USA > West Virginia > Randolph County > The history of Randolph County, West Virginia. From its earliest settlement to the present, embracing records of all the leading families, reminiscences and traditions > Part 18
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When General Wise arrived and had collected all his forces he had 8,000 men, of whom 2,000 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 penetrate that part of the State. General John B. Floyd, who had been Secretary of War under Pres- ident Buchanan, was guarding the railroad leading from Richmond into Tennessee, and was posted south of the present limits of West Virginia, but
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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 those 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 Gen- eral Floyd and General Wise were enemies. Their hatred for the Yankees was less than their hatred for each other. They were both Virginia politi- cians, 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 har- mony. They both fought the Union troops bravely, but never in concert. When Wise was in front of General Cox, General Floyd was elsewhere. When Floyd was pitted in battle against General Rosecrans, General Wise was absent. Thus the Union troops beat these quarreling Virginia Briga- dier Generals in detail, as will be seen in the following narrative of the campaign during the summer and fall of 1861 in the Kanawha Valley.
When Generals Wise and Floyd were sent to their districts in the West it was announced in their camps that they would march to Clarksburg, Parkersburg and Wheeling. This would have brought them in conflict with General Mcclellan's army. On July 2 Mcclellan put troops in motion against the Confederates in the Kanawha Valley. On that date he appoint- ed General J. D. Cox to the command of regiments from Kentucky and Ohio, and ordered him to cross the Ohio at Gallipolis and take possession of Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Kanawha. On July 23 General Rose- crans succeeded McClellan in command of the Department of Ohio. Rose- crans pushed the preparation for a vigorous campaign, which had already been commenced. He styled the troops under General Cox the Brigade of Kanawha. On July 17, in Putnam County, a fight occurred between de- tachments of Union and Confederate forces, in which the latter appeared for the time victorious, but soon retreated eastward. From that time until September 10 there was constant skirmishing between the armies, the ad- vantage being sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other; but the Union forces constantly 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 complained that his militia were worthless as soldiers, and urged General Lee to send him guns and other arms, and clothing and shoes, as his men were ragged and barefooted. On August 20 General Rosecrans was at Clarksburg preparing to go in person to lead reinforcements into the Kana- wha. 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 Federal force, had ad- vanced to the Gauley River, and on August 13 he took up a position at Cross Lanes. He thus covered Carnifex 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 2,500 men, and fell upon Colonel Tyler at Cross Lanes with such suddenness that the Union troops were routed, with fifteen killed and fifty wounded. The latter fell into the hands of the Confederates, who took fifty other prisoners also. The remainder of Tyler's force made its retreat to Charleston, and General Floyd fortified the position just gained and prepared to hold it. On Sep-
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tember 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 vigorously pursued. Had Wise held Gauley Bridge, Floyd already being in possession of Carni- fex Ferry, they would have been in positions to dispute the further advance of the Union forces up the Kanawha Valley.
General Rosecrans left 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 entrenched on top of a mountain on the west bank of the Gauley River, in Nicholas County. General Floyd had about 4000 men and sixteen cannon, and his position was so well protected by woods, that assault, with chance of success, was considered exceedingly difficult. He had fortified this naturally strong position, and felt confident that it could not be cap- tured by any force the Union general could bring against him. The fight began late in the afternoon, General Rosecrans having marched seventeen miles that day. It was not his purpose to bring on a general engagement that afternoon, and he directed his forces to advance 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. Military stores and private · property were scattered in confusion. From this fact it was supposed that the enemy was in retreat, and the Union troops pushed on through 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 Floyd retreated. He had 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 fear- ful 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 Green- brier County, destroying the bridge over the Gauley, and also the ferry across tliat 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 deep gorge, filled with rocks and cataracts. Among spoils which fell into the hands of the victors was General Floyd's hospital, in which were fifty wounded Union soldiers who had been captured when Colonel Tyler was driven from this same place on August 26. Gen- eral 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 advisable to fall back. On October 5 General Rosecrans began 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 Confederates were defeated. This virtu- ally closed the campaign for the year 1861 in that quarter, and resulted in
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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 consider- able time.
