1861 June 26th

June 26 1861 Wednesday

Frankfort and Patterson’s Island, VA

McClellan’s West Virginia Campaign
Chesapeake Bay Blockade

Frankfort and Patterson’s Island, Virginia. Union Colonel Lewis Wallace’s 11th Indiana Infantry skirmished with Confederate cavalry scouts under Lieutenant-Colonel Turner Ashby at Frankfort and Kelley’s Island on Patterson’s Creek. Wallace arrived in Cumberland, Maryland, in mid-June across the Potomac River from Virginia with a mission to guard the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. After driving the Confederates out of Romney on 11 June 1861, he withdrew. Confederate reinforcements were sent under Colonel Ambrose Powell Hill and arrived in Romney on 15 June. Hill burned the railroad bridge at New Creek and, on 19 June, two companies of Confederate cavalry arrived in Romney commanded by Colonel Angus W McDonald to relieve Hill’s infantry who left on 21 June. Wallace’s force was outnumbered and far from reinforcement. His nearest support was from Pennsylvania Reserve units who had orders not to leave their state. McDonald’s cavalry was active in scouting around Romney. On the morning of 26 June, Ashby took nine men from Company A 7th Virginia Cavalry on a scouting mission toward Patterson’s Creek Depot, while his younger brother, Captain Richard Ashby, set off with 19 men to arrest a local Unionist. Richard Ashby failed in the attempt and split his force, taking the smaller squad toward Patterson’s Depot.
Wallace’s scouts, a troop of thirteen mounted infantrymen led by Corporal David B Hay headed from Cumberland eastward to Frankfort’s Ford along the Potomac River. They ran into Richard Ashby’s squad near the mouth of Dan’s Run, approximately three miles southeast of Patterson’s Creek. In a brief fight, Richard Ashby was mortally wounded and left for dead. Hay was also wounded. The Union party rode back toward Cumberland and stopped to rest on a small island (called Kelley’s Island or Kelly’s Island) in the Potomac River at the mouth of Patterson’s Creek. Turner Ashby, and two scouts who were drawn by the earlier firing, located the Union group and charged headlong through the shallow water. Ashby’s horse was shot down, two more of his men were killed, and several wounded. Wallace sent two companies to help and the Confederates withdrew.
Union casualties were one man killed, two wounded, and one captured. The Confederates lost three men killed and six wounded.

Virginia. USS Minnesota, Captain Silas Horton Stringham, captured the bark Sally Magee off Hampton Roads.

Union Organisation

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
West Indies Squadron: Garrett J Pendergrast
Western Gunboat Flotilla: John Rodgers
Potomac Flotilla: James Harmon Ward

General–in-Chief: Winfield Scott

Department of Annapolis: Nathaniel Prentiss Banks

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

Army of Occupation: George Brinton McClellan

Department of the Pacific: Edwin Vose Sumner

District of Oregon: George Wright

Department of Pennsylvania: Robert Patterson

Army of the Shenandoah: 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

Military Adviser to the President: Robert Edward Lee

Department No 1: David Emanuel Twiggs

“Forces in New Orleans” “Army of Louisiana”: Braxton Bragg

Department of Fredericksburg: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

Department of Norfolk: Benjamin Huger

Department of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

Defences of North Carolina: Theophilus Hunter Holmes

Department of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Army of the Peninsula: John Bankhead Magruder

Department of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Army of the Potomac: Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard

Department of South Carolina: Daniel Harvey Hill

Department of Southwestern Virginia: William Wing Loring

Department of Texas: Earl Van Dorn

Defences of Galveston: John Creed Moore

Department of West Florida: Braxton Bragg

“Forces in Pensacola”: Braxton Bragg

Western Department: Leonidas Polk

District of Upper Arkansas: William Joseph Hardee

Defences of Savannah: Alexander Robert Lawton

Indian Territory: Benjamin McCulloch

Forces in Harper’s Ferry”: Joseph Eggleston Johnston

Forces in Richmond: Thomas Turner Fauntleroy

Army of the Kanawha: Henry Alexander Wise

Army of Liberation: Gideon Johnson Pillow

Army of the Northwest: Robert Selden Garnett

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
Robert Edward Lee

Major-General PACS

David Emanuel Twiggs
Leonidas Polk

Brigadier-General ACSA

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
Henry Rootes Jackson
Theophilus Hunter Holmes
Henry Alexander Wise
Earl Van Dorn
Robert Selden Garnett
William Joseph Hardee
Richard Stoddert Ewell
David Rumph Jones
Benjamin Huger
John Bankhead Magruder
James Longstreet
Edmund Kirby Smith
John Clifford Pemberton
Thomas Jonathan Jackson
Henry Hopkins Sibley
Barnard Elliott Bee
John Henry Winder