has been restored over time to look much like it did in 1861. Interpretive tours are given by volunteer guides throughout the spring, summer and fall each weekend at 11 AM and 1 PM. The Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved of the battlefield. In culture Bernard Cornwell's Copperhead, the second installment of The Starbuck Chronicles, begins with the Battle of Ball's Bluff. The fictional Faulconer Legion is placed at the left flank of the Confederate position and led by Captain Starbuck's K Company, begins the rout of the Union forces. Geraldine Brooks' March, winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, also opens with the Battle of Ball's Bluff. Mr. March, the father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, is the chaplain serving with the Union army. Along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on the Maryland side, it was rumored that ghosts of departed soldiers from that battle, particularly those who drowned in one of the boats that sank in the Potomac River, haunted that area, so canal workers did not stay in that area overnight, and tied up their boats for the night elsewhere. The poem, "The Vacant Chair" was written by Henry S Washburn to commemorate the death of Lt. John William Grout of the 15th Massachusetts Infantry, who was killed at the Battle of Ball's Bluff. It was set to music by George F. Root and was popular in the North and South due to its universal message of loss. Notes References Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001, . Garrison, Webb Jr., Strange Battles of the Civil War, Cumberland House Publishing, 2001, . Winkler, H. Donald, Civil War Goats and Scapegoats, Cumberland House Publishing, 2008, . National Park Service battle summary CWSAC Report Update 150 Years Ago: Battle of Ball's Bluff Oct. 21, 1861 Ball's Bluff Ball's Bluff Confederate victories of the American Civil War Ball's Bluff Loudoun County in the American Civil War 1861 in the American Civil War 1861 in Virginia October 1861 events Leesburg, Virginia