Bog Wallow Ambush (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

On 4 December 1861, fifty-five men of the 3rd New Jersey Infantry, Col. George W. Taylor commanding, set an ambush nearby in retaliation for attacks on Union pickets. They stretched two telegraph wires across Braddock Road at the eastern end of a “perfect bog hole” to dismount riders. Near midnight, twenty-four Georgia Hussars cavalrymen, led by Capt. J. Fred. Waring, entered the trap from the west. A “sheet of fire” erupted from the tree line along the swamp’s edge. The Confederates returned fire and escaped with four men wounded and one captured. Union losses were one killed, two wounded and one captured.

Erected 2013 by The Fairfax County History Commission (the marker reads 2011, the year it was made).


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Also see . . .
1. Background on Bog Wallow Ambush. The regimental scout of the 3rd NJ Infantry who planned the Bog Wallow ambush and was one of the Union wounded, had an encounter and shootout with Capt. Waring and three other members of the Georgia Hussars a month earlier at Oak Hill, the home of David Fitzhugh. This "kitchen skirmish" provided some of the Union impetus for the Bog Wallow ambush. A lengthy article examines the Oak Hill incident and how it ties into the midnight ambuscade of December 4-5.

The marker is located at the intersection of Braddock Road and Dunleigh Drive. It commemorates the early Civil War action that occurred a short distance eastward on Braddock Road approaching Rolling Road. A spring-fed pond on the south side of the road is evidence of the water source that would have produced the swamp-like conditions.

2. Grave of Pvt. Thomas G. Heidt is located in Laurel Grove Cemetery North in Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia. He was wounded in the Bog Wallow skirmish. Pvt. Thomas G. Heidt was riding at the rear of the Confederate column ambushed by 3rd NJ infantry hidden in the woods on their right. He was wounded by five buckshot received in his left leg, suggesting that he was in the process of following his captain's order to retreat. The shot killed his horse and blocked the route of retreat. Heidt was rescued by one of the Hussars. He died in a Charlottesville Hospital more than 2 weeks after the skirmish, presumably from complications of the wound.

3. Grave of Pvt. Stephen Tomkinson is located in the Alexandria National Cemetery. Pvt. Stephen Tomkinson of Company B, 3rd Regiment New Jersey Infantry, was wounded in the Bog Wallow skirmish and inexplicably left behind in the dark. Scouts returning on the morning of the 5th found him alive but frozen in the mud. After extracting him from the ice they took him to the picket post at Edsall's Hill, where he died around noon. It is supposed from exposure, rather than his wounds. He was an Englishman, about 19 years old, who had been in the country for 6 months at the time of the war's commencement.

The Inscription on the gravestone reads:
SACRED [illegible] memory of Stephen Tonkinson of Co. B 3rd Regt. N. J. Inf. [killed] in a skirmish on the night of Dec. 4, 1861. He was an honest upright Man [illegible] Christian a steadfast friend a forgiving [illegible] in the very prime of life he fell a sacrifice to our glorious cause. His comrades erect this unpretending Slab to mark the spot where lies a good and valiant soldier.

4. Grave of Pvt. John W. Eacritt is located at Arlington National Cemetery. Pvt. John W. Eacritt of Co. A, 3rd NJ Regt. of Volunteers, dropped his gun and ran when he heard Capt. J. F. Waring of the Ga. Hussars order his cavalry to charge. He was captured the next day by a skirmish party led by J.E.B. Stuart and imprisoned in Richmond. The account of his capture is printed in the December 10, 1861 Richmond Daily Dispatch. Exchanged in 1862 he returned to his regiment and finished his 3-year term, mustering out June, 1864. There's no indication that his comrades were ever aware of his cowardice.

5. Pvt. Edward S. E. Newbury is buried in the Rahway Cemetery in New Jersey. He was the principal scout of the 3rd NJ who obtained intelligence that Confederate cavalry would be conducting a raid on the night of December 4. He piloted the skirmish party to the ambush site and it was his scheme to stretch telegraph wires across the road. Newbury received permission to command a small party of 7 that would hide near the road's entrance into the bog and would attempt to block the route of retreat. He was shot point blank in his left arm and side with a shotgun and pistol. Brig. Gen. Phil Kearny would give him the sobriquet "The Jersey Scout" for his exceptional skill and recommend him for an officer's commission in the U.S. Regular Army.

Additional commentary:
03/22/13 The FX CO History Commission just took down the marker to correct the name of "CPT Waring, Co F, Georgia Hussars from "George" to "Joseph" Frederick Waring. FYI...Col. Joseph F. Waring's remembrance web site has a pic of Col. J.F. Waring with a "furrow" wound scar on his left cheek which he received in the "Bog Hollow Ambush of Wed. Dec. 4, 1861. Waring is buried in Laurel Grove Cemetery North in Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia.

