USA > West Virginia > Braxton County > History of Braxton County and central West Virginia > Part 17
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The Pringles and Simpsons came to this territory about the year 1765, followed later by the Jacksons, Hackers, Hughs, Cartrights, Hefners and others. These settlements were made about ten years before the Revolutionary war began.
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At the time of the war of 1812, the territory now embraced in Braxton county belonged to the counties of Harrison and Kanawha, and was very sparse- ly settled, and we have no account of any organization being made up from this section.
We have received a few names of soldiers, either residents at the time or became so later. Andrew Skidmore, a soldier of the Revolution was buried in the Skidmore cemetery at Sutton; his grave is marked by a plain cut stone. Martin Delany, soldier of the Revolution, served in Penna. line, died near the mouth of Birch river in 1837. Joseph Carpenter, buried on the Westfork of Little Kanawha river. Jacob Fisher of Hardy county, Virginia, lived with William Cutlip on Holly river in 1840; was a pensioner of the Revolution. Jeremiah Carpenter, buried at Union Mills. Benjamin Carpenter was buried at the mouth of Holly river.
SOLDIERS OF THE WAR OF 1812.
Nicholas Gibson, Jacob Rose, buried on Birch, Peter Cogar, buried on Elk river, John Shawver, buried at High Knob, was a pensioner, Isaac Gregory, William Hamrie, Benjamin Hamric, they were likely buried in Webster county, John Kyer, Jacob Cogar, Daniel Matheny, Thomas Cogar, George McElwaine, buried on Laurel creek, James Miller, Thomas Belknap, Robert Chenoweth, Elijah Squires, buried at Flatwoods, Lewis Berry, buried on Kanawha, Andrew Skidmore, buried on Elk, Jesse Carico, Jesse Clifton, buried on Holly, Andrew P. Friend, buried on Elk, Samuel Skidmore, buried at Union Mills, Jesse Cun- ningham, buried on the waters of the Westfork, John D. Sutton, who was ap- pointed Adjutant of a regiment at Norfork, buried at Sutton, James P. Carr, buried near Belfont; his father James P. Carr was a soldier of the Revolution and was buried in Greenbrier county, Virginia.
In the Mexican war we find the names of Edgar Haymond and his brother Alfred from Braxton county, enlisting in the 11th U. S. Infantry. Alfred died while in the service, and Edgar shortly after his return. Ballard Wyatt and Elwin Morrison, Jaeoh and Isaac Evans enlisted, but their regiment was not called into service.
MILITARY.
There was a time in the history of the country when a young and stal- wart Nation looked upon her heroes and national defenders with admiration and delight. The men who fought at Lexington and Concord and whose suffer- ings at Valley Forge were unequalled and had no parallel in the annals of war- fare, were the heroes wherever the people gathered together.
These men who made our free government a possibility, passed away one by one, while a grateful people cast flowers in their pathway and wept at their departure.
A half century ago a great army was made necessary to preserve what they had gained. Through four years of battle, the severest of the world's history ; through swamps and prison pens, these men endured that the flag might not
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perish from the earth. But time is doing her work. The ranks are being thin- ned. Fifty years of toil, of wound and disease have transformed the once young, strong and powerful to the decrepid and aged. Once these tottering veterans whom we now see, marched like giants to the battle. Their hearts swelled with emotion when the drum beat and the flag was unfurled.
A few more years, and these grand old men will not be in our midst. As they pass by, let us take off our hats for they are "heroes forever."
WEST VIRGINIA IN THE REVOLUTION.
The territory of the present State of West Virginia was not invaded by a British army, except one company of forty, within the war for American in- dependence. Its remote position made it safe from attack from the east; but this very remoteness rendered it doubly liable to invasion from the west where Great Britain had made allies of the Indians, and had armed and supplied them, and had sent them against the frontiers from Canada to Georgia, with full license to kill man, woman and child. No other part of America suffered more from the savages than West Virginia. Great Britain's purpose in employ- ing Indians on the frontiers was to harass the remote country, and not only kecp at home all the inhabitants for defense of their settlements, but also to make it necessary that soldiers be sent to the west who otherwise might be em- ployed in opposing the British near the sea coast. Notwithstanding West Vir- ginia's exposed frontier on the west, it sent many soldiers to the Continental Army. West Virginians were on almost every battlefield of the Revolution. The portion of the State east of the Alleghanies, now forming Jefferson, Berke- ley, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, Mineral and Pendleton counties, was not invaded by Indians within the Revolution, and from this region large num- bers of soldiers joined the armies under Washington, Gates, Greene and other patriots.
