Blenker's responsibility for Cross Keys

ReveaZapcre

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Mar 27, 2020
Louis Blenker-good at 1st Manassas, good administrator, but sometimes careless and quite unlucky. The thing is, Blenker's Division was the main division engaged at Cross Keys, the little Union disaster. Although the eventual blame must fall on Fremont for losing his nerve, should there be some blame on Blenker? His division was repeatedly outflanked and even though some blame should fall on his brigade commanders, Blenker seemed to have failed to exercise good command of his division.
 
A mitigating factor might be the dissolution of the very much green troops under Blenker's command after an assault Fremont ordered.
 
Things really went downhill once the 8th NY walked into the trap set by Trimble. They got decimated with 1 volley. They were totally green, made up almost entirely of Germans who literally had just come right off the boats in NY. The confederate diary entries commented how they couldn't understand any of the wounded or prisoners because almost none of them spoke any English.

Blenker and Stahel certainly deserve some of the blame, but they were getting no direction from Fremont on what the overall plan was.

If anyone is looking for more reading material on Cross Keys, check out Conquering the Valley: Stonewall Jackson at Port Republic by Robert Krick. The first half of the book is a complete battle study of Cross Keys. Most of the sources used are on the Confederate side.
 
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