USA > West Virginia > Barbour County > The history of Barbour County, West Virginia, from its earliest exploration and settlement to the present time > Part 28
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Captain Hill's Company.
The roll of company E, 62d Virginia Regiment Volunteer Infantry was as follows: Hannibal Hill, Captain; H. H. Stalnaker, 1st Lieutenant; An- drew Valentine, 2nd Lieutenant; Elliott Stalnaker, 3rd Lieutenant; G. S. Hymes, 1st Sargeant; B. H. Woodford, 2nd Sargeant; Jasper Huffman, 3rd Sargeant; J. E. Moore, 4th Sargeant; I. B Talbott, 5th Sargeant: Charles Callihan, Corporal; Valentine B. Poling, Corporal; Metress Dickenson, Corporal; Marion Gainer, Corporal. Privates, Allen Boner, ---- Bolton, James Coontz, Robert Corder, Thomas Carrico, Simpson Cross, Charles Cross, Elam Cross, John Carter, Ahab Canfield, Frank Dadisman, J. N. Dadisman, William Dadisman, Samuel Dickenson, G. W. Dickenson, Silas Dawson, Albert England, Hamilton Fink, Jacob Fink, Frank Finley, Jos. eph Fitzwater, John Grinnon, Ed. Hall, N. Hall, Nicholas Holsberry, Jacob T Huffman, Jasper Harris, Silas Harris, Isaac Hendrick, Thomas Isner, Henry Isner, William Johnson, Joseph Johnson, Abraham Johnson, Cole- man Jones, Cephas Jones, Baxter Kalor, George Kalor, John T. Kent, Mel- ville Lang, Adam Moore, Granville Moore, Edward Mason, George Morris W. H. Murphy, Robert Moran, Joseph Moran, Solomon Myers, Michael Myers, Burrell Nutter, Theodore Nutter, Jesse Poling, Isaac Poling, Uram Poling, Alexander Poling, Hamilton Poling, Israel Poling, Edward Poe,
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THE CIVIL WAR IN BARBOUR.
George Pitzer, Gideon Reeder, Isaac Rease, Gipson Rease, Martin Sherman, Alexander Sayers, Israel Smith, Harrison Sherman, Ferguson Sherman, Salathiel Talbott, F. M. Talbott, William Wilson, Monroe Wells.
Colonel Porterfield had fourteen companies at Philippi, five of cavalry and nine of infantry. The cavalry companies were commanded by Cap- tains W. K. Jenkins, McNutter(from Rockbridge), Robert McChesney (from Rockbridge), F. F. Sterrett (from Augusta) and McNeill (from Pocahontas); and the infantry companies were commanded by Captains Stoner (from Po- cahontas) Anderson and Moorman (from Pendleton) A. G. Reger and Sturm (Barbour), C. C. Higginbotham (Upshur), Felix H. Hull (Highland), Thompson (Marion) and Robinson (Taylor.) This force was about one thousand men .* They were poorly armed and in no condition for fighting. There were only one thousand cartridges for muskets, and some of the muskets were flint locks, and some of the men had no guns at all. Cap- tain Jenkins' company had forty sabers, one pistol and one knife. Four hundred rifles were stored in the jail and not an ounce of ammunition for them. The guncaps sent for the muskets were found too small. The com- pany from Upshur was unarmed, and Colonel Porterfield was compelled to send to their homes for want of arms a cavalry company from Pocahontas County and an infantry company from Barbour.
It was not the purpose of Colonel Porterfield to make Philippi his headquarters. He halted there to organize his forces for a movement upon Grafton. It was the avowed purpose of the Confederates not to permit the Federal authorities to use the railroad. The Confederates hoped to hold the whole country to the Ohio, but the immediate object when Colonel Por- terfield advanced beyond Philippi was to sieze and hold Grafton and thus control the railroad. He knew he had not men or arms enough to do it, if he should meet much opposition; but he hoped to augment his force of men and arms before he should be attacked. He intended to march to Grafton, telegraph to Harper's Ferry for arms, and have them sent to Grafton by rail. Government forces held the railroad at Cumberland as it turned out and no arms could pass that point. Colonel Porterfield took possession of Fetterman May 24 and of Grafton May 26. A few Union troops were at Grafton, but fell back as the Confederates advanced. It is not the purpose
*The evidence given at the court of inquiry, called at Beverly, June 20, 1861, to try Colonel Porterfield, states that his force at Philippi June 3 was 600 infantry and 175 cav- alry, total 775.
