USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 12
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Here was established Camp Alleghany, 9 miles from the Crabbottom. In Johnson's force were some Georgia troops, who keenly felt the severe winter weather of this mountain height. An attack was made on this position by Milroy, commanding a Federal force in the Greenbrier valley. Be- fore daybreak on December 12th, two columns each of 900 men, moved upon the Confederate camp. They failed to strike in unison, and were repulsed in detail by the 1400 de- fenders, each side losing about 140 men. For his success Johnson was given a vote of thanks by the Confederate Con- gress. He then strengthened his position and held it till the following April.
As the year 1861 drew toward its close, it brought out with increasing clearness a division of sentiment within Pen- dleton county. The county was disrupted as well as the state. There was an element squarely opposed to a new and peremptory call for Confederate recruits. It was found in neighborhoods in all three of the valleys, but was most pro- nounced in the districts of Union and Mill Run, especially the former. The situation was much the same as around Camp Al- leghany, where Johnson reported much Union sentiment, but also a disinclination to take up arms for either side. The re-
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sistance to Confederate enlistment on the part of these Pendle- ton people led them to organize under the West Virginia government into companies known officially as Home Guards, and in common usage as Swamp Dragons, or Swamps. These men were not enlisted Federal soldiers, though in effect they were Federal auxiliaries.
The general war between North and South was not prop- erly a civil war at all, although it is usually so termed. But the local hostilities which raged in Pendleton as in other counties along the border line were in the nature of true civil war with its unhappy result of a deep and lingering ill-feeling. It was war in a more terrible sense than in the case of coun- ties lying at a distance from the zone of fighting. Families as well as neighborhoods were divided, and the weakness of the civil power loosened the usual respect for law. Broad room was given for the display of private grudges and of personal cupidity. The families of the two factions continued to dwell side by side, and neighborly regard was not always sup- pressed by the division of sympathy. Yet there was an ex- treme tension, and in the inflammable state of the social at- mosphere this led quite inevitably to bushwhacking and to burning and pillage. With neighbor against neighbor, and with a paralysis of trade and industry, destitution hitherto un- known, began to appear in these valleys. The bullet from the rifle of a former neighbor was an almost constant peril, and as a place to sleep the screen of the brush was sometimes safer than the house.
In these pages there is no attempt to enumerate the de- tails of the guerrilla war in Pendleton. No good purpose could be served in doing so.
The government of Virginia, as it stood at the passing of the ordinance of secession, continued in force until the close of hostilities. But as the state was divided within itself, and as the views of the opposing sides were irreconcilable, the Union counties set up what became known as the Reorganized Government of Virginia, with its capital at Alexandria. Neither state government recognized the legitimacy of the other, and the line between their spheres of influence was defined by Federal and Confederate bayonets. The western counties now saw their chance to obtain statehood, and they pressed their claim with great vigor. The Reorganized Gov- ernment was entirely friendly to this purpose, because it rep- resented only 7 counties aside from the 48 of West Virginia. As a result of two conventions at Wheeling in May and June, the Reorganized Government passed a division ordinance, which was submitted to the people October 24, 1861, and carried by a vote of 18,408 to 781. A convention to frame a
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constitution met one month later, and the document it drew up was ratified April 3, 1862.
The boundary fixed by the division ordinance included Pendleton in the new state. Yet Pendleton remained within the Confederate lines, and a majority of its people adhered to the Richmond government. It was not represented in either of the Wheeling conventions, but in the constitutional convention John L. Boggs sat as a delegate for the Union ele- ment. The inclusion of Pendleton in the new state was a war measure, and was never submitted to a vote of the people. Even the vote on the constitution of 1862, repre- sented only about two-fifths of the whole voting population belonging to the western counties.
In 1862 the county court of Pendleton levied an appropria- tion of $300 for the benefit of the militia, and app inted one member from each district to apportion the fund, equally among the districts, and among the families, of those needing aid. The members of the committee were John E. Wilson, John Kiser, Salisbury Trumbo, Andrew W. Dyer, John W. Dolly, and Isaac Teter. The attention of the court was also called to an "inundation of spurious currency, which will soon depreciate and the poorer class will lose thereby." It decided that "the issue and circulation of county treas- ury notes will banish same and give a safer currency, and also enable the commissioners to realize a large amount of money upon the credit of our county." It further decided that the county bonds should be hereafter issued in denom- inations of $25, $20, $15, and $10, as occasion might require. Bonds of smaller values and also fractional currency were to be redeemable in these larger bonds.
