June 1 1861 Saturday
Aquia Creek, VA (CWSAC Limited Battle – Inconclusive)
Fairfax Court House, VA
McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Chesapeake Bay Blockade
Great Britain. Great Britain refused to receive in port any prizes taken by armed vessels or privateers of the United States or the belligerent Confederate States.
North Carolina. USS Union, Commander John Rodgers Goldsborough, captured the Confederate schooner F W Johnson with a cargo of railroad iron off the coast.
Virginia. Skirmish at Arlington Mills.
Virginia. Governor of Indiana Oliver Morton appointed Colonel Thomas Armstrong Morris Morris as the quartermaster general of the state’s troops and then on 27 April 1861 he was made Brigadier-General in the Indiana state militia but did not accept a commission in the US Volunteers. Morris took command of a brigade of newly raised Indiana state troops which became known as the “Indiana Brigade”. Morris’ brigade arrived in Grafton on this date and secured the safety of the vital junction of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from Confederate control. Morris approved Colonel Benjamin Franklin Kelley’s plan to make a two-pronged attack against the Confederate forces in Philippi, about thirty miles from Grafton. The principal advance would be made by 1,600 men led by Kelley himself with six companies of his own regiment, nine companies from the 9th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Robert Huston Milroy, and six companies from the 16th Ohio Infantry. To deceive the enemy into believing their objective was Harper’s Ferry, they departed eastwards by train. They then de-trained at the small village of Thornton and marched south on a back road (on the same side of the river as Philippi) intending to arrive at the rear of the town. Meanwhile, the 7th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Ebenezer Dumont was sent to Webster, about three and a half miles southwest of Grafton. There they would combine with the 6th Indiana Infantry under Colonel Thomas Turpin Crittenden and the 14th Ohio Infantry under Colonel James Blair Steedman. The combined column, with a total of 1,400 men and two 6-pounder guns under the overall command of Dumont (with the assistance of Colonel Frederick West Lander, acting as a volunteer aide-de-camp to Major-General George Brinton McClellan), would march directly south from Webster on the Turnpike. In this way, the Union force would execute a double envelopment of the Confederates at Philippi.
Virginia. Incident at Arlington Mills.
Aquia Creek, Virginia. The bombardment of the Confederate batteries at Aquia Creek was resumed by USS Thomas Freeborn, USS Anacostia, USS Resolute, and the sloop USS Pawnee for almost five hours. They fired over 500 rounds but the Confederates reported the deaths only of a chicken and a horse. Both the USS Thomas Freeborn and USS Pawnee took minor damage but no crewmen were seriously wounded or killed. Following the attack, the Confederates reinforced the defences by constructing a third battery on the bluff and a fourth across the mouth of Aquia Creek at Brent Point. (CWSAC Limited Battle – Inconclusive)
Fairfax Court House, Virginia. In the early morning, a detachment of 50 men of Company B 2nd US Cavalry under Lieutenant C H Tompkins entered Fairfax Court House and engaged the Warrenton Rifles in the first land conflict involving fatal casualties between organised military units on land in the Civil War. About 210 pro-Confederate Virginia State soldiers occupied Fairfax Court House, about 13.5 miles west of Washington, DC, on 31 May 1861. They numbered 120 cavalrymen in two companies, the Prince William Cavalry, and the Rappahannock Cavalry companies, and about 90 infantrymen in a company known as the Warrenton Rifles. Confederate Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Stoddert Ewell, commanded this largely untrained and ill-equipped force. During the night, two pickets were posted on the road east of town while the force took positions to prevent the discovery of Confederate forces at Manassas Junction about 10 mi lies to the south.
On 31 May 1861, Union Brigadier General David Hunter ordered Lieutenant Charles Henry Tompkins (Cpopany B, 2nd US Cavalry) to gather information about the numbers and location of Confederate forces in the area. Hunter’s instructions about entering Fairfax Court House were vague but he seemed to encourage a probe into town to discover more information. At about 10:30 pm, Tompkins led between 50 and 86 cavalrymen, dragoons, and a few volunteers from Camp Union at Falls Church, in the direction of Fairfax Court House.
At about 3:00 am, one of the Confederate pickets, Private A B Francis, ran into the town, shouting that the enemy was upon them. The other picket, B F Florence, had been captured. A few of the Prince William cavalry tried to form a battle line in the street while others ran for their horses. As the Union force rode through town on the Falls Church Road, most of the Confederate cavalrymen fled, leaving four of the Prince William cavalrymen in the street to be taken prisoner. Confederate Captain John Quincy Marr, commanding the Warrenton Rifles, moved his men into a clover field west of the Methodist church where they had been camped, just off Little River Turnpike, and formed them into two battle lines. Fleeing Confederate cavalrymen from Prince William came upon them and in the dark, some of Marr’s men fired at them, wounding one of their own cavalrymen in the process. The Rappahannock cavalrymen had few weapons and no ammunition so they fled when the Union soldiers arrived. Scattered shots were fired as the Union cavalry rode through the town; Captain Marr fell dead and his body was found in the clover field later in the morning. Marr was the first Confederate officer killed in the Civil War.
The Union force rode west through the town firing at random. The Union troopers hit a man emerging from the hotel, wounding him in the shoulder. This was Ewell himself, who became the first Confederate officer of field grade to be wounded in the war.