+See pages 130, 131 and 132 of this book.
ĮIn order to delay the advancing Federals and gain time to retreat (by way of Fetterman) Colonel Porterfield sent Colonel Willey accompanied by Thompson Surghnor and two others on an outgoing train toward Wheeling late in the evening. Thirty-six miles from Grafton they jumped off the train, burned two small bridges and walked back to Grafton that night. Other parties were arrested and punished for burning the bridges who had nothing to do with it.
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of this chapter to review the events in the vicinity of Grafton as the Fed- erals advanced and the Confederates fell back; that has been done else- where. Colonel Porterfield saw the necessity of a retreat and he retreat- ed while he could.
On the evening before the retreat from Grafton, Governor Letcher sent a telegraphic order to Colonel Porterfield to seize a train of cars and' make a rush on Wheeling and capture the arms which the Federal authorities had sent there. Colonel Porterfield saw the impossibility of executing such an order, and he quietly disobeyed it, never explaining to Governor Letcher why he had not gone to Wheeling. Had he started upon that mission, there is little probability that the train would have reached Wheeling; and had he reached Wheeling, certain capture or destruction would have awaited his command.
The Fight at Philippi.
On June 3, 1861, came the affair at Philippi. Colonel Porterfield, whose forces found it necessary to retreat, was an officer in the Mexican War, and was at or near Buena Vista during most of that time. He grad- uated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1844 and two years later assisted in raising the first company which Virginia sent to that war. When the Civil War began he was living on his farm in Jefferson County, and offering his services to the Confederate cause, he was sent to this part of the State, as already narrated. He served till 1862, then retired from the army and resumed civil life at his old home. In 1871 he became a banker at Charlestown, West Virginia, where he still resides. Below will be found an account of the fight at Philippi from his own pen, written for this History of Barbour County:
Charlestown, W. Va., Aug. 12, 1899.
HU MAXWELL, ESQ., DEAR SIR :- Having been requested, by Mr. J. Hop Woods, to send you an account of the surprise of my command at Philippi on the morning of the 3d of June, 1861, I respectfully submit the following report:
I received information on the 2d of June that a strong United States foree had reached Grafton, and that my position would probably soon be attacked. The roads leading towards Grafton had been scouted during the day and no enemy seen, After a council held in the evening there was a general understanding that we would retreat, but no time was fixed at which it should begin. Infantry piekets were posted as usual on the roads leading towards Grafton, and the eavalry officers were ordered to seout the same throughout the night. A drenehing rain began near midnight and continued for several hours. The guards being without cartridge boxes, and carrying their ammuni- tion in their poekets, which, by exposure to the rain, would become wet and unserviea- ble, left, their posts and came in without being relieved. No report was made to me during the night. The roads being thus left unguarded, the approach of the enemy was not made known. One force, composed of more than two infantry regiments and two pieces of artillery, advanced by the road entering the town from the northwest,
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Another of about the same number came by the road from the northeast. Both reached the north side of the town about the same time, near 4 o'clock, A. M. Their artillery was put in position on a hill to the northwest of the town, and began the fire upon our cavalry camp in the valley below, just north of the town. This fire gave the alarm and caused the cavalry to stampede through the town. The infantry retreatcd in better order. There was no pursuit.
Whilst on the main street I observed a company in blue uniform-a Union company -standing in line at the north end of the street, which I mistook for one of my own companies, having a similar uniform, and I rode down sufficiently near it to discover my mistake, when I turned and rode slowly away to avoid being recognized. Upon my return I was joined by Robert Johnston, Esq., of Clarksburg, Acting Adjutant, formerly Auditor of Virginia; and we were not discovered and fired upon until near the southern end of the street. We were the last of the command to leave the town.
Colonel Kelley, of the Union side, was wounded as he was about to enter the town .- Two or three of our cavalrymen were severely wounded by the artillery fire.
We lost our baggage, a few boxes of old rusty flint-lock rifles and muskets, two kegs of powder and some lead-all the ordnance stores we had. We had neither medical, commissary's nor quartermaster's stores, except the tents of one cavalry company, the only company with the command which had tents. Our subsistence was procured from the surrounding country as needed, and our transportation was by hired or impressed teams. Yours respectfully,
GEORGE A. PORTERFIELD.