In the spring of the same year Pendleton came within the theater of war in earnest. The first collision within its bor- ders of Federal and Confederate troops seems to have taken place at Riverton on the opening day of March. Lieuten- ant Weaver with 40 men of the Eighth Ohio advanced from Seneca, and had a skirmish in the Riverton gap with a Con- federate force composed of "Dixie Boys," a band of Pen- dleton infantry, and a troop of Rockbridge cavalry. The position of this force in the narrow defile was very strong. It was expected that the Dixie Boys from behind the cover of the rocks would repulse or at least check the Federals, and that the cavalry would then charge down upon them. Yet the cavalry retired without putting up any fight at all, and it is claimed that it made no pause until it reached Franklin. The infantry squad had to fall back, losing two of its number killed and several prisoners. Bland and Pow-
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ers, the two men killed, had lived in the near neighborhood. Weaver did not attempt to get far into Germany. He re- tired to the mouth of the Seneca, and camped there that night.
On the 18th of March the force under Johnson, counting the present and absent, was about 4000 men. He had five regiments of Virginians and one of Georgians. There were three batteries with 12 guns. The bulk of this force lay at Camp Alleghany, but there were outlying commands at Huntersville, Monterey. and Crabbottom. Of the several bodies of cavalry, one of 40 men was posted at Franklin. In the opening week of April the Federal activity in the direc- tion of Keyser induced Johnson to evacuate his mountain stronghold, and fall back behind the Shenandoah Mountain, his advance reaching West View, only seven miles from Staunton. This retrograde movement created somewhat of a panic at that place.
Milroy now crossed the Alleghanies, reaching Monterey about April 9th, after a march in bad weather. A number of refugees joined his column, in consequence of a call for new recruits for the Confederate army. May 1st he was at Mc- Dowell. A strong force under Fremont was advancing from Keyser to the support of Milroy. Schenck with the advance of this army marched rapidly up the South Branch and joined Milroy on the 8th. Fremont with the rest of the column reached Petersburg on the afternoon of the 7th.
Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson was executing one of his swift movements. He left Ewell at Swift Run Gap, marched a large force to Mechum's River. and conveyed it by rail to Staunton. He was there joined by his trains and artillery. On the 5th he advanced to the aid of Johnson, who had faced about, driving Milroy's advance parties from Shenandoah Mountain on the 6th. Two days later he occupied the long Sitlington Hill, two miles east of McDowell. Here was fought in the closing hours of daylight the action known as the battle of McDowell.
It is claimed that it was not Jackson's purpose to bring on a battle, if, without fighting, he could push back the Federal force from its threatening position on the flank of the Shen- andoah Valley. The engagement was fought on the Confed- erate side under the immediate command of Johnson, who was desirous of coming to blows. His opponent, Milroy, was more brave and pugnacious than skillful. Schenck did not think the Confederate position on the crest of the steep hill could be taken, but as Milroy had prepared to fight he left the matter with him. From his position on a ridge toward the Bullpasture river, Milroy shelled the opposing height, a
O
A GROUP OF REVOLUTIONARY RELICS .- Phot'd by W. S. Dunkle. Flintlock muskets and holster pistol, officer's sword, smallsword, and cedar canteen from the collection of H. M. Calhoun. The smallsword was found in the bed of the South Branch.
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compliment to which Johnson was unable to reply, his artil- lery not having come up. After skirmishing as well as shell- ing, Milroy advanced to the attack at five o'clock. The fighting was close and bloody and continued four hours. At times the Federals almost gained the crest. But the posi- tion was too strong and too well defended to be taken and the Federals were driven back. During the night they buried their dead and fell back on McDowell. Jackson had arrived on the ground, and his artillery was in position for a renewal of the fight at daybreak. The cadets of the Virginia Military Institute were with the reenforcing column. but ar- rived too late for the battle and the only injury they sus- tained was the ruin of their fine clothes.
