In September 1862, while in Urbana, Maryland, on the Maryland Campaign, Confederate Cavalry General J. E. B. Stuart (1833-1864) decided to take a break from the American Civil War and stage a grand party at the Landon House (also known, since the 1940s, as the Stancioff House), a former silk mill, schoolhouse, and site of the Landon Military Academy.
When Stuart and the party of his company happened upon Landon House, it was deserted, and he hit upon the idea of hosting a ball there the next night – on 8 September. The primary account of this event – known as the Sabers and Roses Ball of 1862 – comes from Stuart's friend and comrade-in-arms, Johann Heinrich August Heros von Borcke (1835-1895), a Prussian cavalry officer who enlisted to serve in the Confederate States of America's army under J. E. B. Stuart.
Stuart was killed in action at the Battle of Yellow Tavern on 11 May 1864 – an engagement in which Borcke participated – but Borcke would survive the American Civil War, return to Prussia, and continue his military career in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He retired from military service in 1867 and wrote his Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence, in which he relates the events of 8 September 1862 and the grand ball at the "Academy" (the Landon House).
Borcke died in Berlin, Germany, in 1895 from sepsis of a wound he had received in 1863 while fighting for the Confederacy. He is mainly remembered today for his Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence and the first-hand accounts of daily life, major battles, and friendships described throughout the work, which provides an in-depth look into the lives of Civil War soldiers.
Text
The following excerpt is taken from Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence by Heros Von Borcke, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1867, pp. 132-135. The narration begins after the conclusion of a dinner party at the home of the Cockys family when the guests and host decide to take a walk.
…In the agreeable conversation of these ladies, in mirth and song, the afternoon of our dinner party passed lightly and rapidly away; and then came night, queenly and beautiful, with a round moon, whose beams, penetrating the windows, suggested to our debonair commander [Stuart] a promenade, which he at once proposed, and which was carried.
Leaving to our fair friends the choice of their partners, we were guided by them to a large building, crowning the summit of a gentle hill on the edge of the village, from which a broad avenue of trees sloped downwards to the principal street.
This building had been occupied before the breaking out of the war as an academy, but now was entirely deserted and dismantled, and our footsteps echoed loudly as we walked through its wide, empty halls, once so noisy with human voices.
Each story of the house had its ample verandah running round it, and from the highest of these we had a magnificent view of the village and the surrounding country. The night was calm, the dark blue firmament was besprinkled with myriads of stars, and the moon poured over the landscape a misty, bluish light that made it all look unreal.
One might have thought it a magical scenic effect of the theater or been carried back in imagination to the Thousand and One Nights of Eastern fable, had not the campfires of our troops and the constant neighing of the horses reminded him of the realities by which he was surrounded.
We were indulging in the dreamy sentiment, natural to the hour, when the gay voice of Stuart broke in – "Major, what a capital place for us to give a ball in honor of our arrival in Maryland! Don't you think we could manage it?"
To this there was a unanimous response in the affirmative, which was especially hearty on the part of the ladies. It was at once agreed that the ball should be given. I undertook to make all necessary arrangements for the illumination and decoration of the hall, the issuing the cards of invitation, etc., leaving to Stuart the matter of the music, which he gladly consented to provide.
A soldier's life is so uncertain, and his time is so little at his own disposal, that in affairs of this sort delays are always to be avoided; and so we determined, on our way home, to the great joy of our fair companions, that the ball should come off on the following evening.
There was great stir of preparation at headquarters on the morning of the 8th. Invitations to the ball were sent out to all the families in Urbana and its neighborhood, and to the officers of Hampton's brigade. The large halls of the Academy were aired and swept and festooned with roses and decorated with battle flags borrowed from the different regiments.
At seven in the evening, all was complete and already the broad avenue was filled with our fair guests, proceeding to the scene of festivity according to their social rank and fortune – some on foot, others in simple, light "rockaways," others again in stately family coaches, driven by fat negro coachmen who sat upon the box with great dignity.
Very soon, the sound of distant bugles announced the coming of the band of the 18th Mississippi Infantry, the Colonel and Staff of the regiment, who had been invited as an act of courtesy, leading the way, and the band playing in excellent style the well-known air of Dixie.
Amid the loud applause of the numerous invited and uninvited guests, we now made our grand entrée into the large hall, which was brilliantly lighted with tallow candles. As master of ceremonies, it was my office to arrange the order of the different dances, and I had decided upon a polka as the best for an animated beginning.