After retreating into Randolph County, and after having for some time endured censure, which all people now admit was undeserved, Colonel Porterfield demanded a court of inquiry which met at Beverly, June 20. If the authorities at Richmond did not openly find fault with him, they remained silent while others found fault; while the truth of history. shows that he was not to blame. The fault was with those who sent him to the front, and utterly failed to support him, expecting him, with raw, unarmed troops, in a hostile country, to withstand an attack from troops which could be thrown against him to a number ten or twenty times his strength. On this subject General G. A. Carman, an officer in the Union Army and author of the book "The West Virginia Campaign in 1861," says in one of his letters written to Colonel Porterfield, in 1881: "Your conduct of affairs in West Virginia was a failure only in this, that you had no tools to work with. You advised the authorities and did everything that a soldier loyal to his cause could do, and the result was logically due to the fact that you were not properly supported and your views properly appreciated. You were simply overwhelmed, and no amount of skill or strategy could have saved you."
The court of inquiry at Beverly, June 20, found that he had acted with coolness on the occasion of the surprise; that he had taken precautions against surprise; that he erred in not taking extraordinary precautions in face of the threatened attack, and that the retreat was conducted in good order and that the lesson ought to have good effects throughout the war.
After his retreat from Grafton, on May 29, Colonel Porterfield received
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information which left little doubt in his mind that he would be attacked. About three thousand Federal troops had reached Grafton by the evening of June 1, under command of General Thomas A. Morris. Colonel Bemja- min F. Kelley planned the attack for the morning of June 2; but on the evening of June 1, General Morris reached Grafton from Indiana, and countermanded the orders for an attack that night; but he arranged for it the next night following. It was the plan not to drive the Confederates out of Philippi, but to capture them, and to that end, the attacking force advanced in two columns, one east of the river under Colonel Kelley, con- sisting of 1600 men, and the other west of theriver, under Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, with 1450 men, and two brass six-pounders. Colonel Kelley's troops left Grafton on the morning of June 2, on the cars going toward the east. It was announced that they were bound for Harper's Ferry. This was to deceive any spies who might be waiting to communicate with Con- federates at Philippi. The soldiers left the cars at Thornton, about six miles east of Grafton, and under the guidance of Jacob Baker, a citizen of Cove District, Barbour County, set out upon the march for Philippi under orders to camp in the afternoon where the men could rest and eat, and resume the march in time to reach Philippi at exactly four o'clock the next morning. This column was to approach on the road leading by the ceme- tery, but before reaching that point it was the * west Union plan to cross A+44444. 0 Confederate Camp the hill and come into the eastern and Fall AAAAAA southern end Bridge. Beverly Pike of town and cut off retreat on Shooky Run Clarksburg Pike Anglin Run. = the Beverly road. The col- Nobusiness Hilly umn under Col- Federals = Valley River Confederates. onel Dumont left Grafton on the cars on the evening ofJune MAP SHOWING THE POSITION OF TROOPS AT THE ATTACK ON PHILIPPI. 2, and moved to Webster, five miles west, and there left the cars, under orders to march upon Philippi so as to arrive before the town at precisely four o'clock, and to divert the attention of the Confederates until the real attack should be made by Colonel Kelley.
The night of June 2, was dark, and soon after night-fall rain set in and
COL. GEORGE A. PORTERFIELD.
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continued all night. Colonel Kelley had the longer march, and the rougher road, but he had more time and proceeded without incident, but arrived at Philippi about fifteen minutes past four, and a little too late to cut off the retreat. Colonel Dumont's column moved from Webster some hours after dark. Colonel F. W. Lander led the advance and had immediate charge of the cannon. He was not an officer in the army at that time, only a vol- unteer. The rain impeded their progress, and at a quarter till three o'clock they were five miles from Philippi. From that point they marched on the double quick and at four o'clock had reached their destination. Having thus followed the movements of the attacking forces from Grafton to Philippi, it is proper to speak of the Confederates during that night in and about Philippi.
On the night of June 2, Captain James Dilworth, who had been a mili- tia officer, collected about fifty men at a point seven miles west of Philippi, on the Clarksburg pike, and prepared to dispute the passage of General McClellan's army, which was then supposed to be marching toward that neighborhood. The men were not militia, but the citizens who were armed with corn-cutters, scythes, pitchforks and a few old flintlocks. Captain Dil- worth had a sword. The women and children of the neighborhood had been sent to a place of safety. The men marched to a cross-roads, set an ambus cade in a thicket, and waited for the enemy. About midnight the rain set in, and becoming discouraged, the men held a council of war which decided to go home; thus once again verifying the old adage that a council of war never fights. However, the Federal army which attacked Philippi the next morning advanced by another road, and it was no doubt very fortunate that it was so.
