Battle of Falling Waters
Stuart’s Surprise
Here at Stumpy’s Hollow on the morning of July 2, 1861, Confederate Lt. Col. J.E.B. Stuart captured a Union infantry company almost single-handedly. The Federals – Co. I, 15th Pennsylvania Volunteers – were acting as skirmishers in advance of Gen. Robert Patterson’s army as it marched toward Martinsburg. Arriving at this fork in the road from the north and uncertain as to which way to go, the captain left a lieutenant in charge and ordered the company to rest while he explored the road. The men stacked arms and relaxed by the split-rail fence along the road to await his return. Suddenly, a blue-clad officer (Stuart) rode across the field to the fence and ordered the soldiers to dismantle part of it so he could pass. They complied, but after the officer gained the road he drew pistols and allegedly said, “Surrender or you are dead men.” Some of the men lunged for their weapons just as the officer’s regiment rode up, and three Federals were shot. The others, including the lieutenant, a doctor, and 43 privates, surrendered.
Stuart was still wearing his U.S. Army uniform early in the war, as were many other Confederate officers. His regiment, the 1st Virginia Cavalry, arrived just in time to help him. The cavalrymen were guarding Col. Thomas J. Jackson’s flank during the Battle of Falling Waters and riding to Martinsburg to rejoin Jackson’s army.
“Colonel Stuart reports his capture of an entire company (the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Volunteers) with the exception of the captain.” -Col. T.J. Jackson, July 3, 1861
Federal Version of Stuart’s Surprise
“Company I of the Fifteenth [was] suddenly confronted by a battalion of Colonel [Turner] Ashby’s cavalry [in fact Stuart], dressed in blue blouses, and having the general appearance of Union troops . . . . Mistaking then for our own cavalry, [they] obeyed the order of Colonel [Stuart] to “let down the fence.” . . . The rebel leader, followed by some forty of his men, . . . surrounded the unsuspecting party, shot down the First Sergeant, and demanded the surrender of the entire body, consisting of the Second Lieutenant, John B. Hutchinson, and thirty-four men. [Stuart] escaped with his prisoners, and the result of his strategy was heralded through the South as a brilliant affair.” [Hutchinson was exchanged on Sept. 21, 1862. Confederate cavalry commander Turner Ashby, then a captain, was not at Falling Waters.]
- Samuel P. Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers (1868-1871)
Marker is at the intersection of Hammonds Mill Road (West Virginia Route 901) and St. Andrews Drive (County Route 3/1), on the right when traveling west on Hammonds Mill Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