As early as November 5, 1774, an important meeting was held by West Virginians in which they clearly indicated under which banner they would be found fighting, if Great Britain persisted in her course of oppression. This was the first meeting of the kind west of the Alleghanies, and few similar meetings had then been held anywhere. It occurred within the return of Dunmore's Army from Ohio, twenty-five days after the battle of Point Pleasant. The soldiers had heard of the danger of war with England, and, although they were under the command of Dunmore. a royal Governor. they were not afraid to let the country know that neither a royal Governor nor any one else could swerve them from their duty as patriots and lovers of liberty. The meeting was held at Fort Gower, north of the Ohio river. The soldiers passed resolutions which had the right ring. They recited that they were willing and able to bear all hardships of the woods; to get along for weeks without brcad or salt, if necessary ; to sleep in the open air; to dress in skins if nothing else could be had; to march further in a day than any other men in the world; to use the rifle with skill and with bravery. They affirmed their zeal in the cause of right,
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and promised continued allegiance to the King of England, provided he would reign over them as a brave and free people. "But," they continued, "as at- tachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweighed every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defenee of American liberty, when regularly called forth by the unani- mous voice of our countrymen." It was such spirit as this, manifested on every occasion during the Revolution, which prompted Washington in the darkest year of the war to exclaim that if driven from east of the Blue Ridge, he would retire west of the mountains and there raise the standard of liberty and bid de- fiance to the armies of Great Britain.
At two meetings held May 16, 1775, one at Fort Pitt, the other at Hannas- town, several West Virginians were present and took part in the proceedings. Resolutions were passed by which the people west of the mountains pledged their support to the Continental Congress, and expressed their purpose of re- sisting the tyranny of the mother country. In 1775, a number of men from the valley of the Monongahela joined Washington's army before Boston. The number of soldiers who went forward from the eastern part of the State was large.
THE BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT.
The battle of Point Pleasant, fought on Oct. 10, 1774, between the Vir- ginia soldiers under Gen. Andrew Lewis of Augusta county, Va., and the United Indian tribes, commanded by the celebrated chief, Cornstock, is but slightly understood, owing to the meager reports that have been handed down to posterity. A few brief accounts, meager in their details, written by some of the officers at the time, is the basis of what information has been perpetuated in history. It is not at all probable that the country or the outside world appreciated the wonderful importance of the results of that battle. It was the last battle fought under the Colonial government, and the first test made by the Virginia frontiersmen against an intrepid foe. The flower of the citizenship of the mountains, men inured to hardships and trained to the use of the rifle from infancy, men who knew no fear, who could picture the consequences to the country on the frontier if the brave Virginians had been slaughtered as it was the design of the enemy to do, if the savage army of the Chickasaw plains had been turned loose on the defenceless inhabitants of the country, the Alle- gheny mountains would have been no barrier to their depredations. and this catastrophe was averted only by the fact that two soldiers of Gen. Lewis' army went out in the early morning to hunt for deer, and discovered the enemy. If the army had been taken wholly by surprise and destroyed, the eensure of the commander would have been greater than that which befell Braddock in his great disaster.
