The Ball’s Bluff fighting was small by comparison to later battles, but its significance was not. For the only time in American history a sitting U.S. Senator had been killed in combat. Four Federal regimental commanders crossed over the Potomac River to Ball’s Bluff; one was killed, and two were captured. Federal losses were staggering: just over 1,000 of the 1,700 on the field were killed, wounded, or captured—about one-third of the entire casualties suffered at Bull Run. The number of captured constituted the largest segment in both raw numbers and percentage (553, or nearly half). Confederate losses were significantly lower at 149 from all causes.1
In addition to the hundreds of captured enemy, Col. Nathan Evans’ men collected “1,500 stand of arms, three pieces of cannon, one stand of colors, a large number of cartridge boxes, bayonet scabbards, and a quantity of camp furniture.” The Confederates spent days combing the battlefield for anything useful. Some Confederates dragged hooks along the bottom of the river to snag dead bodies in order to rifle through pockets and relieve the drowned or killed Federals of valuable military equipment.2
Gen. Charles Stone, who had delegated so much authority to Edward Baker, a politician with limited prior military experience, was quickly made the scapegoat of the fiasco. The small force had been soundly whipped. Col. Evans spent the battle near the Edwards Ferry Road and through both good luck and the hard fighting of his soldiers, won a decisive victory that maintained his grip along the Potomac.3
Stone received word of Baker’s death about 6:45 p.m. We know that because he immediately penciled a note to Gen. George McClellan: “Col. Baker has been killed at the head of his Brigade. I go to the right at once.” Stone encountered the party carrying Baker’s body as he made his way upstream. He stopped briefly to converse with the men, and then continued his journey. Along the way he passed streams of beaten and demoralized Federal soldiers. Many had thrown away their muskets during their mad dash to escape. Knapsacks and other accouterments were also in short supply. Stone “began to fear that we had had a disaster.”4
Stone also worried about the safety of Willis Gorman’s brigade at Edwards Ferry. Was it just a matter of time before the victorious Confederates fell upon Gorman and repeated their victory at Ball’s Bluff? Stone turned the Harrison’s Island sector over to Col. Edward Hinks of the 19th Massachusetts. There was some confusion about whether the 42nd New York should remain on Harrison’s Island or return to Maryland, which consumed Stone for a while before he rode as fast as possible to the ferry.5
McClellan’s reply, written at 10:00 p.m., ordered Stone to hold Edwards Ferry “at all hazards.” Both men knew that Gen. Nathaniel Banks was sending reinforcements, and McClellan directed Stone to use his discretion on the disposition of those men. A couple of regiments from Banks’ division arrived between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m. on October 22 and immediately crossed the river.6
October 22 was a rainy, dreary day. Although Stone had about 4,500 men at Edwards Ferry by midday, Col. William Barksdale maneuvered his 600 men of the 13th Mississippi into position to attack the Federal forces. The audacious Southerners emerged from the woods in front of the Federal positions “yelling like Demons and driving our pickets ahead of them in double quick time.” Barksdale wisely aborted the attack when Federal artillery opened fire on his men and he fully realized the extent of the enemy strength. At least he could say his men had played a role in the short victorious campaign.7
Without a good reason to continue risking the lives of his men, Gen. McClellan ordered Stone to abandon the position at Edwards Ferry around nightfall on October 23. The last boat pushed off from the Virginia shore about 4:00 a.m. on October 24, bringing the Ball’s Bluff campaign to an end.8