- 
 cessary to go to Washington, nor to Seneca 
 Mills, nor even to the forest, to find water craft 
 and materials for bridging. The same canal 
 of which I have spoken, and which ran on the 
 very bank of the river, floated a very large 
 number of boats upon it — so' large a number 
 that, in a single day and night, boats enough 
 could have been brought into requisition to 
 float all the troops needed for the expedition, 
 and particularly if a rope had been stretched 
 across to pull them from side to side, in place 
 of their being polled up the current and out 
 into the stream, and then left to drift down and 
 strike the opposite shore. I am informed that 
 at convenient distances there are facilities 
 adapted and intended for the transfer of boats 
 from the canal to the river. 
 
 Notwithstanding this, notwithstanding Wash- 
 ington was only about thirty-six miles distant 
 by canal, notwithstanding timber on the canal, 
 at the mill, in the tree, was there in abundance, 
 no one of these means was brought into requi- 
 sition. No pontoons, no attempt to bridge 
 the river, not a raft, not a batteau, not a boat 
 from the canal or elsewhere, except as I shall 
 state. There was not even a hawser nor rope 
 provided; not even axes. 
 
 Two weeks before this, however, an order 
 had been given to construct five flatboats and 
 
 two skiffs — to construct them at Edwards's 
 Ferry, a point in the river some four miles 
 below. Three of those boats were brought up 
 from Edwards's Ferry to this fatal crossing- 
 place. Two of them were used in the channel 
 between the Maryland shore and Harrison's 
 island, and one of them was used between the 
 island and the bluff. And in this latter chan- 
 nel was also a single row-boat. These four 
 boats, two in either channel, constituted the 
 whole means of transportation upon which the 
 expedition was based. 
 
 These boats have been called scows, and I 
 have taken some pains to know what they 
 were. They were flatboats, made of hemlock 
 stuff, I think, inch and a quarter or inch and 
 a half stuff. My colleague on my right saw 
 them, and can tell me whether I state the thick- 
 ness correctly. 
 
 Mr. SHERMAN. Inch and a half. 
 
 Mr. ROSCOE CONKLING. My colleague 
 says inch and a half stuff. They were about 
 twenty feet in length and of corresponding 
 width. They had no oars nor any other means 
 of motion. There was, as I said, no rope or : 
 hawser to work them by. They were navigated I 
 by being loaded and then polled up stream and I 
 out into the current, and then allowed to drift t 
 or float down and across until they struck the : 
 bank on the other side. Sometimes they > 
 would strike at the landing-place, sometimes ! 
 they would hit the shore far below, and be ! 
 bauled and polled back to the landing-place. 
 
 These boats were of sufficient capacity to 
 carry about half a company, some thirty-five 
 men each, and the average time oecupied in . 
 crossing from Maryland to the island was about 
 three quarters of an hour, leaving the island 
 and the remaining channel still to be traversed. 
 The House will get some idea of the rapidity 
 with which this transportation could be carried 
 on, from the operations of the night before the 
 day of which I am speaking. Before Colonel 
 Baker is understood to have had command of 
 the expedition. Colonel I)eviu was ordered to 
 cross four companies of the Massachusetts fif- 
 teenth. He did cross them. He commenced 
 at two o'clock in the morning, and it was sun- 
 rise before he was ready to take up the line of 
 march, showing that more than an hour was 
 necessary for the purpose of throwing one com- 
 pany from the Maryland shore to Ball's Bluff. 
 
 Colonel Baker's orders came to him about 
 two o'clock in the morning, and found him 
 sleeping in his tent. He commenced his cross- 
 ing at sunrise. Without any wharf to lie to, 
 without any hawser or rope to stretch across 
 the river, the embarkation and transportation 
 of troops, cannon, and munitions of war was of 
 course a slow and tantalizing process. Eleven 
 o'clock had come when only a commencement 
 had been made. At this time a boat was found 
 in the canal, and measures were taken to trans- 
 fer it to the river. Whether this was observed 
 on the other side is only matter of speculation 
 
 red J 
 
 % 
 
. the time Lad cooie wheu it was too late 
 to mead ihe nrutcr t corrt.ct. lai^itakes, for 
 the rebel fire had opened upon the slender de- 
 tachment which had crossed. From that time 
 the boats began to pole back with the bleeding 
 and the slain. The house on Harrison's Island 
 had already become a hospital, and every room 
 in it was occupied by wounded and dj-ing men. 
 