Gen. Lewis, brave soldier that he was, allowed his army to quietly repose in slumber in a hostile land, without an advance picket or a scout to give warn- ing of danger. We are told that on the evening before the battle that his scouts reported that there was not an Indian within fifty miles of the camp, but that
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was not assuring, for if the scouts had been fifty miles in the army's front, and saw no enemy, it was no evidence that the Indian being as fleet and intrepid as themselves, couldn't reach the camp as soon as they could. The circum- stances bear out the belief that Gen. Lewis did not use the necessary precaution in the very midst of the enemy's land. Captain John Stewart says that two young men were sent out early to hunt deer and met the enemy two or three miles up the river. He gives their names as Joseph Hughy of Captain Shelby's company and James Mooney of Russel's. Haywood, the historian of Tennes- ese, says that those who discovered the Indians were James Robertson and Val- entine Servier, Sergeants in Captain Evan Shelby's company. Captain Shelby says that on Monday morning about a half hour before sunrise, two of Cap- tain Russel's company discovered a large body of Indians about a mile from camp, one of which scouts was shot down, and the other made his escape and brought the intelligence. We find some discrepency here as to the names of the parties sem out who discovered the enemy, the companies to which they be- longed, and the distance the enemy was from General Lewis' camp. In all that has been recorded in reference to this battle, no account is made of either pickets or scouts on the morning of the battle, whether General Lewis over- looked the importance of the situation or felt over-confident in the strength of his command the student of that occasion may judge. It will be borne in mind that every victory in battle has to have a hero. We think that in this case ample justice has been done General Lewis, while but few lines have been written in commendation of any other officer or even the rank and file in that great battle. It is said in the account given of the battle in Lewis' History that Captain George Matthews, John Stewart and Evan Shelby were called from the front and sent up Crooked creek, and got in the rear of the Indians; but traditional history does not say this. Captain Arbuckle of Greenbrier county, one of the most capable and renowned Indian fighters in that expedition, was always said by the old soldiers to be the one who conceived the idea, and the man who led a company of volunteers and executed that great strategic movement. Cap- tain John Skidmore who was on the right wing of the army, being next to the Kanawha river, told Archibald Taylor and others that the army was being so hotly pressed that Captain Arbuckle called for volunteers to follow him, and that they jumped over Crooked creek at its mouth and kept under cover of the high bank of the Kanawha until they got in the rear of the Indians, then at- tacked them.
Andrew Skidmore, brother of Captain Skidmore, gave Felix Sutton the same account of the battle, and he related that Arbuckle called to all men who were not cowards to follow him. Jeremiah Carpenter who belonged to Captain John Lewis' Company, told his sons, grandsons, and others, some of whom are yet living, that they were being hotly persued when Captain Skidmore was shot in the thigh and fell. His company gave way, and he called to his men to stand by him, that he was not dead, and just as the company made a charge to secure their wounded captain, Arbuckle's flanking company opened fire and the Indians gave way. This is traditional history. That it came down from
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these men substantially as we have written it, there is not the least shadow of doubt. Captain Skidmore, as before stated, was on the right wing of the army commanded by Colonel Chas. Lewis. Andrew Skidmore was wounded in the battle, and Jeremiah Carpenter was once a captive, being with the Indians nine years, and there undoubtedly was no other man in that battle more alert, or observed with keener interest the various movements, than the brave and fcar- less Carpenter. These three men told the same story. Captain Skidmore was from Rockingham county, Va., Andrew Skidmore was from Randolph county, Va., and Carpenter's home was near the big bend on Jackson's river in Vir- ginia. Captain Taylor, in his work on the Aborigines of America, says that : "A tradition is a verbal account of transactions handed down from father to son, through successvic generations, and where strict harmony of statements respecting a date, an event or a condition is arrived at through various and opp ... site channels, we are fully justified and authorized by the rules of evidence in giving it the prominence and weight of a fact; as, to throw aside as spurious all the traditional history of this world would be to sever at one stroke more than one-half of our knowledge respecting the past. Moses was the first sacred writer and true historian of his time, and to inform us of the creation of the world and following events down to his own time, he used more than two thous- and five hundred years of traditional history. And as to profane history, should we use nothing but written records, we at once lose three thousand, two hundred fifty years of adopted history during the most eventful periods in the life of mankind, as all knowledge previous to 750 B. C., is termed mythical by the interpreters of historical textbooks."
Now, let us compare the accounts given of the battle by Isaac Shelby who was a Lieutenant in Captain Evan Shelby's company. This account was writ- ten six days after the battle. He says that General Lewis being informed of the presence of the Indians, ordered Colonel Chas. Lewis to take command of one hundred and fifty of the Augusta troops, and with him went Captain Dick- ison, Captain Harrison, Captain Wilson, Captain John Lewis of Augusta and Captain Lockridge which was the last division. Colonel Fleming was also or- dered to take the command of one hundred and fifty more of the Botetourt, Bed- ford and Fincastle troops, viz: Captain Thos. Bedford from Bedford, Captain Love of Botetourt, Captain Sheldon and Captain Russel of Fincastle, which made the second division.