Correction:
The text of the sign, as commissioned, incorrectly named the captain of the Georgia Hussars as George F. Waring, rather than J. Fred. Waring. The sign was sent back for correction on March 19, 2013, and will be re-installed shortly before the dedication ceremony on May 5, 2013.


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THE BOG WALLOW AMBUSCADE
by Michael S. Mitchell

During the early days of the Civil War, the Old Braddock Road in Fairfax County was a narrow, dusty, dirt road that traversed a heavily wooded, undeveloped countryside, following the contours of the land and passing just a few isolated homes. Northern newspapers described the area from Springfield to Fairfax Court House, between the Orange & Alexandria Railroad and Little River Turnpike as a densely forested “labyrinth” into which the Confederates sought to lure the Union armies for destruction. In the autumn of 1861, after the rebels had withdrawn their pickets from Bailey’s Crossroads and Edsall’s Hill, this region had become a neutral ground that was regularly patrolled by scouting and skirmish parties of both sides. On the night of December 4, 1861, a detachment of the Third New Jersey Infantry Regiment, commanded by Colonel George W. Taylor and piloted by one of his principal scouts, Private Edward S. E. Newberry, traveled cautiously west towards the “forks of the Braddock Road,” where they intended to ambush a band of Confederate cavalry that they referred to as the Loudoun County Scouts. The event that unfolded is recorded in the Official Records as a skirmish at Burke’s Station. Members of the 3d New Jersey referred to it as “The Telegraph Wire Trap” in their correspondence, but for the Georgia cavalrymen who came under fire for the first time, the brief fight was long remembered as “The Bog Wallow Ambuscade.”

After Manassas, as it became increasingly apparent that neither army would organize a major offensive until spring, Union and Confederate forces began to fortify their positions, construct winter quarters and set about the business of organizing, equipping, and training their armies. The Third Regiment of New Jersey Volunteers was encamped in and around Fort Worth, Alexandria; a fort they had helped construct on a hill overlooking the Little River Turnpike with its cannon commanding the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. In correspondence with hometown newspapers, soldiers of the Third New Jersey described the monotonous routine of camp life, the health of their company, and their eager and anxious anticipation of having a brush with the enemy, whose breastworks at Munson’s, Mason’s, and Edsall’s Hill could be clearly seen from the parapets of their completed fort. At the end of September, the rebels withdrew from those positions to consolidate their forces at Centerville and Manassas Junction, and the Union pickets now established their advance picket post at Edsall’s Hill, with their out-pickets standing sentinel as far away as Anna Maria Fitzhugh’s manor home on Ravensworth plantation.

For some time after Union troops had begun occupying northeastern Virginia, the two sides had been engaged in “the murderous practice” of picket-firing. One Union soldier wrote to his hometown newspaper that “it is nothing more than cold blooded murder to steal quietly up to the post of an out picket…and deliberately shoot down the sentry at the post.” Jacob R. Freese, editor of the Trenton State Gazette and judge of the Provost Court in Northern-occupied Alexandria, expressed his frustration with “this silly shooting of pickets” that “decides nothing and can be of no practical advantage to either side….The object of war is to decide something, but this, as before remarked, decides nothing at all.” Confederates also decried the occurrence of similar “petty attacks” against their pickets, yet the practice continued. These barbarous and dishonorable acts had become so commonplace that General McClellan issued General Orders, Number 13, on September 16, declaring picket-firing to be “contrary to the usages of civilized warfare,” and directed his men not to fire on the rebel pickets unless it was necessary to resist an enemy advance. The pickets of the Third New Jersey, stationed along the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, attributed these outrages to a company of cavalry they referred to as the Loudoun County Scouts, who regularly patrolled the area between Fairfax Station and Springfield.

One of the Third N.J. regimental scouts, Private Edward S. E. Newberry, of Company D, began to devote time towards the gathering of intelligence regarding the Loudoun Scouts, with the hope of obtaining information that could lead to their capture or destruction, and put an end to their attacks. The 22 year old was a North Carolinian by birth, whose Abolitionist viewpoints had induced him to leave the South, around the age of 16, to live with his mother’s Northern relatives. With experience as a night patrolman in North Carolina, he was detailed as a fifer in the regiment’s fife and drum corps, so that he would be free from company duties to go where and when he willed. Some of his comrades called him a traitor on account of his Southern relations, and one can only speculate if he viewed the dangerous duty of a scout and spy as an opportunity to prove his loyalty and avoid harassment. On November 5, 1861, while still in the daylight hours, Newberry traveled to Oak Hill, the residence of David Fitzhugh, with his frequent scouting companion, Corporal Thomas P. Edwards of Company D, to gather information. Along the way, they were joined by a member of the 16th New York State Volunteer Infantry Regiment, whose identity remains unknown to this date. In a letter written less than two weeks after the incident, Newberry claims that the main residence was deserted. However, one of Fitzhugh’s female slaves still resided in a cabin on the property, where she was nursing her son, who was dying of consumption. This woman said that a rebel had been there in the morning and was expected to return in the evening. In Newberry’s later accounts, he claimed that it was Fitzhugh, himself, who was returning that night to gather some of his belongings. The three men decided that they would wait for the rebels’ return, in the hope of gathering valuable information. While they waited, they entered Oak Hill for the purpose of taking a few souvenirs. Edwards took a monogrammed tin cup and Newberry remembers taking some pages of sheet music.