Former and subsequent Virginia governor (later Confederate Major-General William Smith) emerged with his rifle from the hous. Smith, at the time a 64-year-old civilian from Warrenton, had helped recruit the company and he knew many of the men. In Marr’s absence, he took charge of the company despite his lack of military training or experience. Ewell soon arrived and moved approximately 40 men from the edge of the clover field between the hotel and the courthouse (or the Episcopal Church). From their new position, they repelled the Union force with a volley as the cavalrymen returned through town from the west. After Ewell went to find a courier to send for reinforcements, Smith moved the men to a more defensible position behind rail fences about 100 yards closer to the turnpike. Civilians, mostly sheltering in buildings, also joined in the shooting at the Union horsemen. The Union cavalry tried to come through the town a second time but were forced to retreat. During this exchange of fire, Lieutenant Tompkins had two horses shot from under him. The Confederates fired additional volleys as the Union troops tried to pass through town a third time on their way back to their base at Camp Union. The Union cavalrymen departed with several wounded men through fields toward Flint Hill in the Oakton area north of the City of Fairfax and returned to Camp Union by a longer route.
The Confederates initially reported casualties in the affair of one dead, four (later reduced to two) wounded (including Ewell) and one man missing. A later Confederate account states that only two were wounded, but five were captured, matching the Union account which claimed five named prisoners. The Union force reported one man killed, four wounded (including Tompkins), and three men missing. The Confederates claimed three prisoners.
Confederate Brigadier General Milledge Luke Bonham who was in overall command of the area, was unhappy about the lack of arms and ammunition which precipitated the flight of the cavalry. Union Major-General Winfield Scott was equally displeased at the impetuous charge that exceeded Tompkins’ orders to scout the town. Charles Henry Tompkins received the Medal of Honor for his actions at the Battle of Fairfax Court House. His was the first action of a Union Army officer in the American Civil War for which a Medal of Honor was awarded, although it was not awarded until 32 years later.
Union Organisation
USA: Major-General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks assumed command of the Department of Annapolis, arriving on 11 June 1861 to succeed Major-General John Adams Dix.
Commander in Chief: President Abraham Lincoln
Vice-President: Hannibal Hamlin
Secretary of War: Simon Cameron
Secretary of the Navy: Gideon Welles
Atlantic Blockading Squadron: Silas Horton Stringham
Gulf Blockading Squadron: William Mervine
Pacific Squadron: John Berrien Montgomery
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: James Harmon Ward
General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott
Department of Annapolis: John Adams Dix interim Nathaniel Prentiss Banks awaited
Department of the East: John Ellis Wool
Department of Florida: Harvey Brown
Department of Kentucky: Robert Anderson
Department of New Mexico: Edward Richard Sprigg Canby
Department of Northeastern Virginia: Irvin McDowell
Department of the Ohio: George Brinton McClellan
Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner
- District of Oregon: George Wright
Department of Pennsylvania: Robert Patterson
Department of Texas: Vacant
Department of Utah: Philip St George Cooke
Department of Virginia: Benjamin Franklin Butler
Department of Washington: Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Department of the West: Nathaniel Lyon
Confederate Organisation
Commander in Chief: President Jefferson Finis Davis
Vice-President: Alexander Hamilton Stephens
Secretary of War: Leroy Pope Walker
Secretary of the Navy: Stephen Russell Mallory
Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs
- “Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg
Department of the Potomac: Milledge Luke Bonham temporary Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited
- Army of the Potomac: Milledge Luke Bonham interim Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard awaited
Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger
Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
- Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Department of the Peninsula: Daniel Harvey Hill temporary
- Army of the Peninsula: Daniel Harvey Hill temporary
Department of South Carolina: Daniel Harvey Hill
Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring
Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn
Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg
- “Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg
Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton
Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch
Potomac Line: Daniel Ruggles
Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy
Forces in the Kanawha Valley: Christopher Quarles Tompkins
Union Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
Major-General USA
Winfield Scott
George Brinton McClellan
John Charles Frémont
Major-General USV
John Adams Dix
Nathaniel Prentiss Banks
Benjamin Franklin Butler
Brigadier-General USA
John Ellis Wool
William Selby Harney
Edwin Vose Sumner
Joseph King Fenno Mansfield
Irvin McDowell
Robert Anderson
William Starke Rosecrans
Brigadier-General USV
Samuel Peter Heintzelman
David Hunter
Erasmus Darwin Keyes
Andrew Porter
Fitz-John Porter
William Buel Franklin
William Tecumseh Sherman
Charles Pomeroy Stone
Don Carlos Buell
Thomas West Sherman
Nathaniel Lyon
John Pope
George Archibald McCall
William Reading Montgomery
Philip Kearny
Joseph Hooker
John Wolcott Phelps
Ulysses Simpson Grant
Joseph Jones Reynolds
Samuel Ryan Curtis
Charles Smith Hamilton
Darius Nash Couch
Rufus King
Jacob Dolson Cox
Stephen Augustus Hurlbut
Franz Sigel
Robert Cumming Schenck
Benjamin Mayberry Prentiss
Frederick West Lander
Benjamin Franklin Kelley
John Alexander McClernand
Alpheus Starkey Williams
Israel Bush Richardson
James Cooper
Brigadier-General USA (Staff)
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs
Confederate Generals
Note: Italics, awaiting confirmation of the commission
General ACSA
Samuel Cooper
Albert Sidney Johnston
Major-General PACS
David Emanuel Twiggs
Brigadier-General ACSA
Robert Edward Lee
Joseph Eggleston Johnston
Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
Braxton Bragg
Brigadier-General PACS
Alexander Robert Lawton
Milledge Lake Bonham
Benjamin McCulloch
William Wing Loring
Charles Clark
John Buchanan Floyd
William Henry Talbot Walker
American Civil War High Command 