USA > Ohio > The Twelfth Ohio cavalry; a record of its organization, and services in the war of the rebellion, together with a complete roster of the regiment > Part 6
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The retreat having been determined on, the division was placed under command of General E. H. Hobson, a faithful, gallant officer, who at once prepared to withdraw the troops as secretely as possible, and retire with all possible promptness by the same road which had been followed in coming to Vir- ginia. It may be proper to state in this connection, that Gen- eral Hobson performed the difficult task of retiring a defeated
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army from the face of an enemy in a manner that made him thenceforward a great favorite with every man in the division.
Colonel Harson had been brought back and was thought to be dying, the wounded were being carried down from the hill on the left where the Fourth Brigade had suffered, and every house within two miles of the field had been converted into a hospital. As night came on huge fires were kindled along the entire front to give the appearance of a bivouac, and behind the glare of these lights the regiments fell back noiselessly to their horses, mounted in silence, and with heavy hearts began the return march to Kentucky. The expedition had failed, and failed so disastrously that the assailants could consider them- selves fortunate if allowed to escape. That we should do this seemed for some hours extremely uncertain. Five miles to the rear of our battle ground was the gap or pass through the mountains which we had won the day before, and here during the battle of Sunday a party of rebels had been at work, cutting away the narrow road which led along the hillside. Returning thither in our retreat on Sunday night, we found the road en- tirely gone for several yards, and in its place a chasm which not even a mule could traverse. For a moment it seemed that Burbridge and his division were caught in a trap from which escape was impossible. Not a moment was to be lost. Within a few minutes ten or fifteen rods of rail fence had found a place in the chasm. Two stacks of wheat which had stood across the creek followed; then the earth flew briskly from a hundred spades, and within an hour the head of the column passed the crevasse and marched rapidly towards safety. But under the hur- rying tread of a legion of heavy feet the fresh earth and sheaves of wheat which had been thrown into the chasm rapidly wore away, and before half the column had crossed the place was again impassable. Again and again the treacherous footing was repaired, and it was not until after dawn that the Twelfth Ohio, which guarded the rear, was fairly over. Just before morning the two worthless little mountain howitzers, which had been so fatally in the way since leaving Lexington, came to
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the crevasse, and being unable to cross, met at last a well de- served fate. By General Hobson's order, sledges were brought from a blacksmith shop, and the "Jackass Battery" received its final quietus. As the rear squadron of the Twelfth crossed the chasm the head of the column was going into camp twenty- six miles away, and the belated rear guard galloped briskly for- ward to overtake the main body.
Our escape had not been a moment too soon. The rebel cavalry brigade, sent around during the night to hold the gap in our rear and make our capture still more certain, came to the breach we had repaired only half an hour after the rear guard had passed it ; and the same force sent by a wide detour to again intercept us many miles to the west, arrived only in time for a brief skirmish with our rear. A second halt at the Bowen plantation, and a brief rest by daylight prepared us for the long march along Louisa Fork to Kentucky-and by the morning of Tuesday the whole command was well out of danger. Once fairly across Sand Mountain and in possession of the river road, there were no parallel paths by which a force could get past us to make a stand in our front. As the rear of the col- umn was descending from Sand Mountain, the Eleventh Mich- igan Cavalry (rear guard of the column) was fiercely assailed by a large concealed force, and its commanding officer, Colonel James B. Mason, killed. The Michigan men replied with spirit, and being quickly reenforced by the Second Battalion of the Twelfth, under Captain A. A. Monroe, drove the rebels ·back; and this was the last that we saw of any organized enemy on the expedition.
.It was on this morning that Generals Burbridge and Mc- Lean, feeling that their immediate presence was demanded at Lexington, left the column under General Hobson, to follow on as rapidly as possible, and, pushing forward with an escort of one squadron, by forced marches reached Prestonburg on the afternoon of the third day after the battle. Thence they pro- ceeded to Cincinnati by steamer, and reached Lexington on the evening of Sunday, October 9th.
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On the evening after the attack at Sand Mountain, General Hobson, fearing a still further pursuit, planned a ruse to retard the advance of his pursuers. Detaching a regiment from the head of the column, he set its men to work building numerous fires, as though for a camp. Within half an hour a thousand bonfires were lighting up the narrow little farm that lay along the lonely valley. The enemy was either deceived bv the trick or had abandoned the pursuit for other reasons, and we saw no more of them. . Then pushing forward as rapidly as the ex- hausted condition of his horses would permit, General Hobson with the main column reached Prestonburgh on the sixth .day after the battle. .
