Official Report: Scout from Centreville to Aldie, Va., August 16-19, 1863: Report of Col. Charles R. Lowell, Jr., Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

Report of Col. Charles R. Lowell, jr., Second Massachusetts Cavalry.

CENTREVILLE, VA.,

August 20, 1863.

COLONEL: Returned last night. Could not get a fight out of White. Started on Saturday, 15th, with 200 men. On Sunday explored country around Dranesville and south of Goose Creek. Could not learn that he had been in that neighborhood with more than 40 men. Found that he had passed west by Ball's Mills with that number on Saturday. Accordingly went to Aldie, scouting all the country south of Goose Creek. Found that testimony was in favor of his main camp still being near Leesburg. Sent unshod horses to Centreville, and ordered up about 50 more men to meet me at Ball's Mills. Through misunderstanding was joined by over 300 more.

Hearing of your dispatch about reported camp near Lewinsville, sent 100 men (Sixteenth New York Cavalry) again through that country. They returned last night, reporting no force there. Saw no traces of more than 2 or 3 together anywhere. Dividing my remaining 400 men, went by various routes through Leesburg, Waterford, and Hughesville, rendezvousing at Mount Gilead at 9 p.m., and passing south through Coe's Mill to Mountville.

Learned during the night that White's battalion was encamped about 2 miles north of Middleburg, on Goose Creek. Started at 2.30 a.m., hoping to surprise them, but he had word of my approach from Mount Gilead, and had changed camp during the night. I sent out small scouting parties, who found about 100 of his men still in the immediate neighborhood, but they were on the alert, and ran when a company was sent to engage them. Lost several hours trying to get near them, but the country is very open there and they were determined to keep out of the way. Gave up the attempt; sent a party down across Bull Run Mountains, and another back by Carter's Mills, and passed through Aldie myself. Found nowhere any force Returned to camp with 10 prisoners – White's and Mosby's.

White himself is very rarely with his battalion. He passes about the country with an escort of from 30 to 40 men. The battalion generally numbers about 250 strong, being left under the command of Major Ferneyhough. White is looking up-recruits and deserters, many of his men having been at home since the army went into Maryland. He has now six companies, with over 700 men on his rolls, and prisoners say that he expects to take that number with him when he leaves the country.

 C. R. LOWELL, JR.,

 Colonel, Commanding Cavalry Forces.

Col. J. H. TAYLOR,

Chief of Staff.

SOURCE: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 29, Part 1 (Serial No. 48), p. 74-5

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Josephine Shaw, Sunday, August 2, 1863 - Noon

Willard's Hotel, Washington,

Sunday noon, August 2d.

I found, when I reported in the evening, that I was ordered to take command of all the Cavalry in the Department (only three regiments, not very magnificent), headquarters to be at Fairfax Courthouse or Centreville.¹

Everything that comes about Rob shows his death to have been more and more completely that which every soldier and every man would long to die, but it is given to very few, for very few do their duty as Rob had. I am thankful they buried him “with his niggers;” they were brave men and they were his men.²

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¹ Besides that already mentioned, other important reconnoissances, and escort duty to supply-trains, were performed by Colonel Lowell's command during July. In the end of the month, Mosby with his “Partisan” force made some very successful raids on the army wagon-trains, capturing near Alexandria between one and two hundred prisoners, with many horses, mules, wagons, etc. General King ordered Lowell to pursue, and he returned on the last day of July, with many men and horses recaptured. About the 1st of August, he was put in command of a brigade, consisting of the Second Massachusetts and Thirteenth and Sixteenth New York Cavalry regiments. The First Battalion now rejoined the Second Cavalry, after several months' service in the Peninsula.

² In the Reminiscences of Mr. J. M. Forbes (privately printed) is a letter written to him by Mr. Frank G. Shaw, just after his son's death, from which I am allowed to quote : —

“He has gone from us, and we try not to think of our loss, but of his gain. We have had no doubt since the first news came. We had expected it.  . . . We thank God that he died without pain, in what was to him the moment of triumph; and we thank God especially for his happy life, and that he did not rise to his eminence through suffering, but through joy.”

Mr. Forbes adds, “I have seen no reference yet to our late friend's manly nobility [Mr. Shaw had recently died]. Every one remembers the brutal answer of the rebels to our flag of truce, when General Gilmore, after the assault on Fort Wagner, asked for Colonel Shaw's body: ‘We have thrown him into the ditch under his niggers.’ When we recaptured the fort, an attempt was made to find the sacred relics; and the general in command, or probably Secretary Stanton, wrote to Mr. Shaw asking some intimation as to what should be done in case of their recovery, and suggesting a monument recalling the indignity which had been offered. No thought of vengeance had ever been mixed up with Frank Shaw's patriotism or clouded his serene brow.  . . . The answer which now came — I think from both parents — was grand in its . . . simplicity. ‘We wish no search made, nor is there any monument so worthy of a soldier as the mound heaped over him by the bodies of his comrades.’”

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 289, 432-3