USA > West Virginia > Hampshire County > History of Hampshire County, West Virginia : from its earliest settlement to the present > Part 14
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General Reynolds, with headquarters at Beverly, spent the summer of 1861 in strengthening his position, and in attempting to clear the country of guerrillas. Early in September he received information that large numbers of confederates were crossing the Alleghanies. General Loring established himself at Huntersville, in Pocahontas county, with eight thousand five hundred men. He it was who had tried in vain to raise recruits in West Virginia for the confederacy, even 'attempting to gain a foothold in Wheeling before Mcclellan's army crossed the Ohio river. He had gone to Richmond, and early in September had re- turned with an army. General H. R. Jackson was in com- mand of another confederate force, six thousand strong, at Greenbrier river where the pike from Beverly to Staunton crosses that stream, in Pocahontas county. General Rob- ert E. Lee was sent by the government at Richmond to take command of both these armies, and he lost no time in doing so. He concentrated his force at Big Spring, on Valley mountain, and prepared to march north to the Bal- timore and Ohio road at Grafton. His design was nothing less than to drive the union army out of northwestern Vir- ginia. When the matter is viewed in the light of subse- quent history, it is to be wondered at that General Lee did not succeed in his purpose. He had nearly fifteen
GEN. LEE'S CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 185
1 thousand men, and only nine thousand were opposed to him. Had he defeated General Reynolds; driven his army back; occupied Grafton, Clarksburg and other towns, it can be readily seen that the seat of war might have been changed to West Virginia. The United States govern- ment would have sent an army to oppose Lee; and the Con- federate government would have pushed strong reinforce- ments across the mountains; and some of the great battles of the war might have been fought on the Monongahela river. The campaign in the fall of 1861, about the head- waters of the principal rivers of West Virginia, therefore, derives its chief interest, not from battles, but from the accomplishment of a great purpose-the driving back of the confederates-without a pitched battle. Virginia, as a state, made no determined effort after that to hold West- ern Virginia. By that time the campaign in the Kanawha valley was drawing to a close and the rebels were retir- ing. Consequently, Virginia's, and the Southern Confed- eracy's efforts west of the Alleghanies in this state were defeated in the fall of 1861.
On September 13, General Reynolds sent a regiment to Elkwater, and soon afterwards occupied Cheat Mountain. This point was the highest camp occupied by soldiers during the war. The celebrated "battle above the clouds," on Lookout Mountain, was not one-half so high. The whole region, including parts of Pocahontas, Pendleton and Randolph counties, has an elevation above three thous- and feet, while the summits of the knobs and ridges rise to heights of more than four thousand, and some nearly five thousand feet. General Reynolds fortified his two ad- vanced positions, Elkwater and Cheat Mountain. They were seven miles apart, connected by only a bridle path, but a circuitous wagon road, eighteen miles long, led from one to the other, passing around in the direction of Hut- tonsville. No sooner had the United States troops estab- lished themselves at Elkwater and Cheat Mountain than
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General Lee advanced, and skirmishing began. The con- federates threw a force between Elkwater and Cheat Mountain, and posted another force on the road in the di- · rection of Huttonsville. They were attacked, and for three days there was skirmishing, but no general engage- ment. On September 13, Colonel John A. Washington, in the confederate service, was killed near Elkwater. He was a relative of President Washington, and also a relative of General R. E. Lee, whose family and the Washingtons were closely connected. General Lee sent a flag of truce and asked for the body. It was sent to the confederate lines on September 14. That day the confederates con- centrated ten miles from Elkwater, and the next day again advanced, this time threatening Cheat Mountain; but their attack was unsuccessful. In this series of skirmishes the union forces had lost nine killed, fifteen wounded and about sixty prisoners. The result was a defeat for the confederates, who were thwarted in their design of pene- trating northward and westward.