The loss of the Twelfth Ohio in the repulse at Saltville amounted to forty-nine men. including Captain Sells of Com- pany "D," and Captain Degenfeld of Company "I." Both these officers were left with the other wounded, under charge of Assistant Surgeon Hunt, and fell into the hands of Brecken- ridge. They witnessed the horrible butchery of the negro wounded which took place the morning after the battle, and were both present in the hospital near the field when Champ Ferguson, the prince of guerrillas, entered and murdered in his bed, a wounded Lieutenant of the Thirteenth Kentucky Regiment whom he had known previous to the war. Ferguson was also determined to murder Captain Degenfeld, by whom he had been chased several months before. He demanded Captain Degenfeld and Colonel Hanson of the hospital author- ities but not knowing the former by sight, passed him without recognition, and before the opportunity returned again the two intended victims had been slipped away into another building by the hospital authorities, where procuring the assistance of Major Springfield, of the Eighteenth Virginia, . they were able to defend their wards against the marauder. , The Colonel and Captain Degenfeld were soon after transfer- red to Libby Prison. Some of the wounded and prisoners of the Twelfth Ohio were sent to Richmond, whence such as lived were afterwards exchanged, and others remained in hospital
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and were rescued by their comrades during the more success- ful raid of the following winter. The loss of Burbridge's di- vision was perhaps five hundred, a loss which was repaid by no corresponding advantage gained to the Union cause. The di- version of Early's brigade from the Shenandoah Valley just in · time to weaken the rebel army in that quarter for the decisive victory of Sheridan at Winchester, may nave been a result of our raid, but it had no other weight in the general scale.
It was during the return of the division from Virginia that . Captain Mason, of Squadron "L," was captured by a guerilla squad under the notorious " Pete Everett." The captain was on detached duty as topographer and aid to General McLean, commanding the division, and had returned with that officer and General Burbridge via Cincinnati to Lexington. Procur- ing a week's leave previous to the return of his regiment he started, by rail, on the second morning of his arrival at Lexing- ton, for Ohio. Within a few miles of the city, the train was thrown from the track, and the entire party being unarmed, and without even the pretence of a guard, fell into the hands of the guerilla. Every one was robbed and stripped in the good old Confederate fashion, the train was burned, the civilians set at liberty to make the best of their way back to Lexington, and the unfortunate captain mounted upon a stolen horse, to make again the long, weary mountain journey to Virginia. Following the secret paths which the rebels knew so well. the little party traveled rapidly by night, and lay con- cealed by day, and, on the sixth morning after the capture, reached Abingdon, Va., two hundred miles from Lexington, and safe within the Confederate lines. There it was learned that "Pete Everett's prisoner" had figured in the recent raid of Burbridge, and the proposal to hang him to the nearest tree met with much warm support from the Virginians of that region whose fences and poultry had suffered most from the raiders. Everett, who by this time had become interested in his prisoner, resisted all such demands stoutly, and spirited his captive away in the night to Wytheville, the headquarters of General Breckinridge, from whence he was sent, a few weeks
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after, to Richmond, and given to the keeping of Libby Prison. For months it was supposed that Captain Mason had been murdered subsequent to his capture, and it was not until his exchange at Annapolis, the following year, that even his rela- tives were assured that he was alive.
The Twelfth Ohio heard of the capture of the train while at Mount Sterling, on its way back from Virginia, and made some little effort to intercept Everett; but the attempt failed, and the regiment, returning to Lexington, encamped on the Versailles road four miles west of the city. Two hundred of the regiment whose horses were broken down before reaching Prestonburg, had come by steamer down the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers, now rejoined their comrades in camp, and the regiment again set about re-organizing for the work of the winter.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST STONEMAN RAID.