They also removed a featherbed mattress and woolen blankets outside to the garden, where they took turns standing guard and sleeping while they awaited for the rebel to return. Around eight o’clock, four men turned off the Braddock Road and rode up to the house, where they dismounted and went inside. Unbeknownst to the three Nationals, the Confederate cavalrymen who had arrived at Oak Hill did not belong to the Loudoun Scouts, but were a reconnaissance party of Georgia cavalrymen led by their captain, Joseph Frederick Waring.

A few days beforehand, Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn had approached General Johnston with information that Union General Heintzelman’s division had moved so far in advance of the Federal lines on the road to Occoquan that he believed it could be overwhelmed by a prompt attack. General Johnston stated in his memoirs that he doubted the veracity of this information, but knowing that one of the Confederacy’s best scouts belonged to Van Dorn’s division, he expressed the desire that Van Dorn organize a scouting expedition to determine the true value of this information. On October 30th, following Governor Letcher’s review of the Commonwealth’s regiments and his presentation of flags to the state’s regiments, Van Dorn and his staff repaired to the headquarters of Colonel Charles W. Field, Sixth Virginia Cavalry, for refreshments. There, Van Dorn discussed the situation with Colonel Field and asked him to “ascertain [whether] any considerable force of the enemy [were] so far removed from support as to prevent prompt succor.” Immediately, Field sent for Captain Waring of the Georgia Hussars, Company E, and asked him if he would undertake to secure the information. Accepting the assignment, Waring set out from camp on November 5, with First Lieutenant David Waldhauer, Corporal Robert C. Guerard, and Private Lochlin H. Clemens. As the small scouting party rode on the Braddock Road towards the Union picket lines, they spotted wild turkeys roosting on the Oak Hill premises and determined to requisition a few of the fowl on their return trip. Supposedly having gone as far as Alexandria that evening, the cavalrymen now returned to Oak Hill.

After the Confederates unwittingly rode past the three Federals hidden in the garden and had entered the house, Newberry, Edwards and the New Yorker quietly made their way to the house’s detached kitchen, where they thought they could continue to gather information unobserved. The more reliable accounts suggest that Waring’s party exited the house after only a few minutes and mounted their horses. Riding near the kitchen, something induced Clemens to dismount his horse and circle around to the kitchen’s front, where he cautiously approached the door with his pistol drawn. Inside, Corporal Edwards was standing at the door, holding it slightly ajar with his left hand while aiming his revolver at Clemens with his right. Suddenly, Clemens opened fire then ran back around the kitchen to his horse without taking the time to assess the effect of his shots. One of his bullets struck Edwards’ extended right arm, hitting just above the elbow and traveling six inches up the arm before exiting and penetrating his back, where it went another eight inches before coming to rest against his spinal column. Fearing capture, Edwards burst from the kitchen and fled for the safety of the woods, abandoning Newberry and the New Yorker. Meanwhile, the New Yorker fired twice at Clemens as the rebel passed the back door. Clemens supposedly cried out to Captain Waring that he was wounded and that the kitchen was full of Yankees. Newberry leveled his Sharpe’s rifle at Waring and fired, convincing himself that he heard a “deep groan of agony” from the officer, who fell from his horse and had to be assisted to one of the slave cabins for treatment. In post-war correspondence with Alexander McCrie Duncan, former adjutant and historian of the Georgia Hussars, Newberry added a civilian to the rebel party and in the more sensationalized versions of the incident, published by J. Madison Drake in the 1900s, whomever it was that Newberry shot, supposedly cried out, “I’m down, Fitzhugh!” Duncan disputes Newberry’s version of the facts in his 1897 secondhand account of the event, claiming that no civilian was present and that Waring, Wauldhauer and Guerard were oblivious to the unfolding situation and thought Clemens was firing at the turkeys they had come to gather. According to Duncan, one of the shots glanced off of another object and struck Waring in the thigh with the force of a spent round, prompting Waring to warn Clemens to mind where he was shooting. As Clemens ran towards his horse, he informed the captain that “there are several of us shooting here.” The rebels galloped off without their turkeys, with one of them blowing on an alarm whistle to drum up reinforcements from nearby rebel encampments. Newberry indicates that he lingered near Oak Hill for up to an hour afterward with the intention of shooting at the rebels if they attempted to return. The New Yorker is not mentioned again in the narratives and may have parted ways with Newberry in the meantime. While Newberry waited for his second chance to fire on the Confederates, he was rejoined by his wounded comrade, Edwards, who had crawled out of the woods and was clearly in need of immediate medical attention. Edwards was quickly losing sensation in his legs and could no longer stand on his own, requiring Newberry to carry the heavier man on his back. They started for camp, but after a couple of hours, Newberry realized that they had been traveling deeper into Confederate territory towards Fairfax Court House. To make matters worse, it began to rain and the wind prevented Newberry from hearing the “roar” of Accotink Creek and getting his bearings. Edwards was becoming delirious with thirst, so Newberry laid him down in the center of a cornfield and went off in search of water. Fortunate to find a source, Newberry made repeated trips to satiate Edward’s thirst during the night. At about 4 o’clock in the morning, the wind finally changed direction and revealed the sound of Accotink Creek. Newberry lifted Edwards onto his shoulders again and struggled onward until they reached the picket post at Edsall’s Hill around 9 o’clock in the morning. On Wednesday, November 6, Sergeant John S. Judd, of Co. G, on picket duty at Edsall’s Farm, records the incident simply in his diary with “Cop’l Edwards of Co D shot while on a scout beyond Springfield.” The wounded scout was placed in a cart and transported back to the Seminary Hospital at Fort Worth. His arrival was noticed by Lieutenant John Roberts, who was just putting the finishing touches on his weekly correspondence to the Woodbury Constitution, when after his signature, he added that “A small wagon has just arrived from Fairfax Station with one of the privates of Company D wounded in three places. He was out in company with two others as scouts, and while in the vicinity of the Station, they were fired upon by four mounted men of the rebel army. His wounds are not dangerous.” Indeed, Edwards would eventually recover from his wounds and rejoin the regiment, rising through the ranks to become captain of Company E. At the battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Edwards would become one of several men from the regiment listed as missing in action and presumed dead.