 But still the crossing went on. Seventy-five 
 hundred mea, according to General Stone, were 
 detailed for the expedition ; but not more than 
 seventeen or eighteen hundred men ever saw 
 the field, or oiossed the river. Those who 
 did cross crawled up the muddy, slippery 
 bank of clay, and from there, by a winding 
 path, they climbed to the summit of the bluff 
 which lay beyond. The guns were dismount- 
 ed, and dragged and lifted up with great 
 difficulty and delay. All this hard and 
 perilous ascent led to no field of fair fighting, 
 but only to a trap, an ambush, a slaughter-pen, 
 a Golgotha. The bluff was a mile in length up 
 and down the river, and the landing and ascent 
 were made in the middle of it. Behind this 
 point was a six-acre lot, skirted by woods on 
 three sides. Into this burial ground, one by 
 one, as the boat brought them over, went up 
 the devoted seventeen hundred. Their steps, 
 like tracks to the lion's den, all pointed in one 
 direction, from which there was never to be a 
 return. Behind them rolled a river deep, which 
 could never be repassed. Before them, and 
 surrounding them on every side, was a tree- 
 sheltered and skulking foe of three or four 
 times their number. Their movements had 
 been watched from the start ; the rebels had 
 prepared for them a feast of death, and had 
 calculated the number of guests who should 
 partake of it. When that number had been 
 polled and drifted over, the dreadful revelry 
 commenced. It was the refinement of cruelty, 
 and dealt exactly with its victims. They had 
 been sent over too few to remain, and too many 
 to return — a larger number might have held 
 the position, and dispensed with means of re- 
 treat; a smaller number might have escaped 
 by the boats ; but the seventeen hundred had 
 only to stand fast and perish. 
 
 Nobly did they fulfill their destiny. Desper- 
 ate stubbornness and heroic courage served 
 only to gild with tints of glory the bloody picture 
 of their fate. 
 
 In an hour, in less than an hour, the field 
 was a hell of fire, raging from every side. The 
 battle was lost before it had begun. It was 
 from the outset a mere sacrifice, a shere immo- 
 molation, without a promise of success or a 
 hope of escape. It was worse than the charge 
 of the Light Brigade, and as England's poet has 
 said of the six hundred, 
 
 " Caunon to right of them, 
 Cannon to loft of them, 
 Cannon in front of them 
 Volleyed and thundered. " 
 
 Well might the historian here ejaculate with 
 the poet there, 
 
 "Some one had blundered." 
 
 We all know the result. Those who did not 
 die upon the field were forced down the steep 
 bank behind them to the brink of the river. Here, 
 to save their arms from the enemy, they threw 
 them into the stream, and many sought, and 
 more found, a watery grave. The last act of 
 this terrible tragedy of blunders, if not the 
 saddest, was the most sickening and appalling 
 of them all. The flatboat, which by poling and 
 drifting had been made to ply between the 
 island and the bluff, was now laden with the 
 mangled, the weary, and the dying — too heavily 
 laden, and the quick and dead, in one strug- 
 gling mass, went down together in that doleful 
 river, and never rose again. Leesburg was 
 illuminated that night, illuminated by par- 
 ricides and rebels, and bloody treason added 
 another laurel to Big Bethel, Bull Run, the 
 blockade of the Potomac, and the tame surren- 
 der of arms in the navy-yards and arsenals. 
 
 Such, Mr. Speaker, was the battle of Ball's 
 Bluff. Such it stands to-day upon the page of 
 history. The chief mourners for that battle — 
 those who suffered most severely in it — are the 
 States of New York, Massachusetts, and Penn- 
 sylvania. To those States it was the battle of 
 Cannte, for the very pride and flower of their 
 young men were among its victims. No won- 
 der that the army and the country burn with 
 indignation at 
 
 " The deep damnation of their talcing oft'." 
 