The confederates were not yet willing to give up West Virginia. They fell back to the Greenbrier river, thirteen miles from the union position on Cheat Mountain, and for- tified their position. They were commanded by General H. A. Jackson, and their number was believed to be about nine thousand. On October 3, 1861, General Reynolds ad- vanced at the head of five thousand troops. During the · first part of the engagement the union forces were success- ful, driving the confederates nearly a mile; but here sey- eral batteries of artillery were encountered, and reinforce- ments arriving to the support of the confederates, the bat- tle was renewed, and General Reynolds was forced to fall back, with a loss of nine killed and thirty-five wounded. On December 10, General Reynolds was transferred to other fields, and the command of the union forces in the Cheat Mountain district was given to General R. H. Mil- roy. Within three days after he assumed command he
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GEN. LEE'S CAMPAIGN IN WEST VIRGINIA. 187
moved forward to attack the confederate camp on the sum- mit of the Alleghanies. The confederates had gone into winter quarters there; and, as the weather was severe, and as the union forces appeared satisfied to hold what they had without attempting any additional conquests in midwinter, the rebels were not expecting an attack. However, on December 13, 1861, General Milroy moved forward and assaulted the confederates' position. The fighting was severe for several hours, and finally resulted in the retreat of the union forces. The confederates made no attempt to follow. General Milroy marched to Hunt- ersville, in Pocahontas county, and went into winter quar- ters. The rebels remained on the summit of the Allegha- nies till spring, and then went over the mountains, out of West Virginia, thus ending the attempt to reconquer northwestern Virginia.
It may not be amiss to speak here of Virginia's relation as a state to the Southern Confederacy. It is the more necessary to do so because the military undertakings of Virginia and those of the Southern Confederacy often ap- peared independent of each other, or in conflict with each other, during the operations in West Virginia. General Lee at that time was commander-in-chief of the Virginia land and sea forees-not of the confederate forces. But this was a distinction without a difference, for the Virginians under him were all confederates. The theory of State's Rights, the chief corner-stone of the Southern Confeder- acy, required each state in the confederacy to retain, main- tain and insist upon its separate existence, even when all had banded together in a desperate struggle. Thus Vir- ginia soldiers were impressed with the belief that their first and chief service was to the state, and after that to the confederacy. During the occupation of Western Vir- ginia, before McClellan crossed the Ohio, General Lee's and Governor Letcher's orders to their officers in the north- west were to seize and hold railroads, custom houses and
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other property for the state of Virginia. Yet at that time Virginia, or rather the secession convention at Richmond, had placed all its military forces and property at the dis- posal of the Southern Confederacy. It is therefore seen that the painful efforts of the Richmond government, always to draw a hair-breadth distinction between the state and the confederacy, were far-fetched. When Vir- ginia's soldiers were sent by the Richmond authorities across the Alleghanies, under the impression that their mission concerned the state alone, and that their duty con- sisted in holding the country beyond the mountains in its allegiance to the eastern part of the state, they must have been surprised to find soldiers from Georgia and other southern states already in West Virginia by thousands. It must have dawned upon them that they were not fight- ing for state rights, but that all state rights had been in fact, if not in name, swallowed up by the Southern Confed- eracy. There was no difference, so far as state's rights were concerned, between the soldiers from the north and from the south. Those from Georgia, Florida, Texas, Virginia, or any other seceding state, may have been told that they were fighting for their respective states, but they knew they were fighting for the Southern Confederacy, and that alone. The soldiers from the north, not matter what their states, knew that they were fighting for the preser- vation of the union. Even the state militias, called out to repel an invasion, and not mustered into the United States armies, knew that they were battling for the whole country.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONTEST FOR THE KANAWHA,
It has been seen that the efforts of the confederates to hold northwestern Virginia met with little success on the tributaries of the Monongahela, about Grafton, Philippi, Beverly and about the headwaters of the Greenbrier. They had been driven from that region by the close of the year 1861. It now remains to be seen what success at- tended their efforts to gain and retain control of the Ka- nawha valley. Their campaign in West Virginia for the year 1861 was divided into two parts, in the northwest, and in the Kanawha valley. General Henry A. Wise was ordered to the Kanawha, June 6, two days before General Garnett was ordered to take command of the troops which had been driven south from Grafton. Colonel Tompkins was already in the Kanawha valley in charge of confederate forces. The authorities at Richmond at that time believed that a general, with the nucleus of an army in the Kanawha valley could raise all the troops necessary among the people there. On April 29. General Lee had ordered Major John McCausland to the Kanawha to organize com- panies for the confederacy. Only five hundred flintlock muskets could be had at that time to arm the troops in that quarter. General Lee suggested that the valley could best be held by posting the force below Charleston. Very poor success attended the efforts at raising volun- teers; and the arms found in the district were insufficient to equip the men. Supplies were sent as soon as possible from eastern Virginia.
