Comments on: Incident at Vienna

By: Susan Evelyn McDowell Cole

Susan Evelyn McDowell Cole — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:54:06 +0000

Good articles gentlemen! Glad to see the touring is over and there is some writing going on again!

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:39:56 +0000

Thanks, Harry. Agree with the comments on “masked batteries.” As I wrote over at Craig’s blog, I read a NYT article on Vienna from June 19, 1861that said that the batteries were only “masked” at Vienna because the proper reconnaissance was not being done by Schenck’s men! Guess that “investigative journalists” of the time were onto something…Here is the except from the article:

As in the affair at Big Bethel, we are again entertained with the idea that our forces fell into a sort of ambush. They came, we are told, upon a masked battery, and were the victims of a surprise. We have heretofore given our opinion of this specific line of apology. To raw troops, led by inexperienced officers, without the vigilant outlook of scouting parties, and advanced guards, all batteries, where guns are not conspicuously mounted upon the summit of intrenchments, are masked batteries.

By: Craig Swain

Craig Swain — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:41:18 +0000

Thanks for the mention. I tend to agree that the “masked battery” bit is far overplayed both in the contemporary press and by historians. I’d argue that any precautions made to avoid masked batteries were the very same precautions taken to avoid Confederate defenses in general – good recons, proper force security, etc.

Yet the same people who make hay about the masked batteries speak of grapeshot falling among the ranks during the battle…. might be something to that.