 No wonder that twenty millions of people and 
 their presses, are yet discussing whether the 
 battle was fought on orders issued by General 
 Stone, or on forged orders, or on no orders at all. 
 No wonder that weariness, distrust, and para- 
 lysis is settling upon the public heart. We have 
 seemingly no thorough system of accounta- 
 bility, and we need to commence one now. I 
 hope we shall begin with the subject now be- 
 fore us. Let the army and the Government 
 know that the people and the Representatives 
 of the people are in grim earnest. Let mis- 
 management and drowsiness tremble and wake 
 up. Ball's Bluff cries aloud for scrutiny, and 
 I hope the war committee will tbiak so, and 
 probe it thoroughly, unrestrained by any state- 
 ment that the public interest does not require 
 it, come from what quarter it may. Since the 
 publication of the report of the Adjutant Gen- 
 eral respecting the army of the West and the 
 division of General Fremont, no man ought to 
 be asked to believe that the publication of any- 
 thing can be injurious to anybody. Whoever 
 sanctioned or consented to the publication of 
 that extraordinary and anomalous document, 
 would be estopped in a court of justice from 
 objecting to giviLg publicity to anything under 
 Heaven relating to the army as calculated to 
 do harm. At all events, we shall be safe in 
 exposing and branding the author or authors 
 
6 
 
 of a monstrous mistake, which has already 
 been told in Gath, and published in the streets 
 of Ascalon. 
 
 Now, sir, I mean to be explicit in what I say 
 about the battle of Ball's Bluff, and therefore I 
 will make several plain points upon it which I 
 say call loudly for explanation, if they can be 
 explained, 
 
 I assume that an attack on Leesburg, or a 
 movement upon it, was justifiable at the time, 
 and then I direct attention to the following 
 propositions, in the light of the facts at which 
 I have glanced. 
 
 In the first place, the division of General 
 McCall, numbering eleven thousand men, was 
 on the same side of the river with Leesburg, 
 and within a few hours' march, uninterrupted 
 by any formidable barrier; and yet these troops 
 were not employed in the attack, nor madft use 
 of at all, but another division was selected lying 
 on the opposite side of the Potomac, 
 
 In the second place, the point of crossing 
 selected was one of the worst and most dan- 
 gerous to be found for many miles. 
 
 In the third place, there was a want of trans- 
 portation, insomuch that means of crossing 
 absolutely indispensable were wholly unpro- 
 vided, although they might easily have been 
 procured. 
 
 In the fourth place, the number of men sent 
 over to Ball's Bluff was wholly insufiicient, and 
 this though more than the needed number were 
 close at hand. 
 
 In the fifth place, no reinforcements came to 
 the rescue, although, aside from the command 
 of General McCall, there were troops and ar- 
 tillery on both sides of the river, while the en- 
 gagement was progressing, and within four 
 miles of the field of battle. 
 
 All these grounds of censure may be an- 
 swered and explained. If they can be ex- 
 plained, it is just to the living and the dead 
 that an opportunity should be afforded. If 
 they cannot be explained, then, for reasons 
 higher still, inquiry ought not to slumber. 
 We have had long chapters of accidents for 
 which no one is blamed, though some one is 
 to blame. Battles and positions given away, 
 and no court-martial, no court of inquiry, no 
 one shot, no one disgraced — nothing but pro- 
 motions growing out of inglorious occurrences. 
 My particular object to-day is to learn whether 
 the military authorities have in any manner 
 looked into the proceedings of the 2Ist of Octo- 
 ber on the upper Potomac, and in order to ob- 
 tain that information I offer the following res- 
 olution : 
 
 The Clerk read the resolution, as follows : 
 
 Whereas, on the second day of the session, 
 this House adopted a resolution, of which the 
 following is a copy: 
 
 *^ Resolved, That the Secretary of War be 
 requested, if not incompatible with the public 
 interest, to report to this House whether any, 
 and if any, what measures have been taken to 
 
 ascertain who is responsible for the disastrous 
 movement of our troops at Ball's Bluff;" 
 
 And whereas on the 16th of Decemljer, the 
 Secretary of War returned an answer, whereof 
 the following is a copy: 
 
 War Department, Dec. 12, 1861. 
 Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the 
 receipt of a resolution of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives calling for certain information with 
 regard to the disastrous movement of our troops 
 at Ball's Bluff, and to transmit to you a report 
 of the Adjutant General of the United States 
 army, from which you will perceive that a com- 
 pliance with the resolution, at t!Rs time, would, 
 in the opinion of the General-in-Chief, be inju- 
 rious to the public service. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 SIMON CAMERON, 
 
 Secretary of War. 
 Hon. G. A. Grow, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives . 
 