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 commencement of the Civil War. Virginia as a State was interested 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 oppor- tunity 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 west- ern part of her own territory, cven before open war was acknowledged to exist between the Southern Confederacy and the United States Government. The purpose which prompted the Southern Confederacy to push troops across the Alleghanies in such haste was to obtain possession of the coun- try 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 Confederacy 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 the war which was at hand. If they had understood it, and had had a military man in the place of Jefferson Davis, it is probable that the battle ground would have been different from what it was. Consequently, to rightly understand the carly 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 miscal- culation 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 campaign in a foreign country. From that time it was regarded by the Con- foderates as the enemy's country; and when, later in the war, Jones, Jack- son, Imboden and others made raids into West Virginia they acted toward persons and property in the same way as when raids were made in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, crossing West Virginia from Har- per'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 boundary between what was regarded as the Southern Confederacy 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 in sympa-
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thy 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 far as Locust Point .* It was a part of the Confederate 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 Fed- eral Government and help the South in an indirect way. Within six days after General Lee was appointed Commander-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 elsewhere. Major Boykin was ordered to give protection to the road in the vicinity of Grafton. General Lee insisted that the peaceful business of the road must not be interfered with. The branch to Parkersburg was also to be protected. Major Boy- kin 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 ambition of fortifying the banks of the Ohio, the Confederacy threw off the mask and came out in open hostil- ity. George 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 by a raid from Romney on June 19, 1861, after Colonel Porterfield had retreated from Grafton and had been driven from Philippi. But the dam- age to the road was not great and repairs were speedily made. Governor Letcher, of Virginia, had recommended to the Legislature a short time be- fore, 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 un- der which it exists be a part of our Confederacy, it must be abated. If it should be permanently destroyed we must assure our people of some other communication with the seaboard."t From that time till the close of the war the Confederacy inflicted every damage possible upon the road, and in many instances the damage was enormous.
When General Garnett established himself in Randolph and Barbour Counties, in June, 1861, he made an elaborate plan of attack on the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad. He intended to take possession of Evansville, in Preston County, and using that as a base, destroy east and west. The high
* See the History of the War, by General John D. Imboden.
+ Records of the Rebellion.
10
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trestles along the face of Laurel Hill, west of Rowlesburg, and the bridge across Cheat River at Rowlesburg, and the long tunnel at Tunnelton were selected for the first and principal destruction. General Garnett had the road from Rowlesburg up Cheat River to St. George surveyed with a view to widening and improving it, thereby making of it a military road by which he could advance or fall back, in case the road from Beverly to Evansville should be threatened. General Imboden twice made dashes over the Alle- ghanies at the head of Cheat River and struck for the Rowlesburg trestles, but each time fell back when he reached St. George. In the spring of 1863, when the great raid into West Virginia was made under Jones, Imboden and Jackson, every possible damage was done the Baltimore and Ohio Road, but again the Rowlesburg trestles escaped, although the Confederates ap- proached within two miles of them.
It is proper to state here that an effort was made, after fighting had commenced, to win the West Virginians over to the cause of the South by promising them larger privileges than they had ever before enjoyed. On June 14, 1861, Governor Letcher issued a proclamation, which was pub- lished at Huttonsville, in Randolph County, and addressed to the people of Northwestern Virginia. In this proclamation he promised them that the injustice from unequal taxation of which they had complained in the past, should exist no longer. He said that the eastern part of the State had expressed a willingness to relinquish exemptions from taxation, which it had been enjoying, and was willing to share all the burdens of government. The Governor promised that in state affairs, the majority should rule; and he called upon the people beyond the Alleghanies, in the name of past friendship and of historic memories, to espouse the cause of the Southern Confederacy. It is needless to state that this proclamation fell flat. The people of Western Virginia would have hailed with delight a prospect of redress of grievances, had it come earlier. But its coming was so long delayed that they doubted both the sincerity of those who made the prom- ise and their ability to fulfill. Twenty thousand soldiers had already crossed the Ohio, and had penetrated more than half way from the river to the Alleghanies, and they had been joined by thousands of Virginians. It was a poor time for Governor Letcher to appeal to past memories or to promise justice in the future which had been denied in the past. Coming as the promise did at that time, it looked like a death-bed repentance. The Southern Confederacy had postponed fortifying the bank of the Ohio until too late; and Virginia had held out the olive branch to her neglected and long-suffering people beyond the mountains when it was too late. They had already cast their lot with the North; and already a powerful army had crossed the Ohio to their assistance. Virginia's day of dominion west of the Alleghanies was nearing its close; and the Southern Confederacy's hope of empire there was already doomed.