DURING the month of comparative quiet which fol- lowed the events described in the preceding chapter, the Twelfth Ohio lay in camp at Lexington, where it received a further installment of pay, and shared in the re-election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. Its season of rest was abruptly broken just before mid-day on the 10th of November, by an order to march instantly to Richmond. The men were to go in light fighting trim, for an enemy would probably be met before Richmond could be reached. Within two hours the regiment was on its way, moving rapidly out the Richmond road. The Kentucky river was reached soon after dusk, and the ferrying of the men and horses proved so te- dious a task that Richmond was not seen until five o'clock the next morning. The town was approached and surrounded, but it was a water haul ; the citizens were all peacefully sleeping ; no enemy was there. Encamping the regiment on the east side of the town, Major Herrick, then in command, sent scouting parties out in all directions, but failed to develop any force worthy of notice. After a few days of this fruitless campaign- ing, there came another order directing the regiment to march at once to Crab Orchard, leaving behind everything but
arms, clothing and ammunition. From these specifications it was at once and correctly inferred that another grand raid was contemplated. That such was the case could no longer be doubted after the Twelfth had arrived at Crab Orchard and found there the mounted regiments of Burbridge's command
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concentrating at the same point, all in the light marching order that soldiers so soon learn to recognize as indicative of serious work. The command assembled at Crab Orchard embraced two brigades ; the first of which was made up of the Twelfth Ohio and Eleventh Michigan, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Kentucky Cavalry. The entire force amounted to forty-four hundred men. On the 18th, Lieut. Col. Bentley arrived and took command of the Twelfth, and two days after the division set out for Cumberland Gap. Winter had set in with extraor- dinary rigor, and the prospect of a six weeks expedition with- out tents was by no means reassuring. For two days the com- mand marched through a furious storm of snow and freezing rain, and on the morning of the 25th reached Barboursville. It was Thanksgiving day, and the officers of the Twelfth were so fortunate as to be entertained at a Thanksgiving dinner by a prominent citizen of the place, the last civilized meal they were destined to share until a new year had dawned. The weather was still terribly severe; the bad roads had made the movement of the guns very slow, keeping the cavalry waiting many weary hours in the road when they should have been in camp. During the hasty bivouac improvised from time to time during the night, as the column halted, little comfort or rest was to be secured ; the keen wind and sleet freezing the boots and talmas of the sleepers to the ground during the progress of a half hour's nap. Through these discomforts the division pushed on, forded the Cumberland River, and arrived on the 26th at Cumberland Gap. . At this point two days were spent in perfecting the equipment of the men. Arms were in- spected, old weapons turned over, and blankets issued where needed. On the evening of the 28th, all being in readiness, the division, under command of Gen. Burbridge, moved southward through Tazewell, swam the swollen Clinch River under a hot fire from a force of three hundred rebels who had taken posi- tion at the ford with a view to prevent our crossing, and on the - fourth day reached Bean's Station, a point on the main road from Knoxville to Virginia, and about eighty miles from the form-
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er place. At Bean's Station, Burbridge was met by Gen. Stone- man, commanding the department of East Tennessee, with Gen. A. C. Gillem's brigade, comprising the Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth regiments of Tennessee Cavalry, all veteran organiza- tions, reduced by long service to about six hundred men each, and giving an aggregate brigade strength of less than two thou- sand men. Immediately upon our arrival at Bean's Station, Gen. Stoneman assumed chief command, and it became evident that the objective point was still Saltville, Virginia. What Stone- man and Burbridge had both attempted and failed to accom- plish separately, they were now to undertake jointly, and the soldiers of both commands, feeling that they should never have any peace until Saltville was destroyed, were glad to find them- selves so well supported, and so likely to make the present effort a successful one. From Bean's Station the Twelfth Ohio was sent thirty miles eastward to Rogersville on a reconnoisance to look after Basil Duke, who, with the re- organized troopers of Morgan, (who had himself been killed at Greenville, Tennessee, a month previous,) was hovering about North-eastern Tennessee, doing what little lay in his way for the languishing cause of the Confederacy. Half way to Rogersville, the Twelfth dashed into Mooresburgh, stampeding a rebel cavalry picket, and capturing the captain commanding and half-a-dozen of his men. This picket was ascertained to belong to the cavalry brigade of Vaughan, the main mounted rebel force of the department of East Tennessee and Western Virginia, commanded by Lieut .- General Breckenridge, with headquarters at Wytheville, Va. Vaughan was at Wilmington, and in chasing his pickets to Rogersville, the Twelfth had made a bold raid in his rear. The fifteen mile chase from Mooresburgh to Rogersville was an exciting one, Lieutenant James Thompson, of Squadron "G," leading the way, and overhauling, single-handed, such of the rebel troopers as were mounted on horses less fleet than his own. Reaching Rogers- ville soon after dark, the Twelfth spent an hour in making inquiries, but hearing of no important force in that region set out, after an hour's delay, on its return to Bean's Station.
