1 Sept. 1862: The Battle of Chantilly

As Maj. Gen. George Pope withdrew his Army of Virginia back to Washington to link up with Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, he got word that Confederate forces were massing for an attack on his left flank.

General Lee had sent Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson to conduct a flank attack and ordered Maj. Gen. J. E. B. Stuart to take his Cavalry Corps and cut off Pope’s retreat. Although the latter failed to accomplish his mission, Jackson’s maneuver made Pope realize he needed to act quickly to keep from getting rolled up. He thus ordered a brigade from Maj. Gen. Edward Sumner’s II Corps to reconnoiter to the north and sent two brigades from Maj. Gen. Jesse Reno’s IX Corps under Brig. Gen. Isaac Stevens to block Jackson while Maj. Gen. Philip Kearny’s III Corps division followed. Meanwhile, it had begun to rain heavily, reducing visibility and making movement difficult.

Those maneuvers set the stage for a clash between Brig. Gen. Alexander Lawton’s rebel division on Ox Hill near the Chantilly plantation and General Stevens’ division. After his men arrived on the scene, Stevens launched an attack across a grassy field.

The attack was initially successful, but a counterattack by Brig, Gen. Jubal Early’s brigade restored the initiative to the rebels. At about 5 p.m. a bullet struck General Stevens in the temple killing him instantly. At about the same time, a severe thunderstorm broke over the battlefield forcing the men to rely on bayonets as their powder was damp.

General Kearny’s division arrived on the scene and, seeing what appeared to be a gap in the line, he deployed Brig. Gen. David Birney’s brigade on his left and ordered him to attack across the field. Birney’s men approached the line of Brig. Gen. A. P. Hill’s division and quickly stalled in hand-to-hand combat. General Kearny then mistakenly rode into the Confederate ranks and was killed.

As the rest of Kearny’s division arrived, General Birney deployed the men as a rear guard and ordered the engaged units to fall back to the southern side of the plantation’s fields, thus ending the battle.

The union lost some 1,200 men killed or wounded–including both commanding generals–and the rebels lost about 800 killed or wounded.

General Pope completed his army’s withdrawal to Washington, where he was relieved of commanded and his corps were absorbed into the Army of the Potomac.

General Lee canceled the rest of his northern Virginia campaign and ordered the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland to rest and refit and prepare for a new campaign on northern soil.

ILLUSTRATIONS: (1) The death of Brig. Gen. Isaac Stevens at the Battle of Chantilly. (2) The death of Maj. Gen. Stephen Kearny.