The Confederate force engaged at McDowell is said to have been about 6000 strong. The Federal force was prob- ably somewhat larger. Despite the advantage of position the Southern loss appears to have been the heavier. The victory cost 499 men. Among the wounded was Johnson himself, and among the dead were a number of Pendleton soldiers.
Schenck, in command of the Federals, retreated by way of Straight Creek and the South Branch. arriving at Camp Mil- roy, two miles south of Franklin on the morning of the 10th. Here he camped with two brigades, waiting to be joined by Blenker, who reached Franklin the next day, but with his men too fatigued to move farther. This force had been on the road since three o'clock in the morning. Schenck thought Jackson would move on Philippi. But with his usual vigor, that general marched in direct pursuit of Schenck, moving down the valley as far as McCoy's mill. Schenck fell back on Franklin, posting himself on the ridge above the town. There was skirmishing all day, but with trifling loss to either side.
Leaving a small force to keep up a noisy demonstration on the Federal front, Jackson made a rapid return to the Shen- andoah Valley, where he soon again confronted the Federals at Port Republic. On the 12th, Schenck was doubting whether the whole of Jackson's army was before him. He suspected an attempt to turn his right flank, and was all the more of this opinion when scouts told him they heard the rumbling of wheels. A few days passed, Fremont in com- mand of the whole Federal army was not molested, and then came the tidings that Jackron was again in the Shenandoah. Being ordered in the same direction, Fremont marched down the South Branch to Moorefield, and thence across the moun- tains to Strasburg.
While the Federal army was in camp around the county
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seat, the townspeople were treated with a reasonable degree of consideration. except in certain commands, where the offi- cers did not have a firm control over their soldiers. There was a scarcity of provisions and forage to supply a host per- haps equal to the whole population of the valley. The grist- mills near by were pressed into service to grind what grain could be had, and the brick tannery of John McClure was torn down to make bake-ovens for the camp. The county was never again visited by a numerous force, whether Fed- eral or Confederate.
In the third year of the war the loss of its foreign com- merce through the rigorous blockade of the seaports was al- ready causing great hardship throughout the South. The legislature appropriated $32.000 to provide a supply of salt. A levy of 200 bushels a month for 12 months was made upon the salt-works of the state. Benjamin Hiner was appointed agent for Pendleton, and Jacob Dove and E. W. Boggs were made salt distributors. Persons of little or no property were to receive not over 30 per cent of a share. The ratio was to rise with people better situated, until it reached 75 per cent. The surplus was to go to people of still more property. The standard allowance was 12 pounds to each family and 2 pounds to each horse. The distributors were required to take the oath or affidavit of any applicant as to his loyalty, the number of persons in his family, and the number of his stock. The county court appropriated $300 for the purchase of salt, and later a levy of $3000 was made for this purpose. At the close of the year the county agent was authorized to borrow $3400 for the purchase of salt, the loan to be replaced when the salt was sold.
David C. Anderson was appointed to visit the Southern mills and buy cotton yarn and cloths for the needs of the people. For the aid of the destitute $300 was voted at the levy term, and the capitation tax was raised by one dollar to relieve the poor. In December, Edward J. Coatney was ap- pointed bv Act of Assembly to attend to the wants of the destitute families of soldiers. At the last term of the year the magistrates were instructed to report at the following term the number and names of indigents. They brought in the names of 53 families, and on their behalf Coatney was authorized to borrow on the credit of the county a sum of not more than $2000.
At the opening of 1864 the county court adjourned to the Vint schoolhouse and then to a private house. Only three members were present. Another session was to meet at the same schoolhouse. "providing the presence of the public enemy prevents its meeting at the courthouse." Owing to
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the insecurity of the Franklin jail, use was now made of the one at Staunton. In October the jail was burned by the Home Guards, so that it might not hold any more of their number taken captive.