Colonel Porterfield on that night had sent a picket down the road toward Webster, and had sent Captain Jenkins with a strong cavalry picket out the Clarksburg road and toward Elk City. The road by which the enemy would be likely to advance being thus picketed, Colonel Porterfield lay down to sleep in fancied security, believing that ample notice of any danger would be given. Captain Jenkins remained on duty all night at Elk City. But the picket on the Webster road came in after midnight. The rain was pouring down, and the pickets concluded that. "no Yankees will venture out tonight, by jeeminy," and returned to Philippi. Thus the road was open, and as the Federals advanced they did not encounter a single picket. Colonel Dumont's force reached the top of the hill overlooking the town and on the opposite side of the river, undiscovered, and placed the two cannon in readiness for the fight as soon as Colonel Kelley's force should be in position. But the attack was made a few minutes sooner than was intended." The Confederates did not make a stand. The cavalry was
* It is stated on authority which seems to be unquestionable, that the attack was commenced because of a mistaken signal, a pistol shot fired by a woman, Mrs. Thomas
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camped in the lower end of the town, near where the freight depot now is. Of the infantry, some was in the court house and other was quartered in other buildings. The affair on that morning was styled "The Philippi Races." There was little fighting. About half a dozen rounds were fired from the cannon, solid shot being used. One of these balls took off the leg of a cavalryman named Hanger, who had run to the stable for his horse. The stable occupied the present site of C. I. Zirkle's house. The wounded man lay in the stable loft till his leg was amputated by a Federal surgeon. He was cared for by friends in the vicinity of Philippi, and after the war he went to Washington and engaged in the business of manufacturing artificial limbs. A cadet from Lexington, Virginia, named Dangerfield, who had come to Philippi to drill the troops, was wounded nearly in front of the court-house. At that instant a Confederate cavalryman galloped by and lifted the wounded man on the horse behind him and carried him to Bev- erly, where his leg was amputated, The Federals captured his trunk, and from the similarity of the names they supposed it belonged to Colonel Por- terfield and sent it to Huttonsville. They also sent Colonel Porterfield's to him.
The Confederates began their retreat upon the first fire. After the retreat from Grafton to Philippi the strictest orders had been given to waste no powder, and when the time came for the fight, the small supply on hand was mostly abandoned .* The cavalry in the lower end of town went out rapidly, and the infantry followed in considerable confusion. Col- onel Porterfield gave no order for retreat. While the Confederate forces were decamping before the fire from the hill beyond the river, Colonel Kelley's troops began to arrive. KOne body came over the hill back of the
Humphreys, and to this eircumstance is due the escape of the Confederates, who thus had time to retreat before eut off by Colonel Kelley. Mrs. Humphreys lived on the hill at the old Talbott place, near the road along which the Federals were marching. She was awakened by the passing of the army, the cannon in advance: and being anxious to warn the Confederates of their danger, she waked her son, put him on a horse and started him toward Philippi. He was within full view of the Federals and they arrested lim at onee. Seeing her son pulled from the horse, Mrs. Humphreys sallied forth to give battle, and she dealt many a blow with sticks, and rocks, and fists, and finally res- cued her son. Had she retired to her house at that stage she would probably have been permitted to do so: but no sooner was her son free from the clutches of his eaptors than she put him on the horse again and attempted to send him to Philippi. He was again pulled from the horse and Mrs. Humphreys renewed her attack upon the Federal army; but she was no longer content to fight with rocks: but pulling a pistol from her bosom she fired it point-blank at the soldiers' faces. Fortunately the bullet missed. The sol- diers raised their guns to fire, but an officer forbade it, and in the confusion of the moment she hustled hier boy into the house and shut the door. But the pistol shot had had its effect. The cannon had already been planted on the hill and overlooking Phil- ippi: and the order was not to fire unless a signal by a pistol shot should be heard. Mrs. Humphreys' pistol was heard, and the Federals supposing that it was the expected sig- nal, the artillery opened upon the Confederate camp.