Believing that they had narrowly escaped death or capture at the hands of the Loudoun Scouts, Newberry began devoting his future scouting expeditions towards gathering actionable intelligence against this band of Confederate cavalry. About a month after the kitchen skirmish, and again at the Fitzhugh home, a slave who had accompanied his master within the Rebel lines at Centreville earlier in the day provided information to Newberry about a supposed mission that the Loudoun County Scouts would undertake that evening. Deeming this intelligence reliable, Newberry passed it up the chain of command to his brigade commander, General Philip Kearny, who ordered the Third New Jersey’s colonel, George W. Taylor, to take Newberry and a small force of men out to intercept the enemy. Thus, sometime on the morning of Wednesday, December 4, a detachment of five to ten men from each company departed Fort Worth, carrying Springfield muskets and cartridges of ball and extra buckshot. They first traveled to their outpost at Edsall’s Hill, and from there passed through the woods to enter into the Old Braddock Road. A snow shower on Monday night had briefly whitewashed the desolate Virginia landscape, but the snow had mostly melted and turned the pike to mud, with water-filled puddles frozen over with ice a quarter-of-an-inch thick.

Around 4 o’clock in the afternoon, while at a halt “six and one half miles this side of Fairfax Court House” and “about a mile and a quarter” beyond the Union picket line, with the men hidden in the woods, Colonel Taylor was approached by a lone Union soldier on horseback. According to later testimony, the cavalryman beckoned to Taylor, whom he mistakenly thought was a rebel on account of the soldier’s overcoat Taylor was wearing, and identified himself as Private William Henry Johnson of the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry. He confessed that he had been looking for an opportunity to desert to the South for some time so that he could travel to New Orleans and visit his mother. Taylor called up Newberry, who may have been disguised in Confederate butternut, and said to him, “here is one of them come to join us.” The two questioned Johnson about the location of Union pickets and asked his opinion on whether or not they could be easily captured. Johnson pointed to “the Dickens’ house,” Ossian Hall, and revealed that Union videttes “were all over the hill around that white house.” In the course of their conversation, Newberry asked Johnson what arms the Lincoln Cavalry carried. Johnson handed the scout his pistol, which Newberry examined for some time and then handed over to Colonel Taylor. The pistol was already capped, and when Taylor had the gun in hand, he cocked the piece, aimed it at Johnson, and said, “Dismount or I will blow your brains out.” Johnson obeyed, and once on his feet his hands were tied behind his back and four men were detailed to take him and his horse back to camp. At his court-martial, Johnson was convicted and sentenced to be shot near the Fairfax Theological Seminary on December 13th, with General Franklin’s entire division drawn up to bear witness to the execution. Johnson would become the first Union soldier to be executed for desertion in the Civil War.

