Chapter Seven: The Confederate Assault on Washington
A depiction of Garnett's Brigade, Pender's Division during the assault on Washington. The battle would be a particular importance to Garnett, as Jackson officially rescinded his charges of cowardice against Garnett after the battle due to the bravery he showed in the battle
With the Union Army of the Potomac tied down in Philadelphia waiting for reinforcements, Lee knew the time to attack Washington had come. The long-awaited moment had finally arrived, and Lee positioned his forces in a sieging position around the capital of the United States. Despite the overwhelming confidence Lee had in his army, he would still send a letter to Davis in Richmond, requesting that more troops be raised in the case that the Army of Northern Virginia should fail and be destroyed when the Army of the Potomac moved south. Facing Lee inside Washington were around 20,000 men composing the XXII Corps and various other units in Washington's garrison, mostly inexperienced in actual combat, under General Samuel Heintzelman, former commander the Army of the Potomac's III Corps. Lincoln and the United States government had evacuated Washington the day before Lee had put the city under siege. Knowing the delay would only give advantage to the Union, Lee decided the attack Washington on the third day of the siege, having only waited for Stuart and his command to reconnoiter the ground.
A painting by David Nance showing Lee surveying his lines one last time before the assault on Washington, with Longstreet riding up to ask for Lee's permission to begin the assault.
Lee would bring the full force of his three infantry corps to bear against the Northern defenses of Washington, focusing on Forts Stevens, Slocum, DeRussy, and Kearney. Opposing them would be the northern division of the XXII Corps under the one-armed Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Haskin, an experienced artilleryman. The attack would begin in the morning. Charging under heavy artillery fire directed in some cases by Haskin himself, Lee's forces would cross the fields in front of Washington's defenses. Eventually, they reached their target forts, and brutal hand to hand fighting would begin, with bayonets and pistols, not muskets and cannons, now controlling the fighting. In this, the lack of infantry proper on the Union side began to show as Heintzelman tried desperately to shift every infantryman in the southern division north to heed Haskin's desperate cries for reinforcement. Eventually, the skill of Lee's veteran troops prevailed, and they managed to capture their four target forts. It is here that Heintzelman made a critical mistake. Lacking the infantry necessary to hold the position and fearing the loss of more artillery to Lee, he ordered the men in the forts to west and east of the forts Lee captured to try and pull back into Washington for a consolidated last stand. Lee would figure out what Heintzelman was doing, and order Jackson and Longstreet to attack the forts to the west, while Thomas cleared the forts to the east. The Union soldiers, unprepared for the fighting to start again, would put up a desperate stand, but it was to no avail, and soon the forts fell into Southern hands, along with their long range artillery and stores of ammunition.
A painting depicting the advance of Barksdale's brigade on Washington
At this critical point in the battle, Lee trained all his artillery, including the newly captured guns, on Washington D.C. before sending Heintzelman a letter under flag of truce. In it, he declared he would wait one hour for Heintzelman to surrender Washington, or he would open fire with all his artillery, and completely destroy Washington and all of its defenders in a bloody final rush. Despite having consolidated all of his forces in Washington and having barricaded the streets, Heintzelman realized he stood no chance against Lee's army, and surrendered Washington and all of its defenders to Lee, ending the Confederate assault on Washington. In a poignant moment, Heintzelman, accompanied by southern division commander Brigadier General Gustavus A. DeRussy and the 1st District of Columbia Cavalry, who were serving as his escort, would ride out of their makeshift defenses to meet with Lee, accompanied by his staff and a few cavalrymen of Company K, 1st Virginia Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Gus W. Dorsey. Soberly, Heintzelman would hand his saber to Lee, who quietly doffed his hat before riding back to his lines to make preparations for Washington's occupation. In his post-war memoirs, Dorsey would note, "It seemed as if the whole world had their eyes transfixed on this moment, all of the creatures of it standing silent at the reckoning. Even if our horses remained still and quiet, guided by an unknown sense of the magnitude of the moment. Thus it came to pass that the capital of the Union would transfer from their hands to ours."
General Samuel Heintzelman, the soldier who both lost and saved Washington D.C.
The battle would prove to be quite bloody, costing the Confederates nearly 10,000 men, and the services of five brigade commanders killed in combat, Jerome Robertson, Alfred Iverson, Edward O'Neal, Joseph Davis, and Beverly Robertson. Also killed was William Pendleton, Lee's chief of artillery, who was surveying Washington's defenses with Lee, and was replaced by Edward P. Alexander. Perhaps the mostly personal loss for Lee, however, would be the lost of son Robert E. Lee Jr., who was serving as an aide to his brother Rooney Lee. The men who brought Lee in from the field would be an interesting trio, with two of them being Majors William Gist and Robert Lilley, but the third and most interesting being Richard R. Kirkland, the so-called "Angel of Marye's Heights", further enshrining him into Confederate legend. Another death that was in relation to the Army of Northern Virginia high command was that of Major John D. Barry, who recklessly tried to take on the entire crew of the 16th Independent Battery Indiana Light Artillery by himself, killing three before receiving a mortal shot to the skull. Supposedly his last words were "Tell General Jackson...that he need not worry about the charges of incompetence... he brought against Major Barry.", in reference to charges Jackson had pressed against him for his role in Colston's accidental death at Chancellorsville. One more change in command would come as a result of the battle as well. During the battle, General William "Extra Billy" Smith of Early's division would order his brigade to retreat without orders due to the heavy losses it was suffering. As a result, Lee would relieve him of command on the field, and give it to James Terrill, who was trying to rally the brigade. This action would later come back into the lime light in one of the most interesting events in the post-war CSA.
A small monument to Richard R. Kirkland in Fredericksburg, Virginia
The Union losses would be the entire garrison of Washington D.C., with only a small number of soldiers escaping across the Potomac. One interesting death to note would be that William Seward Jr., son of Secretary of State William Seward and commander of the 9th New York Heavy Artillery. As a result of the surrender of Washington, Lee also captured two senior U.S. Army officers who had stayed behind, Generals James B. Fry and Montgomery C. Meigs. Both would approach Lee after the battle. Fry would bring to Lee's attention the fact the now vindicated pro-Southern faction in Washington was threatening several Federal government buildings with arson, and requested Lee post some of his men to guard them. Lee would see to it that the buildings were guarded, commenting “When the British captured Washington, they burned it to the ground. I will not let the same happen under my command.” Meigs would approach Lee with a more angry tone, lambasting him for allowing his cavalry to be scourges to the North. Upon further conversation, Lee was able to find out Meigs' anger stemmed from the recent death of his son, killed by CSA cavalry while he and a few other engineers were attempting to repair telegraph wires. Lee would in turn reveal the death of his son, and soon both veteran military men were brought to tears by their losses of sons. Of interesting note was that in the skirmish that killed Meigs' son, the sole Confederate casualty would be one man killed, known Fire-Eater and the man who had been offered the first shot of the war, Roger A. Pryor, who was serving as a scout.
Generals James B. Fry and Montgomery C. Meigs
And thus the Union capital fell into Confederate hands. Yet the Union was not out of the fight yet, still having Sykes' slowly assembling Army of the Potomac, which, if it could recapture Washington, could turn the tide of the war back into the Union's favor.