The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ball's Bluff, by Charles Lawrence Peirson

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Title: Ball's Bluff
An Episode and its Consequences to some of us

Author: Charles Lawrence Peirson

Release Date: February 18, 2010 [EBook #31319]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration:

SURGEON HENRY BRYANT . LIEUTENANT COLONEL FRANCIS W. PALFREY .
QUARTERMASTER CHARLES W. FOLSOM . MAJOR PAUL J. REVERE . ADJUTANT
CHARLES L. PEIRSON . COLONEL WILLIAM RAYMOND LEE . ASSISTANT SURGEON
NATHAN HAYWARD

FIELD AND STAFF OF TWENTIETH MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEER INFANTRY 1861.]

_A Monograph._

BALL'S BLUFF

AN EPISODE AND ITS
CONSEQUENCES TO
SOME OF US.

_A paper written for the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts_

BY CHARLES LAWRENCE PEIRSON

_Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General._

Privately printed by The Salem Press Company
with permission from the
Military Historical Society of Massachusetts
for the information later on of
Charles Lawrence Peirson, of New York, and
Charles Peirson Lyman, of Massachusetts

THE SALEM PRESS COMPANY
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

MDCCCCXIII

THE EPISODE OF BALL'S BLUFF: AND ITS CONSEQUENCES TO SOME OF US.

This subject, like many of the periods of the Civil War, has been often
described, and is familiar to the passing generation, but has, I
believe, never before been placed upon your records, nor by an eye
witness. Therefore, I venture to present it here.

The Twentieth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, in which I
had the honor to be a First Lieutenant and Adjutant, left Boston in the
Autumn of 1861, for active service with the army. It was commanded by
William Raymond Lee, as Colonel,--a West Point graduate. Paul J. Revere
was the Major. It had been, before the date of the Ball's Bluff
engagement, but a few weeks in the service, and was stationed first at
Washington, where I remember calling with Colonel Le