First crossing Accotink Creek and then Long Branch, the Third N.J.R.V. continued their march until they reached a fork in the Braddock Road. Using a map that Newberry had provided, this location had been specially selected by brigade headquarters as an excellent place to set their ambush. Immediately west of the fork, Braddock Road passed through “a perfect bog hole” forty or fifty yards long and half as many wide. According to Lieutenant William Washington Gordon of the Georgia Hussars, it had “high banks on one side covered with pines, and on the other a swampy spot containing a dense growth of alder and other shrubs and trees.” At the western end of the bog, the road ascended twenty yards through a steep and narrow defile before it continued onward toward Fairfax Court House. The precise identification of the intersecting road and the location of the bog cannot be definitively determined, but a study of the topography and available accounts currently suggest the section of Braddock Road just west of Rolling Road as the most probable location of the skirmish.

While Colonel Taylor was convinced that the rebels would approach from the direction of Burke’s Station on the forked road, Newberry expressed equal certainty that the Confederates would travel along the Old Braddock Road from the direction of Fairfax. They compromised by dividing their force in two: Taylor waited with half of the men along the intersecting road; while Newberry’s contingent, under the command of Lieutenant Franklin L. Knight, would conceal themselves amongst the pines on the south side of Braddock.

At nightfall, Newberry was granted permission to execute a plan of his that he had been anxious to try for some time. Two telegraph wires were stretched across the muddy road near the intersection at the eastern end of the bog, with the intent of unsaddling any riders travelling at a gallop. One wire was designed to reach above the knee of the horse, while the other was meant to take the rider in the chest. The majority of Knight’s men hid near the barricade, while Newberry and seven other men moved to the opposite end of the swamp, near the mouth of the defile, to be in the rear of the enemy when they were halted by the obstruction. There they intended to block the avenue of retreat with bayonets after the trap had been sprung. While waiting for something to turn up, Taylor issued the order that when the sentinels reported the advance of the cavalry, every man was to cock his musket, take aim, and await the order to fire.

At 10 o’clock of that same evening, while assigned to picket duty, Waring determined to take twenty-three men of his command out on a scouting expedition without the authorization of his commanding officer, or of making known his purpose and destination. The seeming spontaneity of Waring’s decision makes it unlikely that Fitzhugh’s slave had advanced knowledge of his plans. In fact, Newberry was adamant in later correspondence that the trap was not intended for the Georgia Hussars, but for those enigmatic Loudoun Scouts. In a letter written home shortly after the skirmish, Hussars’ Lieutenant W. W. Gordon stated that their purpose that evening had been to capture Yankee pickets at Annandale. Captain Waring had spent much time scouting the village and was apparently vexed that the Hussars had not been included in the intense skirmishing that had occurred there on December 2, when at least a dozen Union pickets had been taken prisoner.

From Fairfax Station they traveled across country, and entered into the Braddock Road at or near the Williams house, which was located at the present-day intersection with Twinbrook Road, and began moving eastward toward the Accotink. Around midnight, the pickets in advance gave the alarm that rebel cavalry were approaching on the Braddock Road. Newberry had been correct, though every Northern writer on the skirmish claimed that the rebels had appeared “on the wrong road” than the one usually taken by them. The main body of the Hussars was moving along the road in column of twos, with Captain Waring and Lieutenant Waldhauer in the lead, followed by Lieutenant Gordon and Orderly Sergeant Thomas Dunham and so on until Corporal Joseph Washburn and Private Thomas Goulding Heidt brought up the column’s rear. Private Clemens was riding in advance of the column, just within sight of Private Franklin Bird, who was riding a similar distance ahead of Waring and the rest of the Hussars. The fact that Clemens (of the Oak Hill shootout) was guiding the Hussars suggests that he may have been the scout of Van Dorn’s division who had been highly touted in General Johnston’s memoirs. Lieutenant Gordon writes that the party was traveling in silence with their arms ready, but Lieutenant Duncan’s secondhand history claims that with the party being some distance away from where they expected to encounter the enemy, some of the men were softly singing a comic song, called “The Little Pigs Lay with their Tails all Curled.”

On defiling from the cut into the swamp, the pace of Clemens’ horse was retarded by the icy mud, which was giving his horse uncertain and insecure footing. Under these conditions, Bird and the main body of the Hussars began to catch up to Clemens. To avoid the boggy conditions, the columns led by Waring and Waldhauer diverged and skirted the edge of the woods adjoining each side of the bog.

As the last of the men filed into the bog, Captain Waring noticed that Clemens and Bird had come to a halt and asked, “What the devil is the matter?” Clemens had barely responded, “Captain, there is a rope across the road!” when the woods in front and on their right erupted in one sheet of fire. According to Lieutenant Gordon, “The muzzles of the muskets were so near that the flame seemed right in our faces and the clothes of almost every man was singed and blackened.”