When General Wise arrived, and had collected all his
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forces, he had eight thousand men, of whom two thousand were militia from Raleigh, Fayette and Mercer counties. · With these he was expected to occupy the Kanawha valley, and resist invasion, should union forces attempt to pene- trate that part of the state. General John B. Floyd, who had been secretary of war under President Buchanan, was guarding the railroad leading from Richmond into Tennes- see, and was posted south of the present limits of West Virginia, but within supporting distance of General Wise. In case a union army invaded the Kanawha valley, it was expected that General Floyd would unite his forces with these of General Wise, and that they would act in concert, if not in conjunction. General Floyd was the older officer, and in case their forces were consolidated, he would be the commander-in-chief. But General Floyd and General Wise were enemies. Their hatred for the yankees was less than their hatred for each other. They were both Virginia politicians, and they had crossed each other's paths too often in the past to be reconciled now. General Lee tried in vain to induce them to work in harmony. They both fought the union troops bravely; but never in concert. When Wise was in front of General Cox, Gen- eral Floyd was elsewhere. When Floyd was pitted in battle against General Rosecrans, General Wise was absent. Thus the union troops beat these quarreling Virginian brigadier generals in detail, as will be seen in the following narrative of the campaign during the sum- mer and fall of 1861 in the Kanawha valley.
When Generals Wise and Floyd were sent to their dis- tricts in the west it was announced in their camps that they would march to Clarksburg, Parkersburg and Wheel- ing. This would have brought them in conflict with Gen- eral Mcclellan's army. On July 2 McClellan put troops in motion against the confederates in the Kanawha valley. On that date he appointed General J. D. Cox to the com- mand of regiments from Kentucky and Ohio, and ordered
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him to cross the Ohio at Gallipolis and take possession of Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Kanawha. On July 23 General Rosecrans succeeded MeClellan in command of the department of Ohio. Rosecrans pushed the prepara- tion for a vigorous campaign, which had already been com- menced. He styled the troops under General Cox the brigade of Kanawha. On July 17, in Putnam county, a fight occurred between detachments of union and confed- erate forces, in which the latter appeared for the time vic- torious, but soon retreated eastward. From that time until September 10 there was constant skirmishing be- tween the armies, the advantage being sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; but the union forces con-" stantly advanced and the confederates fell back. On August 1 General Wise was in Greenbrier county, and in a report made to General Lee on that date, he says he fell back not a moment too soon. He complains that his mil- itia are worthless as soldiers, and urges General Lee to send him guns and other arms, and clothing and shoes, as his men are ragged and barefooted. On August 20 Gen- eral Rosecrans was at Clarksburg preparing to go in per- son to lead reinforcements into the Kanawha. He issued a proclamation to the people of West Virginia, calling on them to obey the laws, maintain order and co-operate with the military in its efforts to drive the armed confederates from the state.
Prior to that time, Colonel E. B. Tyler with a union force had advanced to the Gauley river, and on August 13 he took up a position at Cross Lanes. He thus covered Carn- ifex Ferry. General Cox was at that time on the Gauley river, twenty miles lower down, near the mouth of that stream, nearly forty miles above Charleston. General Floyd advanced, and on August 26 crossed the Gauley at Carnifex Ferry with twenty-five hundred men, and fell upon Colonel Tyler at Cross Lanes with such suddenness that the union troops were routed, with fifteen killed and
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fifty wounded. The latter fell into the hands of the con- federates, who took fifty other prisoners also. The re- mainder of Tyler's force made its retreat to Charleston; 'and General Floyd fortified the position just gained, and prepared to hold it. On September 3, General Wise made an attack on General Cox at Gauley Bridge, near the mouth of the river, twenty miles below Carnifex Ferry. The at- tack failed, the confederates were beaten and were vigor- ously pursued. Had Wise held Gauley Bridge, Floyd al- ready being in possession of Carnifex Ferry, they would have been in positions to dispute the further advance of the union forces up the Kanawha valley.
