Did Captain William C. Whittle really call the first shots fired in Virginia during the Civil War a “mistake”? A close reading of the primary sources shows how quoting a key document out of context creates a distorted picture of events.
Let me begin with a caveat: I have been a member of the American Battlefield Trust for many years, dating back to when it was still called the Civil War Trust, and they do incredible work. I’ve also been contributing to Emerging Civil War since the summer. It’s a great community of scholars and Civil War buffs, and I don’t believe they would deliberately publish anything they knew to be incorrect.
But when I see something that is glaringly untrue, I have to call it out—as I would hope any Spirit of ’61 reader would do. That is what a community of scholars does: we strive to keep each other accurate.
In August 2024, Drew Gruber and Owen Lanier wrote an article for the Emerging Civil War blog called “‘This is an entire mistake’: The First Shots in Virginia.” According to their bios, Drew Gruber is the executive director of Civil War Trails and Owen Lanier is a student at Gettysburg college and an employee at the American Battlefield Trust.
I came across the article while researching revisions to our Engagement at Gloucester Point page. Since I’m familiar with all the primary sources they used (mainly the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies), something immediately seemed off.
The authors quote Virginia Navy Capt. William C. Whittle out of context to imply that he believed firing on the USS Yankee was a mistake. Reading Whittle’s endorsement of Taliaferro’s May 8th report, it is very difficult for me to see how anyone could arrive at that conclusion.
What is the context? At the beginning of May, 1861, Robert E. Lee appointed Gloucester County native William B. Taliaferro as colonel of Virginia volunteers, placing him in command of the defenses at Gloucester Point. Lee instructed him to cooperate with Virginia Navy Capt. William C. Whittle on the construction of a shore battery.
Still in Richmond, on May 6, Taliaferro ordered a company of the Richmond Howitzers, led by Lt. John Thompson Brown and equipped with two six-pounder cannons, to reinforce Gloucester Point. They arrived by steamboat from West Point the next morning. Around the same time, the USS Yankee sailed up the York River to observe what was happening at the Point.
It’s unclear whether William C. Whittle was even there when the Richmond Howitzers opened fire. Taliaferro was certainly not. He wrote, “I learned on my way from Richmond that the howitzer battery under Lieutenant Brown, acting under the orders of Captain Whittle, of the Virginia navy, had resisted the approach of the steamer Yankee and driven her back…” He arrived later that evening.
However, when forwarding Taliaferro’s report to headquarters, Whittle read it and wrote an addendum, saying “This letter came to me unsealed. I presumed that I might read it. I know not [by] what authority Colonel Taliaferro says that the firing at Gloucester Point was authorized by me. This is an entire mistake.“
It is very clear from the context that Whittle took issue with Taliaferro’s statement that the Richmond Howitzers had been acting under his orders. The “mistake” Whittle referred to was Taliaferro’s assignment of responsibility to him. He did not mention anything about the firing itself.
John Thomas Scharf, in his History of the Confederate States Navy, wrote, “Capt. Whittle disclaimed all authority for the firing…” (p. 107). Taliaferro must have assumed Whittle had ordered the battery to open fire because he was in overall command. Evidently, however, according to Whittle himself, that was not the case.
Whittle is disputing authorization, not condemning the act.
Yet in Drew Gruber and Owen Lanier’s retelling of events, Whittle was not only responsible for what happened, he also supposedly called it “an entire mistake.”
“It is never a good day when you must write to your boss’s boss about an issue at work, especially when the situation revolves around you being the first person to shoot at another nation – for the first time. On May 8th, 1861, Capt. William C. Whittle Sr. of the Virginia Navy penned a note to Maj. Gen. Robert E. Lee, who commanded Virginia’s forces. It was four, short sentences. Whittle concluded the brief missive by saying, ‘This is an entire mistake.'”
“The day before, Whittle commanded the Virginians who pulled the lanyard, sending a warning shot across the bow of USS Yankee as the tug steamed up the York River towards Gloucester Point. For a few short minutes on May 7, Whittle’s men ended up firing a dozen rounds at Yankee. Only 20 days earlier Virginia voted to leave the Union.”
ECW, August 22, 2024
It makes for a compelling story, but is it true? An examination of the primary sources leads to a clear conclusion: no. The article’s framing is not supported by the quoted evidence.
Omitting Whittle’s entire statement, though it is only four sentences long, strips away any meaningful context from his conclusion and robs the reader of the opportunity to question the authors’ framing of events. This is why, when writing articles like this, it is so important to take great care in examining the context of primary sources, how they relate to one another, and to give readers enough information to form a complete understanding of events (or as complete as possible).
Spirit of '61 