In the pause that followed the volley, Waring calmly ordered his men to wheel around and charge, which was correctly interpreted by his men as a directive to hastily retreat. Some of the Hussars returned fire with shotgun blasts, aiming in the direction of where they had seen earlier muzzle flashes. Private Clemens even took the time to dismount in the bog and recover his hat, which had been knocked off by a bullet that grazed his skull. It may have been after the Hussars had wheeled about that Newberry’s small party of men fired their volley and rushed into the road, because the last rider in the column, Private Heidt, was shot in the left leg below the knee, suggesting that he had already turned when he and his horse were shot. The bullet shattered the bone and passed into his horse, causing his mount to stumble at the mouth of the defile and send Heidt flying. Lieutenant Waldhauer dismounted his horse to pick up the disabled private and the two rode away to safety. The body of Heidt’s horse now blocked the mouth of the cut, forming an obstacle that the other horses had to jump or scramble over. Likewise, the horses of at least two other privates, Henry E. Ball and Alfred Cuthbert, were shot and collapsed with their riders at the defile’s entrance. Gordon’s horse was shot and plunged forward into the building pile of men and horseflesh. As he struggled to disentangle himself from the confused melee, Corporal George W. Dillon’s horse failed to make the jump and rolled over him. Gordon regained his feet, only to be knocked down by the forehooves of Captain Waring’s horse as it vaulted over the pile. Quickly returning to his feet, Gordon walked up the road and spotted a solitary horse, but as he took the bridle, Private Bird appeared and said, “This is my horse.” Gordon got up behind him and the two rode five miles back to the picket post, and were supposedly the last to come in. Waring reported the loss of four horses in his report to Colonel Field that appears in the O.R., but five horses were reported lost in the company’s Record of Events: Ball’s, Cuthbert’s, Gordon’s (who had borrowed his horse of Private R. Miller McClellan), Heidt’s, and Private John McCoy McIntosh’s. Two of these horses were not killed, but rode into the Union lines with their equipment.

Concurrently, on the Union side, after firing their muskets, Newberry directed the seven men in his contingent into the road to close the trap and block the Hussars’ escape. Upon issuing his order, the nearby flash from both barrels of a shotgun knocked him senseless to the ground. Union private Joseph Haggerty tried to pike a passing rebel with his bayonet but only succeeded in plunging the point into the rebel’s saddle, which roughly flung the private to the ground. The rebel reined his horse to a halt and fired his pistol point-blank at Haggerty before riding off, leaving Haggerty seemingly uninjured, but his leg bruised from the fall and his face blackened by gunpowder. Meanwhile, Newberry had regained his feet and cautiously returned to the skirmish and what he described as a nightmare, hearing “praying and cursing mingled with the shrieks of wounded horses” in the darkness. He soon collapsed, having actually received the full brunt of a shotgun blast and a pistol shot to his left arm, side and chest, piercing him in twelve places.

Captain Waring rode out of the bog with “twelve holes through the cape of his overcoat” and a one-and-a-half to two-inch gouge in his right cheek. His head was grazed by another buckshot and the skin was taken off the knuckle of his right hand. Privates McIntosh and Clemens each received minor bullet wounds in their shoulders. Private Heidt survived the skirmish, but would die two weeks later in a Charlottesville hospital from complications related to his wound and his remains were returned to Savannah for interment. Sergeant Thomas H. Dunham’s horse was safely recovered in the rear, but without its rider; one stirrup over the saddle suggested to the others that he had fallen from his seat. Gordon wrote that Dunham had been riding next to him and had been blown completely out of the saddle with shots to the body and head, and later recalled that “in the light of the first volley his mare was seen erect on her hind legs, with a wound in her mouth and without her rider.” After Dunham was unsaddled he was called upon to surrender but attempted to escape into the woods. Still refusing to capitulate, he drew his sword and shouted to Captain Waring to rally the men. He was quieted either with the prick of a bayonet, or the breech or butt of a musket, depending upon the source.