*It is related that Captain Higginbotham or Upshur was at the river washing that morning when the artillery opened on the hill. At the second shot he exclaimed, "There's a man who's not afraid to burn powder," and immediately hit the road for Beverly,
X de frage 1.32
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court house, and another body passed through the gap further south, and opened fire. But they were too late to cut off the retreat, but were in ample time to accelerate it .* A detachment sent further south to come into the pike a mile above the town was too late. Colonel Kelley was at the head of his troops, and he reached the main street before the Confed- erates were out, and while pressing the pursuit and when near the site of the present school house he was shot through the breast by a man who was making his escape from an orchard in the rear of the school house. The officer was carried into Jacob Ashenfetter's house.+ A Federal soldier, Alfred Work, was wounded near the eastern edge of Philippi by Confed- erates in the woods who were making an effort to cover the retreat. He was carried to the house of William K. Hall where his wound was dressed. Colonel Kelley recovered and fought till the close of the war.} Theretreat- ing Confederates were not pursued far, and they continued their retreat to Beverly. § Above Belington they met re-enforcements hurrying towards Philippi to render assistance. The cannon had been heard at Beverly,
*The excitement among citizens in town was intense. People fled in all directions. One woman forgot her baby in the cradle. Another, Mrs. Mary Rogers, daughter of Captain James Dillworth, fled up the hill back of the residence of Judge Woods. Meeting the advancing Federals in that quarter she raised a white garment on a pole in token of surrender. An officer assured her that she would be protected. She afterwards mar- ried Jacob Strader and died at Carthage, Illinois.
+There is much disagreement among the people of Philippi as to the exact point where Colonel Kelley was wounded, and also as to the circum- stances under which he received the shot. The official report of General Morris, written June 7, at Grafton, says: "After the bridge was taken, Colonel Lander pressed forward and joined Colonel Kelley, rode into the enemy's ranks, and captured the prisoner reported to have shot Colonel Kelley. He had great difficulty in restraining the Virginia Volunteers from summarily dispatching the man, who is a noted secessionist and a quarter-master of the rebel forces." * * * Colonel Kelley, whilst lead- ing the attack of his column, fell severely wounded by a pistol shot in his left breast." In a report dated Cincinnati, June 3, General Mcclellan says: "Colonel Lander captured the officer who shot Colonel Kelley."
¿The West Virginia soldiers made Colonel Kelley a present of a splen- did horse which he named Philippi in commemoration of his victory. He rode this horse till the night of February 20, 1865, when it was taken at Cumberland, Maryland, by sixty one Confederates under Lieutenant Jesse McNeill, who also on that occasion carried away from the city General Kelley and General Crook, who were kidnapped in the midst of an army of 4,000 men, and carried to Staunton.
§A mile or two out from Philippi, Major A. G. Reger rode up to Cap- tain Bradford and said: "Captain, wouldn't we better halt the Barbour Greys and give them a round anyhow?" The Barbour Greys were Major Reger's old company, and were armed with shotguns. Captain Bradford, in very emphatic language, and without slacking his pace, answered that
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and the militia there moved toward Philippi. But, when the true situation was learned, the re-enforcements fell in line and marched back to Beverly, and after a short halt, proceeded to Huttonsville, eleven miles further south. *
There was one company of cavalry, under Captain Jenkins, which was cut off from the main body when the Confederates retreated. As already stated, Captain Jenkins had been sent out on the Clarksburg road the evening before the fight. His orders were to remain out all night and the next morning report at Philippi. In obedience to these orders he proceeded to Elk City, and after sending out scouts and posting pickets, went into camp. On that night the first man wounded in Barbour County during the war was shot in front of Captain Jenkin's headquarters. The man was Washington Dickenson, not a soldier, but he was for that night, standing picket in place of his brother who had been detailed for that duty. During the night a Federal scout, named Clark, came up the Clarksburg road and fired at Dickenson and wounded him in the hand. t The next morning about nine Captain Jenkins moved toward Philippi, and was almost in the edge of the town when the citizens informed him that the Confederates were gone and the town full of Federals. With that he took to county roads and made his way into Randolph and joined Colonel Porterfield at Huttonsville. About a dozen of Captain Jenkin's men being Union in sentiment and unwilling to fight for the Confederacy, had deserted before reaching Huttonsville. When this was reported to Colonel Porter- field he sent for Captain Jenkins aud upbraided him for having a company of. Abolitionists. A quarrel ensued between the Colonel and the Captain, and asking for Captain Jenkin's commission, Colonel Porterfield wrote his discharge across the face of it, and handed it back to hiint, and discharged the whole company. Some of the men returned home and some went into other companies.
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