After giving these formations, he says among other things in his account of the battle that shortly the line was reinforced from the camp by Colonel Field with his company, together with Captain MeDowell, Captain Matthews, Captain Stewart from Augusta, Captain John Lewis, Captain Pauling, Captain Arbuckle and Captain McClennehan from Botetourt. And in closing his de- scription of the battle, says the line of battle was about a mile and a quarter in length and had sustained until then, a constant and equal weight of action from wing to wing. It was still about half an hour of sunset, they continued firing on us, scattering shots, and at last night coming on, they found a safe retreat.
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In this account, Captain Shelby gives no account of any flank movement being made.
Colonel Wm. Fleming's orderly book has the following account of the bat- etl. This was written on Oct. 10, 1774, the day of the battle. We will give only what he says in reference to the formation of the army. "The right column headed by Colonel Chas. Lewis, with Captains Dickison, Harrison and Skidmore, the left column commanded by Colonel Fleming, with Captains Shelby, Russel, Love and Bedford." Now, this formation is entirely different from the one given by Lieutenant Shelby. Colonel Fleming continues in closing by saying that about three or four o'clock the enemy growing quite despirited, and all attempts of their warriors to rally them, proving vain, they carried off their dead and wounded, giving us now and then a shot to prevent a pursuit so that about an hour by sun we were in full possession of the field. However. he gives no account of any flank movement.
Captain John Stewart, nephew by marriage to General Andrew Lewis, in his aecount of the battle, says that the troops ordered out under Colonel Lewis and Colonel Fleming were composed of the companies commanded by the oldest captain, and the junior captains were ordered to stay in camp, and aid the others as occasion might require. The lines marched out and met the Indians about four hundred yards from our camp, and in sight of the guards. After further describing the battle, he says that the Indians formed a line behind logs and trees across the bank of the Ohio to the banks of the Kanawha, and kept up. their fire until sundown. General Lewis now knew that if the battle was not ended before darkness settled down upon the field, it would be a night of mas- sacre, or the morrow a day of great doubt. He resolved to throw a body of men in the rear of the Indian army, and accordingly sent three of the most renowned companies on the field to execute the movement. They were those of Captains George Matthews, John Stewart and Evan Shelby. They were called from the , front to a point where the two rivers meet, and there proceeded under cover of the bank of the great Kanawha for three-quarters of a mile to the mouth of Crooked creek, and along the bed of its torturous course to their destination.
In reference to the battle of Point Pleasant, one is at a loss to know whether the commander would allow his army to slumber without pickets to apprise them of danger; also, the statement that the commanding General waited until sundown before he conceived the idea of a flanking party to relieve the army that was hotly pressed between two rivers and a savage foe. We would not detract one syllable from the fame of these old Spartans because every fiber of their nature was heroic, every drop of their blood was immortal. We do believe, however, that inadvertently the heroic Captain Arbuckle was forgotten, and that the traditional aeeount which we have is stronger and more authentic than the statment which found its way into print; that three of the most re- nowned companies were drawn from the front on the left wing at sundown and marched to the mouth of the two rivers which was a mile distant, and up the Kanawha for three-quarters of a mile, and then up the torturous stream of Crooked creek, and made an attaek. No commander would want to weaken
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his force by the withdrawal of three of his best companies when there was a reserve force in camp, and the further fact that only a few men could secrete themselves and gain the rear of the enemy.
GENERAL AVERELL'S GREAT SALEM RAID.
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December 3rd. Averell moved from Keyser with Federal troops upon his great Salem raid, which he conchided on Christmas Day. He had 2500 cavalry, and artillery. It was a momentous issue. General Burnsides was besieged at Knoxville, Tennessee, by General Longstreet, and it was feared that no re- inforcements could reach Burnsides in time to save him. The only hope lay in cutting Longstreet's line of supplies and compelling him to raise the siege. This was the railroad from Richmond to Knoxville, passing through at Salem, sixty miles west of Lynchburg. Averell was ordered to cut this road at Salem, no matter what the result to his army. He must do it, even if he lost every man he had in the execution of his work. An army of 2500 could be sacrificed to save Burnsides' larger army. With his veteran cavalry, mostly West Vir- ginians, and equal to the best the world ever saw, Averell left Keyser December 8, 1863, and moved through Petersburg, Monterey, Back Creek, Gatewood's Callighan's, Sweet Sulphur Springs Valley, Newcastle to Salem, almost as straight as an arrow, for much of the way following a route nearly parallel with the summit of the Alleghanies. Four Confederate armies, any of them larger than his, lay between him and Salem, and to the number of 12,000 they marched, counter-marched, and maneuvered to effect his capture. Still, eight days he rode toward Salem in terrible storms, fording and swimming overflow- ing mountain streams, crossing mountains and pursuing ravines by night and by day, and on December 16th, he struck Salem, and the blow was felt through- out the Southern Confederacy. The last halt on the downward march was made at Sweet Sulphur valley. The horses were fed and the soldiers made cof- fee and rested two hours. Then at one o'clock on the afternoon of December 15th, they mounted for the dash into Salem.
