A Walk at Payne’s Farm

Payne's Farm Blue HashesThe dead leaves are ankle deep as my son, Jackson, and I trek through the forest at Payne’s Farm. We know there’s a path because a plethora of blue blazes mark the way through the denuded trees. The leaves have otherwise swallowed the path just as they swallow our feet.

We shuffle through, raising enough racket to risk triggering one of my son’s migraines. I don’t know what battle sounded like here on November 27, 1863, but the simple act of walking is cacophonous enough.

The engagement, unexpected by both sides, pitted the Federal III Corps, led by Maj. Gen. William “Blinky” French, against most of the Confederate division commanded by Maj. Gen. Edward “Allegheny” Johnson. Federals surprised the Confederates, who doubled back and threw themselves into the fight with ferocity. “The Federals were as thick as black birds in front of us,” one North Carolinian said.

The engagement marked the first significant contact between the armies in what became known as the Mine Run campaign.

Payne's Farm SignJackson and I have come out here because it’s the anniversary of the battle and the weather is warm and sunny. We couldn’t ask for a better day to be on the battlefield.

In school this week, just before break, Jackson had the opportunity to take a qualifying test that could enable him to take college classes as part of his high school curriculum next year. Aside from algebra and reading comprehension, he had to write a 300-word essay. The question: “Does history still matter?”

“Yes,” he tells me when I ask him what he said.

I wait for more. “Only two-hundred and ninety-nine to go,” I point out.

This is the third reason I’ve come to Mine Run: here, most of the battlefield has vanished, reclaimed not so much be development as by amnesia. Overall, Mine Run turns into the biggest battle of the Civil War that doesn’t happen, so there’s not much to remember, at least if one is thinking in the same terms as a Chancellorsville or Wilderness or Spotsylvania—the other major battlefields within a stone’s throw.

In 2003, the Civil War Trust protected the property, but it remained largely dormant for almost a decade until a rudimentary trail and a series of wayside markers, installed by the Trust and Civil War Trails, finally appeared. But the 690 acres remains largely quiet, largely forgotten.

Payne's Farm Worm Fence
“We gained a slight rise in the land behind an old worm fence,” one Federal sergeant recalled. “The enemy had fallen back under cover of a piece of woods well in our front. Soon they came out in splendid battle array with waving banners, and charged our position.”

But the engagement made quite an impression on the men who fought here. “It was truly a baptism of fire, while it was a deluge of lead and iron that swept over us, “ wrote a member of the 10th Vermont. A member of the 3rd North Carolina, meanwhile, said it was “as warm a contest as this regiment was ever engaged in. . . . It seemed as if the enemy was throwing minie-balls upon us by the bucket-full, when the battle got fairly under way.”

 

After their initial success, French’s men bogged down. Johnson’s swelling numbers forced the Federals to redeploy to prevent themselves from being outflanked. The ground dipped and rose in steep ravines, making it even more difficult for the men to secure their position.

Payne's Farm Final Assault Field
The final Confederate assaults launched across this field with little coordination, resulting, said one Louisianan, “in nothing but the loss of a considerable number of lives.”

The final confrontation unfolded across an open field, with Confederates launching piecemeal attacks that Federals successfully beat back. “It was a desperate effort to dislodge us,” a Federal Marylander said.

 

Old Allegheny reported the results differently: “The brave officers and men of this division, attacked by a greatly superior force from an admirable position, turned upon him and drove him from the field, which he left strewn with arms, artillery, and infantry ammunition, his dead and dying.” At dark, though, it was his men who withdrew from the field.

Johnson’s aggressiveness foiled the overall Federal maneuver, though—something that would have important ramifications in the days ahead as the campaign unfolded.

But why does this matter?

That’s what Jackson’s essay question is asking, isn’t it? Not just “History-with-a-capital-H” but any particular episode—why does it matter?

I ask Jackson to elaborate on his answer, but he seems embarrassed. Like any teenager, his answer to “What did you do in school today?” seldom gets beyond a monosyllabic, indeterminate noise of some sort. Just because we’re out on the battlefield having a good time doesn’t mean I’m going to get anything different out of him when I ask a schoolish question.

He does give me an answer that includes “remembering the sacrifices of people” and “learning from our own mistakes” and “looking back so we can understand things”—but it all comes out, incredibly, as a single syllable that sounds like a sentence from James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

I ask him to repeat himself, but he gives me a sideways look and one of those monosyllabic noises and then smiles.

My frontal assault isn’t working any more than Old Allegheny’s. It’s time to withdraw and regroup. There’ll be more chance to talk about it later; for now, I’m not going to get my tidy little made-for-ECW episode.

That’s par for the course for Mine Run.

———-

Quotes in this piece come from the wayside markers at Payne’s Farm, courtesy of the Civil War Trust and Civil War Trails.

More information on the battle is available at the Trust’s Mine Run page on their website. Brad Gottfried has an excellent book of maps on the campaign.

In a previous post, Chris wrote about the opening of the Mine Run campaign. He has has also written about another of his visits to the battlefield.



3 Responses to A Walk at Payne’s Farm

  1. I was unable to make it today, but I went there yesterday. It is such a tranquil place. It had the appearance that no one had visited in quite some time. I remain amazed by the performance of Morris’ Brigade in their first action.

  2. I hope to visit Payne’s Farm soon. My great uncle Pvt D.M. Manning was KIA on 27 Nov 1863 there. He was a member of the 1st North Carolina, co. F.

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