I had selected [a lady from New York] as queen of the festival and had expected to open the ball with her as my partner, and my surprise was great indeed when my fair friend gracefully eluded my extended arms, and with some confusion explained that she did not join in round dances, thus making me uncomfortably acquainted for the first time with the fact that, in America, and especially in the South, young ladies rarely waltz except with brothers or first cousins, and indulge only in reels and contre-dances with strangers.
Not to be baffled, however, I at once ordered the time of the music to be changed and had soon forgotten my disappointment as to the polka in a very lively quadrille. Louder and louder sounded the instruments, quicker and quicker moved the dancers, and the whole crowded room, with its many exceedingly pretty women and its martial figures of officers in their best uniforms, presented a most striking spectacle of gaiety and enjoyment.
Suddenly enters an orderly, covered with dust, and reports in a loud voice to General Stuart that the enemy have surprised and driven in our pickets and are attacking our camp in force, while at the same moment the sound of shots in rapid succession is distinctly borne to us on the midnight air.
The excitement which followed this announcement I cannot undertake to describe. [The music stopped] and the officers rushed to their weapons and called for their horses, panic-stricken fathers and mothers endeavored in a frantic way to collect around them their bewildered children, while the young ladies ran to and fro in most admired despair.
General Stuart maintained his accustomed coolness and composure. Our horses were immediately saddled, and in less than five minutes we were in rapid gallop to the front.
Upon arriving there, we found, as is usually the case in such sudden alarms, that things were by no means so desperate as they had been represented.
Colonel Baker, with the splendid 1st North Carolina regiment, had arrested the bold forward movement of the Yankees. Pelham, with his guns in favorable position, was soon pouring a rapid fire upon their columns. The other regiments of the command were speedily in the saddle.
The line of battle having been formed, Stuart gave the order for a general attack, and with great rage and fury we precipitated ourselves upon the foe, who paid, with the loss of many killed and wounded, and a considerable number of prisoners, for their unmannerly interruption of our social amusement.
They were pursued in their headlong flight for several miles by the 1st North Carolina until, a little past midnight, they got quite out of reach, and all was quiet again.
It was about one o'clock in the morning when we got back to the Academy, where we found a great many of our fair guests still assembled, awaiting with breathless anxiety the result of the conflict.
As the musicians had never dispersed, General Stuart ordered them again to strike up; many of our pretty fugitives were brought back by young officers who eagerly volunteered for that commendable purpose; and, as everybody was determined that the Yankees should not boast of having completely broken up our party, the dancing was resumed in less than half an hour and kept up till the first glimmer of dawn.
At this time, the ambulances laden with the wounded of last night's engagement were slowly approaching the Academy, as the only building at Urbana that was at all suited to the purposes of a hospital. Of course, the music was immediately stopped, and the dancing ceased, and our lovely partners in the quadrille at once became "ministering angels" to the sufferers.
Conclusion
Anyone who has visited Landon House will no doubt wonder at Borcke's report of the "numerous invited and uninvited guests" at the ball and how these would have danced – especially the women in their grand ballroom dresses – in so small a space. The ballroom at Landon House is, in no way, comparable to the grand halls depicted in Civil War movies or novels.
Even so – although it seems most of the town filled the small room – all seem to have danced quite comfortably and happily until dawn on the 9th, even with the interruption of the Union advance. The event is depicted as a break from the war – a return to the normalcy of pre-war times – during which the guests could relax at a familiar communal event.
The Sabers and Roses Ball of 1862 is made more poignant by the fact that it took place less than ten days before the Battle of Antietam/Battle of Sharpsburg, on 17 September 1862 – the single bloodiest day of the American Civil War – which had a casualty count of roughly 22,720 dead, wounded, or missing. J. E. B. Stuart's regiment participated in the Battle of Antietam, and so it is probable – almost certain – that many of the men who danced at Landon House on the night of 8 September 1862 were dead or injured not ten days later.
Today, Landon House is privately owned but has been restored to its original 19th-century condition (though with modern conveniences such as indoor plumbing) and is open to hosting weddings, class reunions, and other similar events.
The caricatures, drawings, and signatures of both Confederate and Union soldiers who occupied the house during the Civil War are preserved on the walls of the house, including the ballroom where, once upon a time, in a break from hostilities, the men and women of the South forgot about the war, even if only for a little while, and danced as they had before the outbreak of a conflict that remains the deadliest in US history.
Author's Note: Grateful acknowledgment to Ms. Carleen Busick for the inspiration for this article.
