Robert C. Schenck - Civil War

Civil War

When the attack was made on Fort Sumter, Schenck promptly tendered his services to the President. He later recalled his meeting with Lincoln:

"Lincoln sent for me and asked, 'Schenck what can you do to help me?' I said, 'Anything you want me to do. I am anxious to help you.' He asked, 'Can you fight?' I answered, 'I would try.' Lincoln said, 'Well, I want to make a general out of you.' I replied, 'I don't know about that Mr. President, you could appoint me as general but I might not prove to be one.' Then he did so and I went to war."

Schenck was commissioned brigadier general of volunteers. Many West Point graduates sneered at political generals. Schenck had not been a military man, but he had been a diligent student of military science.

On June 17, 1861, Union Army Major General Irvin McDowell sent the 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment (90–day) under the overall command of Brigadier General Schenck and the immediate command of Colonel Alexander McDowell McCook to expand the Union position in Fairfax County, Virginia. Schenck took six companies over the Alexandria, Loudon and Hampshire Railroad line, dropping off detachments to guard railroad bridges between Alexandria, Virginia and Vienna, Virginia. As the train approached Vienna, about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Fairfax Court House and 15 miles (24 km) from Alexandria, 271 officers and men remained with the train. On the same day, Confederate States Army Colonel Maxcy Gregg took the 6–month 1st South Carolina Infantry Regiment, about 575 men, two companies of cavalrymen (about 140 men) and a company of artillery with two artillery pieces (35 men), about 750 men in total, on a scouting mission from Fairfax Court House toward the Potomac River. On their return trip, at about 6:00 p.m., the Confederates heard the train whistle in the distance. Gregg moved his artillery pieces to a curve in the railroad line near Vienna and placed his men around the guns. Seeing this disposition, an elderly local Union sympathizer ran down the tracks to warn the approaching train of the hidden Confederate force. The Union officers mostly ignored his warning and the train continued down the track. In the only response to the warning, an officer was placed on the forward car as a lookout.

The Union soldiers were riding open gondola or platform cars as the train backed down the track toward Vienna. As the train rounded a curve within 0.25 miles (0.40 km) of Vienna, one of the men spotted some Confederate cavalrymen on a nearby hill. As the Ohio soldiers prepared to shoot at the horsemen, the Confederates fired their cannons from their hiding place around the curve. The Union force suffered several casualties but were spared from incurring even more by the slightly high initial cannon shots and by quickly jumping from the slow–moving train and either running into nearby woods or moving into protected positions near the cars. Brigadier General Schenck ordered Lieutenant William H. Raynor to go back to the engine and have the engineer take the train out of range in the other direction. Schenck quickly followed Raynor. Raynor had to help loosen the brakes. Since the brakeman had uncoupled most of the cars, the engineer left them. He did not stop for the Union soldiers to catch up but continued all the way back to Alexandria. Schenck now had no means of communication and had to have the wounded men carried back to their camp in blankets by soldiers on foot. The regiment's medical supplies and instruments had been left on the train. Many of the Union infantrymen took shelter behind the cars and tried to return fire against the Confederate force amid a confusion of conflicting orders. Colonel McCook reorganized many of them in the woods. The two forces were slightly out of effective musket range and few shots were taken by either side.

As darkness fell, the Union force was able to retreat and to elude Confederate cavalry pursuers in the broken terrain. The Confederate pursuit also was apparently called off early due to apprehension that the Union force might be only the advance of a larger body of troops and because the Confederate force was supposed to return to their base that night. Confederates took such supplies and equipment as were left behind and burned a passenger car and five platform cars that had been left behind. The Union force suffered casualties of 8 soldiers killed and 4 wounded. The Confederates reported no casualties. The Union officers were criticized for not sending skirmishers in front of the train which had moved slowly along the track and for disregarding the warning given to them by the local Union sympathizer. The Battle of Vienna, Virginia followed the Union defeat at the Battle of Big Bethel only a week earlier and historian William C. Davis noted that "the press were much agitated by the minor repulse at Vienna on June 17, and the people were beginning to ask when the Federals would gain some victories."

General Schenck's next appearance was at the First Battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861, where he commanded a brigade in Brigadier General Daniel Tyler's division. After the tide of battle turned against the Union force and many units began to flee the battlefield, parts of Schenck's brigade, along with the United States Regulars under Major General George Sykes, the brigade of three regiments of Germans under Colonel Louis Blenker, the brigade of Colonel Erasmus Keyes and the 1st and 2d Rhode Island Infantry Regiments left the field in relatively good order as the remainder of the Union Army retreated in disorder.

Schenck was subsequently in command under Major General William Rosecrans in West Virginia, and under Major General John C. Fremont in the Luray Valley. He took part in the Jackson's Valley Campaign of 1862 in the Shenandoah Valley, the Battle of Cross Keys and was, for a time, commander of the I Corps, in Major General Franz Sigel's absence. Ordered to join the Army of Virginia, then under Major General John Pope, he joined it just before the Second Battle of Bull Run, and was in the thick of the fighting of the two days that followed, being severely wounded on the second day, and his right arm permanently injured. He was promoted to major general September 18, 1862 to rank from August 30, 1862.

He was unfit for field duty for six months, but was assigned to the command of VIII Corps, embracing the turbulent citizens of Maryland, repressing all turbulence and acts of disloyalty or any complicity with treason. General Schenck was not popular with the disloyal portion of the inhabitants of Maryland. In December 1863, he resigned his commission to take his seat in Congress.