The Federals retired first to Ravensworth, where Newberry—the “fifer who has been acting as a scout”—was laid without cover beside the captured orderly sergeant in a wagon taken from Mrs. Fitzhugh and taken the twelve miles back to camp, nearly perishing from the freezing weather. Although the Third’s regimental surgeon, Dr. Lorenzo Lewis Cox, had reportedly traveled with the party as far as the plantation manor, Newberry complained in his pension application that he did not receive surgical care until his arrival at the Seminary Hospital around 7 o’clock. The skirmish party returned to Edsall’s Hill, where they met companies C and E of the Third, under the command of Captain Edward L. Campbell, which had been sent to Springfield Station to provide support to Colonel Taylor, if necessary.45 Upon returning to camp, Private Haggerty discovered that his leg actually hurt because the rebel horseman had shot him through the fleshy part of his thigh and the pain he was suffering was not just due to his being unceremoniously flung to the ground. There were early rumors that Private Michael Lawrence of Company G and another soldier from Company H were among the wounded, but the former’s injuries were never officially recorded and the latter remains a rumor. Furthermore, a roll call revealed that two additional privates were missing: John Eacritt of Company A and Stephen Tomkinson of Company B. Later that morning, a party of Federal scouts returned to the ambush site, where they found the wounded Tomkinson still alive and conscious but “frozen fast in a mud hole.” Lieutenant Buckley of Company C claims that in the darkness Tomkinson had been mistaken for a wounded rebel and left behind. He was extricated from the ice and brought to the picket post at Edsall’s Hill but died about an hour later, sometime around noon, more likely from exposure than his wounds. The English immigrant, in the country for only seventeen months, was buried with military honors the following day. The scouts returned with “two horses, a sabre, revolver & a few other trophies and reported that they heard distinctly the groans of wounded men through the woods but did not enter them.” There was still no sign of Eacritt and the regiment remained hopeful that he would wander into camp or the picket post at Edsall’s Hill later in the day, but by Saturday the 7th, after scouts had conducted another search in the area and interviewed Anna Maria Fitzhugh and her slaves, the most plausible impression was that “in the darkness and confusion, after the firing he mistook his way, wandered among the rebels, and was captured.”

The Hussars returned to Fairfax Station before daybreak, where they met General J.E.B. Stuart and his “Boy Artillerist,” Capt. Pelham of Alabama, preparing to lead a sizable reconnaissance party toward Springfield and Annandale, where they hoped to goad the Federals into a fight. Captain Waring, Lieutenant Gordon, and their adjutant, Second Lieutenant Alexander McCrie Duncan, who had been left in command of the pickets, expressed anxiety over the fate of Dunham and were granted permission to accompany Stuart as part of his staff. As the party rode toward Springfield, they noticed a man lying under a fence. It was Private John Eacritt, the missing Third New Jersey infantryman, who confessed upon questioning that he had fled into the woods without his gun, hat or blankets, when he heard Waring’s command to charge. Eacritt was sent to the rear as a prisoner and forwarded to Richmond. The Confederates returned to “Bog Wallow” near dark, where the two telegraph wires could still be seen stretched across the road. They picked up hats and personal articles left behind by the Hussars, and recovered saddle, bridle and equipment from Private Heidt’s wounded horse, but there was no sign of Dunham.

In his report, Captain Waring attempted to mitigate the unauthorized excursion and the ambush. In Waring’s version of events, the Union troops broke and fled upon hearing his order to charge. He owed their own escape to the “wild firing” of the Federals and to “the good conduct of [the] men under the trying emergency of a surprise at midnight by a force of picked men five times their number.” However, Brigadier General J. E. B. Stuart could not approve of Waring’s tempting of Providence, and wrote that his conduct was “so inexcusable as not to be counterbalanced by the extraordinary escape of his command,” and trusted that the ambush had curbed their thirst for adventure, noting that “the field for enterprise and personal daring is wide enough in the legitimate sphere of duty.”

Brigadier-General Kearny was elated by the success of Colonel Taylor’s expedition; declaring that “the audacity of the enemy’s cavalry has been punished within his own lines,” and that the Third’s success had more than avenged Union losses at Annandale. Furthermore, Kearny announced that the Third’s casualties would “inaugurate a badge hereafter to be worn by all the wounded as constant evidence of their having been proven in fire.”

To date, research has given no indication that Newberry received one of the golden-orange Maltese crosses. In mid-June 1862, Kearny wrote a letter to the New Jersey Governor, Charles Olden, highly recommending Newberry as an officer for one of the regiments then being raised, as “he has evinced great aptitude and daring as a scout and was badly wounded and particularly distinguished in the ambush fight of the 3d N. J. Vols under then Col Taylor on the 5th Dec’r last.” Likewise, General Taylor’s letter to the governor praised Newberry’s “natural qualifications and experience as a soldier” and remarked upon the young veteran’s courage and “unusual abilities as a scout.” Taunted as a traitor by his fellows when he first joined the regiment, he was now honored by Kearny with the sobriquet of “The Jersey Scout.”

Dunham, the captured Georgia Hussars orderly sergeant, was housed in the same room as Pvt. Newberry in the Seminary Hospital, by order of General Kearny. Among his possessions was his orderly book along with a letter addressed to Henry P. Miller of the Hussars, from Miller’s sister, Lizzie, which spoke of the Port Royal Affair; the hardships being suffered by citizens who had deserted Beaufort; and the shelling of Tybee Island. Robert Yard, chaplain of the First New Jersey Infantry, reported to the Monmouth Democrat that Dunham’s presence had elicited much excitement amongst the local Secessionist ladies, who began sending him all manner of delicacies, “consisting of custards, floating island, cakes, oranges, apples, candy, nuts, and a boquet [sic]” and even a suit of “fine merino under clothes, and half a dozen fine towels,” but all of these articles were confiscated to the use of the hospital.