In 1864 the stagnation of industry and commerce had made the distress of the South very severe. Prices were soaring skyward. In the summer wheat was worth $30 a bushel at Staunton and a lady's dress cost $400. The number of the destitute in Pendleton continued to grow. At the May term Coatney was ordered for the relief of indigents to impress an amount of grain and meat to the value of not over $5000 at any one time. His bond was placed at $10,000. In June it was ordered that the outstanding notes in the hands of Benjamin Hiner be collected, signed by the county clerk in Hiner's name, and placed with Coatney for the benefit of the indigents. An additional amount was to be borrowed to make a total of not more than $10.000.
John E Wilson, appointed agent by the legislature, was authorized to borrow on the credit of the county a sum not to exceed $5000 at any one time, and with such fund to purchase and distribute cotton, cotton yarns, cotton cloths, and hand cards. Receiving families were classified in five grades. Wilson was also bonded in the sum of $10,000, and was al- lowed $5 a day for his services.
The county levy, now in the depreciated Confederate cur- rency, was placed at $5203.50. A tax of two per cent on land was ordered collected, according to the assessment of 1860; also a tax of one dollar on each $300 of personal property, according to the assessment of the current year.
There were several raids into the county this year. During the first week of March 400 men of the 12th New York Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Root destroyed the salt- peter works above Franklin, and proceeded to Circleville, but without meeting an enemy. In May the county seat being threatened the court adjourned to the Kiser schoolhouse. On the 18th of August, the 8th West Virginia moved up the North Fork and a battalion up the South Fork. The next day Averill moved nearly to Franklin with the 3d West Vir- ginia, the 14th Pennsylvania, and Ewing's battery. His ob- ject was to finish the destruction of the saltpeter works.
February 9. 1865, the sheriff was "notified to have the courthouse windows returned and replaced, the house cleaned, and if Imboden's wagon train be not removed from the court- house yard, it will be moved by him. Soldiers who will pledge their honor that they will not in any way deface the property belonging to the courthouse will be allowed the privileges heretofore granted them."
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April 6th a settlement with the sheriff was reported. It was the last session of the county court under the laws of Virginia. As the war proceeded the terms had grown in- frequent, and in the territory controled by the Home Guards the county government was little heeded. Three days later came the surrender at Appomattox. Fighting now ceased, and Pendleton emerged from the cyclone of war as one of the counties of West Virginia.
The earnestness and the sacrificing spirit of the Pendleton people in these four years of trial may be read in the very large number of soldiers it sent into the Confederate army, even allowing for that share of its people who joined the Home Guard movement. There were few men and grown boys who did not choose one side or the other. Boys too young at the outset of the war were enrolled at its close in the Frank- lin Reserves, although the old soldiers with their rough and ready wit dubbed them by a rather coarse epithet. The gray- bearded reserves were known by them as the "groundhog battery." Men detailed for labor in the saltpeter caverns were known as the "peter-monkeys."
In general the Pendletonian was true to the convictions formed during the spring of 1861. yet there was an occasional instance where the individual abandoned the first choice and transferred his allegiance to the other side.
CHAPTER XV
Recent Period
No state suffered more severely from the effects of the four years war than the Old Dominion. The share of this county in the general devastation was probably not below the aver- age. The returning soldiers came back to farms that bore deep traces of long neglect, and to homes that had been plun- dered from garret to cellar. The number of domestic animals had become small, and it was no easy matter to find enough wearing apparel to serve for everyday needs. There was little rsoney in circulation and little to sell. The only money of purchasing power was the slender amount of specie that had come through the war and the paper currency of the vic- torious North. Added to these results and to the disorganiz- ation of civil authority, the fortune of war had detached the county from Virginia, and had included it with no expression of its own opinion in the new state of West Virginia. It was necessary to learn wherein the administration of the new state differed from that of the old.
In one respect the county had an advantage over most Southern communities. There had been very few slaves. The people were accustomed to helping themselves. In the labor situation there was consequently no material change. The ex-soldiers went manfully to work to repair the damages of war and to get back as soon as possible to something like their material condition at the outset of the struggle. That they succeeded may be read in the books of the assessor for 1860 and 1868. The taxable value of the real estate and buildings of the county rose from $1,064,994 to $1,187,987.