General Rosecrans lelt Clarksburg September 3 with re- inforcements, and after a march of seven days reached Carnifex Ferry, and that same evening began an attack upon the confederates under General Floyd, who were en- trenched on the top of a mountain on the west bank of the Gauley river, in Nicholas county. This proved to be the severest battle fought in West Virginia west of the Alle- ghanies during the war. General Floyd had about four thousand men and sixteen cannon, and his position was so well protected by woods, that assault, with chance of suc- cess, was considered exceedingly difficult. He had forti- fied this naturally strong position, and felt confident that it could not be captured by any force the union general could bring against him. The fight began late in the after- noon, General Rosecrans having marched seventeen miles that day. It was not his purpose to bring on a general en- gagement that afternoon, and he directed his forces to ad- vance cautiously and find where the enemy lay; for the position of the confederates was not yet known. While thus advancing, a camp was found in the woods, from which the confederates had evidently fled in haste. Mili- tary stores and private property were scattered in con- fusion. From this fact, it was supposed that the enemy was in retreat, and the union troops pushed on, through 15
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thickets and over ridges. Presently they discovered that they had been mistaken. They were fired upon by the confederate army in line of battle. From that hour until darkness put a stop to the fighting, the battle continued. The union troops had not been able to carry any of the rebel works; and General Rosecrans withdrew his men for the night, prepared to renew the battle next morning. But during the night General Flord retreated. lie bad grown doubtful of his ability to hold out if the attack was resumed with the same impetuosity as on the preceding evening. But he was more fearful that the union troops would cut off his retreat if he remained. So, while it was yet time, he withdrew in the direction of Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county, destroying the bridge over the Gauley, and also the ferry across that stream. General Rosecrans was unable to pursue because he could not cross the river. It is a powerful, turbulent stream, and at this place flows several miles down a decp gorge, filled with rocks and cat- aracts. Among spoils which fell into the hands of the vic- tors was General Floyd's hospital, in which were fifty wounded union soldiers who had been captured when Col- onel 'Tyler was driven from this same place on August 26. General Rosecrans lost seventeen killed and one hundred and forty-one wounded. The confederate loss was never ascertained.
After a rest of a few days the union army advanced to Big Sewell mountain. The weather was wet, and the roads became so muddy that it was almost impossible to haul supplies over them. For this reason it was deemed ad- visable to fall back. On October 5 General Rosecrans be- gan to withdraw his forces to Gauley Bridge, and in the course of two weeks had transferred his command to that place, where he had water communication with his base of supplies.
On November 10 another action was fought between General Floyd and General Rosecrans, in which the con-
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federates were defeated. This virtually closed the cam- paign for the year 1861 in that quarter, and resulted in the occupation of all the lower Kanawha valley and the greater part of the upper valley. The confederates were finally driven out, and never again obtained a foothold in that part of the state, although large bodies were at times in the valley of the Kanawha, and occasionally remained a consid- erable time.