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During this return march, the regiment, just before midnight, passed a stretch of road which for some distance follows closely the margin of the Holston river. At this point Colonel Bentley heard of the brigade of Duke, on the opposite side of the stream, and, from all accounts, moving in the direction of Bean's Station. He at once sent couriers to warn Stoneman of this, and, continuing his own march until three or four o'clock in the morning, suddenly met the entire column, under Stoneman and Gillem, coming out from Bean's Station. After a brief consultation with Colonel Bentley, Stoneman counter- marched his column, and all returned to camp at Bean's Station. Shortly afterwards the Twelfth Ohio was sent southward to Marshall's Ferry on the Holston, where it remained two or three days as if expecting an attack from beyond the river. No enemy coming, however, the troops finally returned to Bean's Station, where they found the First and Second Reg- iments of Ohio Heavy Artillery under General Ammen, who had come up from Knoxville and Strawberry Plains to assist in the campaign. The cavalry was advantageously disposed about Bean's Station and set to build rifle pits for defense. Here ra- tions were issued, inspection made by General Stoneman's aides, and on the 12th of December the entire cavalry force, six thousand men in all, broke camp and marched rapidly towards Virginia, passing through Mooresburgh, Rogersville and New Canton, and reached Kingsport on the morning of the 15th. Here Duke's entire command was encountered, oc- cupying the town and stubbornly disputing the passage of the river. General Gillem was at once sent with his brigade two miles up the stream, where he crossed and came down into the town, taking Duke by the flank and rear. Meanwhile the re- mainder of the command had brought up its two howitzers and shelled across the river with sufficient effect to drive the enemy from the shore, when the column, led by the Twelfth Ohio, charged across, galloping through water nearly girth deep. Scampering up the bank, Burbridge's column assailed Duke with the sabre, and, Gillem coming up that moment on his flank, the rebel gave way and was chased five or six miles,
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losing twenty or thirty killed, many prisoners, including Colonel Dick Morgan-in temporary command of the entire force-and his entire baggage train, embracing a large number of wagons laden with supplies which Morgan was convoying from the rich valleys of East Tennessee into war-worn Virginia. The Confederate stores at Kingsport being all captured and destroyed, the command galloped on via Scottsville towards Bristol. The column marched rapidly till late in the evening when it halted and went into camp, the men comforting them- selves with what seemed a good prospect for a night's rest. As usual, however, the delusion lasted but an hour, when the bugles again blew to horse, and in twenty minutes the column was driving ahead toward Bristol, an important town directly on the line dividing Virginia and Tennessee. Reaching the vicinity of the place shortly after midnight, a line was formed across the road and a formal advance made upon the post, at which, as a vast amount of supplies were known to be stored, . a stubborn resistance, was expected. On the contrary, the defeat of Duke's command at Kingsport had apparently been unheard of, at least it was not regarded possible that Stoneman contemplated a further irruption into the Department of Gen- eral Breckenridge, and the surprise at Bristol was complete. The advance guard rode boldly into the sleeping town, the column came clattering after and Bristol was taken without firing a shot.
An incident occurred here which, as it illustrates pretty accurately the genuine fibre of the Morgan chivalry, may per- haps be related. A Major of the Twelfth Ohio, accompanied by his orderly, rapped at the door of a fine residence and asked if there were any soldiers concealed within. The ladies were all smiles, but none the less certain that no Confederate was then beneath their,roof. Seeing was believing to the Major, who with more of an eye to business than gallantry, insisted on looking through the rooms. The ladies were willing, and gaily led the way from room to room until they at length reached a door, leading they said to the apartment of a deceased grand-
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father, which had been held sacred from intrusion since the demise of that lamented relative. Any one but a "Lincoln hire- ling" would of course have been satisfied with this explanation, but the Major, still relentless, insisted on looking in. He had never seen one of those sacred, haunted apartments so prevalent in novels, and he longed to see one just for a minute. The ladies protested, the Major insisted, and finally trying the door and finding it locked, lifted an outside window and entered. A small door leading apparently into a closet in one corner of the room attracted the Major's attention, and he began tugging at
the knob. Something beyond held the opposite knob very firmly, but the Yankee persevered and finally wrenched the door open, disclosing two full grown rebels, one a Lieuten- ant, armed cap-a-pic, but very harmless and anxious to surrender. The Major had a revolver in his pocket, but was otherwise unarmed. He quietly gathered the weapons of his prisoners, and handed them over to his orderly outside the window, as candidates for Johnson's Island.