Thomas Edwards, Newberry’s English-born scouting companion, was still recuperating at the Hospital, and was moved into the same room as Newberry and Dunham. “Edwards teased Dunham and slurred him,” as a rebel, but Newberry stood by the prisoner and the two became fast friends. General Kearny also showed kindness to Dunham, by sending him two new shirts and a five dollar gold piece. Dunham swore to Newberry that if he should ever find himself in the same position, he should send word and Dunham would not forget their friendship.

The prisoner exchange process began for Dunham in February and he returned to his company, which had become Company F of the Jeff Davis Legion. Upon his return, Dunham began to publicly display an “unaccountable hatred” towards Lieutenant Gordon, “taking every occasion to insult and injure” him. At one point drafting a petition requesting Gordon’s resignation, complete with the forged signatures of men from the company. A court of inquiry was unable to convene on account of the frequent movements of the army during the Peninsula Campaign. Gordon “overlooked a great many things on account of the Yankee bullet in his brain.” When Dunham received a medical discharge from the service on account of his seizures, Gordon suspected that the latter would head South and continue to “spread all kinds of injurious reports,” Gordon challenged Dunham to a duel, despite opposing the practice, only after the latter refused to account and apologize for his actions in a “very insulting letter.” Their seconds tried to diffuse the situation, but Dunham would not back down. Therefore, on the afternoon of July 16, a few miles away from their camp at Atlee’s Station, they dueled with double-barreled shotguns at thirty paces. Dunham wheeled and fired first, missing Gordon completely, while a single buckshot of Gordon’s struck Dunham in the forehead, first passing through two folds of his hat and glancing over his right eye, before flattening against his skull, but otherwise leaving him unharmed. He honored the outcome and made friends with the Lieutenant before riding to Richmond en route to Savannah.

Dunham died in 1870. Years later, Newberry wanted to renew his friendship with Dunham and return the Revolutionary War-era saber that had been disarmed from the orderly sergeant and wound up in Newberry’s possession. Unfortunately, the letter he composed to the Postmaster of Savannah was poorly worded and though his intention may have been to return the blade, his communication was instead interpreted to mean that Newberry wanted to know the history and value of the sword to the family so that he could extract a bid for it. The letter was given to the press and all kinds of unpleasant things were said of Newberry and General Kearny “from Georgia to Tennessee”. Dunham’s brother, Bradford, got a “curb politician” involved, who continued to hurl insults at Newberry. Newberry would have nothing to do with any of them, and was only glad to return the sword to Dunham’s family, without ever receiving acknowledgement or gratitude of its reception.

According to Newberry, he was released from the Seminary Hospital in the early part of 1862 and was present when the Third entered the abandoned Confederate fortifications at Centerville. He was assigned as an orderly to Gen. Kearny and subsequently to General Taylor. Newberry received a disability discharge from the Third and accepted a second lieutenant’s commission in the Eleventh New Jersey Regiment of Volunteers in August 1862. The regimental historian of the Eleventh writes that Newberry was regarded as a strict disciplinarian, but was dearly loved by the men of his company. At the battle of Chancellorsville he was struck in the leg by a bullet, early on the morning of May 3, as he helped his wounded captain from the field. He did not recover from this second wounding until the latter part of 1863. He was promoted to captain and briefly served as Assistant Aide-de-camp to both Col. McAllister of the 11th N.J. Volunteers and then on the staff of General French, but was eventually transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps in January of 1864. In the depositions included with his pension applications, Newberry expressed his belief that life as a scout — sleeping outdoors in the woods, often wet for a week at a time — had made him rheumatic; carrying his wounded comrade, Corporal Edwards, on his back had permanently stooped his posture; and the shotgun blast and pistol ball wounds had crippled his left arm and made him unable to perform manual labor. After the war, he applied for a commission in the Regular Army with the recommendation of his Congressman and other prominent citizens of New Jersey, but was informed that there were no vacancies. He served as a sheriff, grocer, distiller, and even as a milkman after the war; attended reunions of the Eleventh; and spoke to elementary school children of his war experience on Lincoln’s Birthday. He lived to the age of 80 and died in Rahway, New Jersey, at the home of his daughter, on January 12, 1920, and was buried in Rahway Cemetery. His headstone simply denotes “Pvt Co D 3 Regt NJ Vol Inf”, with nothing to indicate Edward S. E. Newberry’s valor displayed in rescuing his comrade; his capture of the first Union soldier to be executed for desertion; or the pivotal role he played in coordinating Taylor’s midnight ambush at a bog on the Braddock Road in early December 1861.