CHAPTER XVII,
SCHEMES THAT FAILED,
The confederate government, and the state of Virginia as a member of that government, had an object in view when they sent their forces into West Virginia at the com- mencement of the civil war. Virginia as a state was inter- ested in retaining the territory between the Alleghany mountains and the Ohio river and did not believe she could do so without force and arms, because her long neglect and oppression had alienated the western counties. Virginia correctly judged that they would seize the first opportun- ity and organize a separate state. To prevent them from doing so, and to retain that large part of her domain lying west of the Alleghanies, were the chief motives which prompted Virginia, as a state, to invade the western part of her own territory, even before open war was acknow1- edged to exist between the Southern Confederacy and the general government. The purpose which prompted the Southern Confederacy to push troops across the Allegha- nies in such haste was to obtain possession of the country to the borders of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and to fortify the frontiers against invasion from the north and west. It was well understood at the headquarters of the Southern Con- federacy that the thousands of soldiers already mustering beyond the Ohio river, and the tens of thousands who would no doubt soon take the field in the same quarter, would speedily cross the Ohio, unless prevented. The bold move which the south undertook was to make the borders of Ohio and Pennsylvania the battle ground. The southern leaders did not at that time appreciate the magnitude of
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the war which was at hand. If they had understood it, and had had a military man in the place of Jeff Davis, it is prob- · able that the battle ground would have been different from what it was. Nevertheless, to rightly understand the early movements of the confederates in West Virginia, it is necessary to consider that their purpose was to hold the country to the Ohio river. Their effort was weak, to be sure, but that was partly due to their miscalculation as to the assistance they would receive from the people of West Virginia. If they could have organized an army of forty thousand West Virginians and reinforced them with as many more men from the south, it can be readily seen that McClellan could not have crossed the Ohio as he did. But the scheme failed. The West Virginians not only would not enlist in the confederate army, but they enlisted in the opposing force: and when Garnett made his report from Laurel Hill he told General Lee that, for all the help he received from the people, he might as well carry on a cam- paign in a foreign country. From that time it was regard- ed by the rebels as the enemy's country; and when, later in the war, Jones, Jackson, Imboden and others made raids into West Virginia they acted toward persons and prop- erty in the same way as when raids were made in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Baltimore and Ohio railroad, crossing West Vir- ginia from Harper's Ferry to Wheeling, and from Grafton to Parkersburg, was considered of the utmost importance by both the north and the south. It was so near the bound- ary between what was regarded as the Southern Confed- eracy and the north that during the early part of the war neither the one side nor the other felt sure of holding it. The management of the road was strongly in sympathy with the north, but an effort was made to so manage the property as not to give cause for hostility on the part of the south. At one time the trains were run in accordance with a time table prepared by Stonewall Jackson, even as
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far .as Baltimore and Washington. This fact is detailed more fully in another part of this book. It is mentioned here only to show that the road attempted to avoid the hos- tility of the south. But the road did all in its power to as- sist the federal government. It was a part of the confed- erate scheme in West Virginia to obtain possession and control, in a friendly way if possible, of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. The possession of it would not only help the confederacy in a direct way, but it would cripple the federal government and help the south in an indirect way Within six days after General Lee was appointed com- mander-in-chief of the Virginia armies he instructed Major Loring, at Wheeling, to direct his military operations for the protection of the terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad on the Ohio river, and also to protect the road else- where. Major Boykin was ordered to give protection to the road in the vicinity of Grafton. General Lee insisted that the peaceful basiness of the road must not be inter- fered with. The branch to Parkersburg was also to be protected. Major Boykin was told to "hold the road for the benefit of Maryland and Virginia." He was advised to obtain the co-operation of the officers of the road and afford them every assistance. When Colonel Porterfield was ordered to Grafton, on May 4, 1861, among the duties marked out for him by General Lee was the holding of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and to prevent its being used to the injury of Virginia.
No one has ever supposed that the Southern Confederacy wanted the Baltimore and Ohio road protected because of any desire to befriend that company. The leaders of the confederacy knew that the officers of the road were not friendly to secession. As soon as Western Virginia had slipped out of the grasp of the confederacy, and when the railroad could no longer help the south to realize its ambi- tion of fortifying the banks of the Ohio, the confederacy threw off the mask and came out in open hostility. George
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Deas, inspector general of the confederate army, urged that the railroad be destroyed, bridges burned along the line, and the tunnels west of the Alleghanies blown up so that no troops could be carried east from the Ohio river to the Potomac. This advice was partly carried out on June 13, 1861, after Colonel Porterfield had retreated from Grafton and had been driven from Philippi. But the damage to the road had not been so great but that repairs were speedily made. Governor Letcher of Virginia had recommended to the legislature a short time before that, the Baltimore and Ohio road ought to be destroyed. He said: "The Baltimore and Ohio railroad has been a positive nuisance to this state, from the opening of the war till the present time. And, unless the management shall hereafter be in friendly hands, and the government under which it exists be a part of our confederacy, it must be abated. If it should be permanantly destroyed, we must assure our people of some other communication with the seaboard." From that time till the close of the war the confederacy indicted every damage possible upon the road, and in many instances the damage was enormous. When the raids under Jones, Imboden and Jackson were made into West Virginia, the officers had special orders to strike that road wherever possible. The high trestles on the face of Laurel hill between Rowlesburg and Graf- ton were named for destruction, but for some reason they escaped, although the rebels were within a mile of them.
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