Four hundred Confederates were thus gathered from the houses and barns, and the entire depot of commissary and ordnance stores, many railroad cars and locomotives, fell into the hands of Stoneman. Among the other trophies here were several millions in Confederate money, the main Treasury of the government, as it afterward proved, which had been sent from Richmond, to what was considered a place of greater safety. The soldiers carried off large bun- dles of the money in their haversacks, and the rest was destroyed. One waggish trooper from Squadron "E," of the Twelfth, made a poor old negro woman happy by purchasing fifteen hundred dollars worth of her peach pies, honey, calico dresses, and native leaf tobacco, and then solemnly endowing her with twenty-four thousand dollars and his blessing. But it , was in the destruction of the vast stores of corn and pork gathered from Tennessee for the support of Breckinridge's army, that the fullest value of the victory was realized. The loss of these supplies made the Department of Western Virginia no longer tenable for an army, and had Stoneman returned
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from Bristol to Knoxville without firing another shot, he would have compelled the evacuation of that entire region. The corn and meat were the gleanings of a vast district, when they were gone there was nothing more to be gathered. But the raid was as yet only begun. After a day of rain and mud at Bristol, the column, soon after nightfall, started south- eastward to Zollicoffer, there to intersect the eastern road lead- ing northward to Abingdon, and to attack Vaughan, who was understood to be in force at that point. Vaughan had fled toward Abingdon, whither Burbridge at once followed. All night through the rain and darkness the column pushed on, verbal orders being shouted constantly back and forth along the line to insure its keeping "closed up," and on the right road. By some unfortunate chance a false order was sent along the column, directing all members of the Twelfth Ohio, whose horses could not make a twenty mile gallop, to return to Bris- tol. Some two hundred of the regiment obeyed the order and returned, whence they could not again overtake the column, and were retained to guard the prisoners already captured. This mishap reduced the regiment to only about four hundred men at a time when it needed its full strength ; and the men so detached did not regain their companies until a month after- ward at Lexington. Nevertheless the column pushed on and soon after midnight encountered a strong rebel picket, stationed half a mile from Abingdon. A sharp fire brought the advanc- ing column to a halt. General Stoneman, riding in the rear of a Kentucky regiment which led the advance, ordered its Colo- nel to charge immediately into the town. The Colonel remon- strated a moment, the darkness was blinding, he knew nothing of the ground, and was sure that he would encounter a stub- born resistance. Just at this moment Lieut. Nelson Holt- commanding Squadron " F," Twelfth Ohio, as escort to Gen- eral Burbridge-hearing the conversation, asked permission to lead the charge upon the town with his company. Consent was granted, Holt gave his men the word, and away they went, the Squadron swooping down upon the pickets, driving them out of the road and rattling on at full gallop into Abingdon. In
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the encounter with the picket Lieut. Holt was shot through the arm and had his skull fractured by a clubbed musket in the hands of a Confederate, and Orderly Sergeant Sherburne fell at the same moment by a shot fired at short range. Both were taken to a house near by, where Sherburne died shortly afterward, but the Lieutenant recovered and was finally paroled and sent home maimed for life. The column at once followed the dar- ing lead of Company "F," and in twenty minutes the conquest of Abingdon was complete. A large number of officers on court martial and other post duty were captured, and the build- ings and stores of an important garrison were destroyed. Leav- ing a regiment to complete the work of destruction, Gen. Stone- man, after half an hour's halt at Abingdon, pushed on toward Marion, thirty-eight miles farther eastward, and, like Bristol and Abingdon, on the line of the Tennessee and Virginia rail- road.
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