From the top of Sweet Springs Mountain a splendid view was opened be- fore them. Averell, in his official report, speaks of it thus: "Seventy miles to the eastward, the Peaks of Otter reared their summits above the Blue Ridge, and all the space between was filled with a billowing ocean of hills and moun- tains, while behind us the great Alleghenies, coming from north with the gran- deur of innumerable tints, swept past and faded in the southern horizon." Newcastle was passed during the night. Averell's advance guard were mounted on fleet horses and carried repeating rifles. They allowed no one to go ahead of them. They captured a squad of Confederates now and then, and learned from these that Averell's advance was as yet unsuspected in that quarter. It was, however, known at that time at Lynchburg and Richmond, but it was not known at what point he was striking. Valuable military stores were at Salem, and at that very time a train-load of soldiers was hurrying up from Lynchburg to guard the place. When within four miles of Salem a troop of Confederates
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were captured. They had come out to see whether they could learn anything of Averell, and from them it was ascertained that the soldiers from Lynchburg were hourly expected at Salem. This was nine o'clock on the morning of De- cember 16th. Averell's men had ridden twenty hours without rest. Averell saw that no time was to be lost. From this point it became a race between Averell's cavalry and the Lynchburg train loaded with Confederates, each try- ing to reach Salem first. The whistling of the engine in the distance was heard, and Averell saw that he would be too late if he advanced with his whole force. So he set forward with three hundred and fifty horsemen and two rifled cannon, and went into Salem on a dead run, people on the road and streets parting right and left to let the squadron pass. The train loaded with Confederates was approaching the depot. Averell wheeled a cannon into position and fired three times in rapid succession, the first ball missing, but the next passing through the train almost from end to end, and the third following close after. The locomotive was uninjured, and it reversed and backed up the road in a hurry, disappearing in the direction whence it had come. Averell cut the telegraph wires. The work of destroying the railroad was begun. When the remainder of the force came up, detachments were sent four miles east and twelve miles west to destroy the railroad and bridges. The destruction was complete. They burned 100,000 bushels of shelled corn; 100,000 bushels of wheat; 2,000 barrels of flour; 50,000 bushels of oats; 1,000 sacks of salt; 100 wagons; large quantities of clothing, leather, cotton, harness, shoes; and the bridges, bridge-timber, trestles, ties, and everything that would burn, even twisting the rails, up and down the railroad sixteen miles.
At 4 p. m., December 16th, Averell set out upon his return. Confederate troops were hurrying from all sides to cut him off. Generals Fitzhugh Lee, Jubal A. Early, John McCausland, John Echols and W. H. Jackson each had an army, and they occupied every road, as they supposed, by which Averell could escape. Rain fell in torrents. Streams overflowed their banks and de- luged the country. The cavalry swam, and the cannon and caissons were hauled across by ropes where horses could not ford. The Federals fought their way to James river, crossed it on bridges which they burned in the face of the Confederates, and crossed the Alleghenies into Pocahontas county by a road almost unknown. More than 100 men were lost by capture and drowning at James River. The rains had changed to snow, and the cold was so intense that cattle froze to death in the fields. Such a storm had seldom or never been seen in the alleghenies. The soldiers' feet froze till they could not wear boots. They wrapped their feet in sacks, Averell among the rest. For sixty miles they followed a road which was one unbroken sheet of ice. Horses fell and crippled themselves or broke the riders' legs. The artillery horses could not pull the cannon, and the soldiers did that work, 100 men dragging each gun up the mountains. Going down the mountains a tree was dragged behind each cannon to hold it in the road. The Confederates were hard in pursuit, and there was fighting nearly all the way through Pocahontas county, and was
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