 Headquarters of the Army, 
 Adjutant General's Office, 
 Washington, Dec. 11, 1861, 
 
 Sir: In compliance with your instructions I 
 have the honor to report, in reference to the 
 resolution of the honorable the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, received the 3d instant, "that the 
 Secretary of War be requested, if not incom- 
 patible with the public interest, to report to 
 this House whether any, and if any, what mea- 
 sures have been taken to ascertain who is re- 
 sponsible for the disastrous movement of our 
 troops at Ball's Bluff?" that the General-in- 
 Chief of the army is of opinion an inquiry on 
 the subject of the resolution would, at this 
 time, be injurious to the public service. The 
 resolution is herewith respectfully returned. / 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 L. THOMAS, / 
 
 Adjutant General, i 
 Hon. Secretary of War, *' 
 
 WasMngton : 
 
 Therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That the said answer is not re- 
 sponsive, nor satisfactory to the House, and 
 that the Secretary be directed to return a fur- 
 ther answer. 
 
 The resolution was further debated at length 
 by Messrs, Richardson, Edwards, Critten- 
 den, R. CONKLING, VaLLANDIGHAM, LoVEJOY, 
 
 WiCKLiFFE, Dunn, and Stevens. 
 
 Motions to amend and lay on the table were 
 lost, and the resolution passed without amend- 
 ment by the following vote : 
 
 YEAS— Messrs, Aldrich, Alley, Arnold, Bab- 
 bitt, Baker, Baxter, Beaman, Bingham, S, S, 
 Blair, Blake, Buffinton, Campbell, Chamber- 
 lin, Clark, Colfax, F, A, Conkling, R. Conk- 
 ling, Conway, Covode, Davis, Dawes, Duell, 
 Edwards, Eliot, Fenton, Fessenden, Franchot, 
 Frank, Gooch, Goodwin, Gurley, Hale, Hick- 
 man, Hooper, Hutchins, Julian, Kelley, Francis 
 W. Kellogg, William Kellogg, Lansing, Loomis, 
 
Lovejoy, McKean, McPherson, Mitchell, Anson 
 P. Morrill, Justii? S. Morrill, Olin, Pattoii, 
 Timothy G. Phelps, Pike. Pimeroy. Potb.^r, 
 John H. Rice, Riddle, Edward H. Rollins, 
 Sargeant, Sedgwick, Shanks, Sherman, Sloan, 
 Spaulding, Stevens, Benjamin F. Thomas, 
 Trimble, Trowbridge, Vandever, Van Horn, 
 Van Valkenburgh, Verree, Wall, Wallace, 
 Charles W. Walton, E. P. Walton, Washburne, 
 Wheeler, Albert 8. White, Wilson, Windom, 
 and Worcester — 79. 
 
 NAYS — Messrs. Joseph Baily, Biddle, Fran- 
 
 cis P. Blair, Jacob B. Blair, George H. Browne 
 Cobb, Corning, Cox, Cravens, Crisfield, Crit 
 tenden, Delano, T'lven, Dunlap, Dunn, Fisher 
 Granger, Grider, Haight, Hanchett, Harrison 
 Holman, Horton, Law, Leary, Lehman, Mc 
 Knight, Mallory, Maynard, Meuzies, Morris 
 Nixon, Noble, Pendleton, Perry, Porter, Rich 
 ardson, Robinson, James S. Rolling, Sheffield 
 Smith, John 15. Steele, William G. Steele 
 Stratton, Francis Thomas, Upton, Vallandig' 
 ham, Wadsworth, Ward, Chilton A. White 
 Wickliffe, Woodruff, and Wright— 54. 
 
 WASHINGTON, I). C, 
 
 SCAMMELL &. CO., PRINTERS, CORNER OF SECOND STREET & 7NDIAKA AtEffPEj tlllRD ftOORj 
 
 «. . 1862. 
 
946 
 
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