![]() We also found that it was not impossible to overcome us. We have since learned, to our cost, that it was too small to go where we went. We thought when we were going to Lynchburg that we had an awful large army and nothing could stand before it. The firing served to drown the noise of our retreat. The Cavelry left their horses some distance back and opened a brisk fire all along the line. It was a very bad place to get an army from without alarming the enemy. Everything was moved with caution and in perfect order. We had not marched 10 minutes until we saw enough to satisfy us that we were retreating. At half past 8 Pm we were right about faced and marched by the flank. This was done in order to deceive the enemy for our rear was already on the retreat. Our battle lines were kept up and our skirmish lines strengthened. Our dead and most of our wounded fell into the enemy’s hands. We could never retreat, that was impossible if we were not all captured we should most certainly starve. We must and would take Lynchburg at all hazards rations we must have and we could get them only in Lynchburg. The waggon trains were soon started back but we did not think such a thing possible. After the battle, Hunter made preparations to retreat. We heard heavy canonading afar off in our front. We supposed Grant would send us reinforcements. We waited anxiously and wondered why our forces were idle but concluded that the Cavelry were flanking them. They were chopping and hammering all night. While laying on the skirmish line tonight we knew when reinforcements came to the enemy. They took so long putting Staunton, Lexington, and other towns to the torch that General Early, sent on by Lee to save Lynchburg, arrived just in time. Then, as seasoned soldiers, the 34th started south with Hunter’s 18,000, burning as they went, with the objective of destroying Confederate stores at Lynchburg. After spending eleven months on garrison duty at Washington, the 34th went to the Shenandoah Valley and participated in the battle of New Market, where, according to General Sigel, no men ever fought better. Stark, of the 34th Massachusetts Volunteers. (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2020), 5.These pages have been selected from the manuscript account of a private soldier, William B. Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver, An Environmental History of the Civil War. George Washington Beidelman to his father, October 22 1861, GettDigital Accessed via Hamlin Family Papers, Minnesota Historical Society Phillip Hamlin to family, October 29 1861. George Washington Beidelman to his father, 22 October 1861, GettDigital ![]() Bradley Gottfried, Maps of First Bull Run: An Atlas of The First Bull Run (Manassas) Campaign, including the battle of Ball’s Bluff, June – October 1861. George Washington Biedelman to his father, 26 September 1861. Captain James Lingenfelter was the officer killed. ![]() Beidelman spells the officer’s name wrong. Kevin Luy “MS:043, George Washington Beidelman Collection” Gettysburg College Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids George Washington Biedelman to his father, 26 September 1861.) Accessed via Gettysburg College Special Collections and College Archives Digital Collections (hereafter cited as Gett Digital) George Washington Beidelman to his father, 24 October 1861. Miller, Harvard’s Civil War : A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts Infantry.( Lebanon, NH : University Press of New England, 2005), 55. Beidelman described the battle the next day “The rebels were strongly entrenched, and came upon our men in overwhelming numbers, surrounding them and leaving no way of retreat.” A member of the 1st Minnesota who survived the battle wrote home that “altogether it was a very bad affair….The terrible sacrifice of our brave men was little less than butchery.” Baker’s exuberance for battle blinded him to the unsavory conditions and left 1,000 of the 1,700 Union troops either killed, wounded, or captured. Not long after Baker’s death, Union forces made a break for the banks of the river, with many attempting to swim for their lives under Confederate fire. As the battle raged, Baker exposed himself to rally the men and was hit by as many as 8 rounds, including one to the head that covered a Massachusetts officer in Baker’s brain. The only way of retreat was back across the Potomac River, but a lack of boats made retreat difficult. ![]() It was not long before Union forces were nearly encircled.
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