By becoming a part of West Virginia Pendleton was spared the direct experience of going through the reconstruction un- dergone by the seceding states. Yet for six years there was a transition period of somewhat similar tendency so far as the ex-Confederate minority was concerned. Those who had borne arms against the Federal government were de- barred the full exercise of their privileges of citizenship. To see the right to vote and hold office withheld from them- selves, and the affairs of the county conducted by that minor- ity of the people who had espoused the Home Guard move- ment was very irritating, even to the one who was ready and willing to accept the results of the war.
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This was not all. The constitution of 1862 was the work of an actual minority of the people whom the close of hos- tilities found living in West Virginia. In forming and organ- izing the new state the influence of the Northern Panhandle had been exceedingly powerful. But this tongue of land, though wealthy and populous, contains only two per cent of the area of the state. As a portion, first of Virginia and then of West Virginia, the Panhandle has been a geographic absurdity. It serves to show how little respect geographic law has for arbitrary lines. The Panhandle is naturally a part of either Pennsylvania or Ohio, and to this day its people do not take their political connection with West Vir- ginia seriously. In the interest of preserving its unity, Vir- ginia would have done well to cede it to either of those states.
Being in accord with the Ohio people except in the fact of political connection, the Panhandle influence followed the Ohio model in framing a new constitution and new laws. But to a decided majority of the West Virginia people many of the changes were a broader departure than they were ready to take at a single step. These points of difference were alien to their modes of thought and consequently displeasing. One of the changes in county government was that of sup- planting the County Clerk with a Recorder and the County Court with a Board of Supervisors.
Soon after the close of the war, William H. H. Flick, an Ohioan by birth and a Federal soldier, settled at Franklin as a lawyer and was chosen to the state legislature. Though standing for men, principles, and political opinions that most of the people he had come among had opposed, Flick was of liberal views. He saw the plain injustice in withholding in- definitely from a large class of West Virginia people the full rights of citizenship. The general result of the war being settled beyond cavil, these disabilities stood in the way of a restoration of good feeling. The state was being ruled by a class and not by its citizens as a whole. It had need of the experience and the cooperation of those it was discriminat- ing against.
While in the legislature Flick introduced and secured the passage of a measure known to history as the "Flick amend- ment," whereby the disabilities of the ex-Confederates were removed. This act of justice endeared him to the Pendle- tonians. His erstwhile foes named their sons for him, and they scratched the ticket of their preference in order to support him with their votes.
A prompt effect of the amendment was a political revolu- tion in the state. A majority of the previous voters had supported the Republican party, and that organization had
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thus far controled the state. The names restored to the polling list were almost exclusively Democratic. The Repub- lican party at once went out of power, and for 22 years the dominance of its rival was unshaken. Another result was the constitution of 1872. In this instrument the innovations of the war constitution were largely thrown aside, and the old names and usages were restored. In their haste to get rid of the things they disliked, the framers no doubt re- jected some features which were intrinsically better than the older ones they put back. They threw aside a constitutional garment really good, but to themselves ill-fitting. They put on a constitutional garment more comfortable to wear.
If the new constitution and the new state administration seemed reactionary, it was none the less a proof that the normal method of progress is by steps and not by leaps. If the unfamiliar names and terms of the discarded constitution were put away with scant ceremony, it was because of their unpleasant associations during the half dozen years that the disfranchised citizens were chafing under the illiberal re- strictions imposed upon them.
The political revolution presented the apparently singular spectacle of the state becoming an asset for more than 20 years of the "solid South." The ex-Confederate element came into control of the Democratic party of the state, and thus gave to West Virginia its political complexion. Yet the West Virginia of 1872 was simply the sort of state it would have been had it peacefully separated from the parent state prior to 1860. As a whole it was another Kentucky, not an- other Pennsylvania or Ohio. It had been an artificial rather than a natural process which had created West Virginia in 1861-3, and given it the administration of its first ten years of independent statehood. The new commonwealth had now the laws and administration which reflected the prevailing sentiment of its people, and the counties which were arbi- trarily incorporated with West Virginia were now in a fair way to become much better reconciled to their new alle- giance. The political revolution of 1872 did not and could not check the steadily growing economic revolution, which through the peaceful processes of time changed the industrial character of the state and brought back the Republican party.
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