The San Francisco call., 1898-06-26

battle of Balls Bluff, reference
 must be made to events which
 A immediately preceded that bloody
 encounter. The Confederates were flushed with the victory gained at Bull Run a few months previous and the Union forces were correspondingly depressed. The Southern forces had made numerous significant small raids into Maryland and West Virginia, un- til Mcclellan, Rosecrans and Garfield sobered them by defeat. Mcclellan, al- ways cautious, was at that time en- gagged in the herculean task of creating an army out of the rabble of Bull Run reinforced by a vast number of green volunteers.
 Knowing that unless the raids were checked they would grow in force un- der the skilled and enterprising Con- federate commanders, Mcclellan has tened the organization of his troops and stationed numerically strong corps at vulnerable points along the upper Potomac River as a cover to Wash ington, which was the Confederate goal. and which could be taken if Me- Clellan's lines could be crushed at some vital point. The immediate southern front of Washington was too quickly strengthened with earthworks and large bodies of troops for the probable success of such a dash, but such a re- suit might be possible at the more vul- nerabIe points on the upper Potomac.
 The corps of observation was a large division which occupied the Maryland side of the Potomac for some thirty miles, covering one of the largest and easiest of Washington's back doors. It was under the command of General Charles P. Stone, a skillful Massachu- setts officer of the regular army, with a brilliant Mexican war record, whose headquarters were at Poolesville, some few miles back from Edwards and Conrad's ferries, both of which he protected by mixed infantry and artil- lery pickets. Across the Potomac, some three miles away, lay the aristo- cratic, wealthy and, more important still, strategically valuable town Of Leesburg, the center of a network of roads extending west into the Shenan- doah Valley, south into the great val ley of Virginia (meaning Richmond and communications, and eastward to the Potomac below Washington.
 The Confederates held Leesburg with a fairly strong force, easily reinforcea- ble from the main army of Virginia, centering at Manassas Junction to the south. In their hands Leesburg was daily and hourly center of large and small movements and might, at a days notice, be the grand base for handling an army corps to be launched at Mary land and Pennsylvania cities and rail- roads or Washington itself. Therefore it was standing menace to McClel- Ian. In McClellan's hands 1t meant the clearing of all Northern Virginia of raiding parties and forcing the enemy haolx 11pOn his main lines hut more important yet, it would be a fatal fac tor upon the right flank of any Confed- crate column passing northward up the great Shenandoah Vollev. over into Maryland and Pennsylvania, as Lee and Jackson passed later toward An tietam and Gettysburg. and the cav- airy into the rich York Valley of Penn sylVania more than once, capturing and destroying troops and supplies, and striking at Washington on one hand and at West Virginia on the other.
 Accordingly, in October, 1861, General Mccall a veteran. officer, with 30,00O men. left the outer defenses of Wash ington on the Virginia side and by rapid, well-executed movement reached Dranesville. At once every Confederate knew that Leesbure, lying straight westerly from Dranesyille, was the ob- jective point.
 General Stone was to cooperate by a movement of his division across the Potomac, occupy Leesburg and to hold it if possible and at least create a df- version sufficient to make SAcCall's movement a certain success. 10 make this crossing of General Stones divis- ion rapidly 1t was necessary to occupy simultaneously several of the ferries covering the space of some miles, The usual fiat scow, propelled by poles, which constituted the regulation Vir- ginia ferry" was, of course, wholly in- adequate for any quick crossing of numbers. General Stone, however, had been assured upon the point and that the utmost needful number of boats would be furnished him.
 The day before the battle of Belle Blun General Stone came to the artil- Iery picket of the New York Battery at Conrads ferry and calling me tha lieutenant in command of the section