CHAPTER XVII.
:0:
CHRONOLOGY OF THE WAR .*
In this chapter will be given an outline of the progress of the Civil War on the soil of West Virginia or immediately affecting the State. As there were more than three hundred battles and skirmishes within the limits of the State, and numerous scouts, raids and campaigns, it will be possible in the brief space of one chapter to give little more than the date of each, with a word of explanation or description. In former chapters the history of the opening of the war and accounts of the leading campaigns have been given. It yet remains to present in their chronological sequence the events of greater or lesser importance which constitute the State's war record.
1861.
April 17. The Ordinance of Secession was adopted by the Virginia Convention at Richmond.
April 18. Harper's Ferry was abandoned by the Federal troops. Lieutenant Roger Jones, the commandant, learning that more than two thousand Virginia troops were advancing to attack him, set fire to the United States armory and machine shops and retreated into Pennsylvania. Fifteen minutes after he left Harper's Ferry the Virginia forces arrived. "
April 23. General Robert E. Lee assigned to the command of Virginia's land and naval forces.
April 27. Colonel T. J. Jackson assigned to the command of the Vir- ginia forces at Harper's Ferry.
May 1. Governor Letcher calls out the Virginia militia.
May 3. Additional forces called for by the Governor of Virginia. The call was disregarded by nearly all the counties west of the Alleghanies.
May 4. Colonel George A. Porterfield assigned to the command of all the Confederate forces in Northwestern Virginia.
May 10. General Robert E. Lee assigned to the command of the forces of the Confederate States serving in Virginia.
May 13. General George B. McClellan assigned to the command of the Department of the Ohio, embracing West Virginia. May 14. The Confederates at Harper's Ferry seized a train of cars.
May 15. General Joseph E. Johnston assigned to the command of Con- federate troops near Harper's Ferry.
May 22. Bailey Brown was killed by a Confederate picket at Fetter-
* This chapter is compiled chiefly from the Records of the Rebellion, published by the United States War Department. A few of the items are from the West Virginia Adjutant General's Reports for 1865 and 1866, and a small number from other sources. The reports of offieers, both Federal and Confederate, have been consulted in arriving at conclusions as to numbers engaged, the losses and the victory or defeat of forces.
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man, Taylor County. Brown was the first enlisted man of the United States volunteer service killed in the war.
May 26. Federal forces from beyond the Ohio and those about Wheel- ing began to move against Grafton where Confederates, under Colonel Por- terfield, had established themselves.
May 27. Captain Christian Roberts was killed by Federals under Lieutenant West, in a skirmish at Glover's Gap, between Wheeling and Fairmont. Captain Roberts was the first armed Confederate soldier killed in the war.
May 30. Grafton was occupied by Federal forces, the Confederates having retreated to Philippi.
June 3. Fight at Philippi and retreat of the Confederates into Ran- dolph County.
June 6. Ex-Governor Henry A. Wise was sent to the Kanawha Valley to collect troops for the Confederacy.
June 8. General R. S. Garnett superseded Colonel Porterfield in com- mand of Confederate forces in West Virginia.
June 10. A Federal force was sent from Rowlesburg to St. George, in Tucker County, capturing a lieutenant and two Confederate flags.
June 14. Governor Letcher, of Virginia, published at Huttonsville, Randolph County, a proclamation to the people west of the Alleghanies, urging them to stand by Virginia in its Secession, and promising them, if they would do so, that the wrongs of which they had so long complained should exist no more, and that the western counties should no longer be domineered over by the powerful eastern counties.
June 19. Skirmish near Keyser. Confederates under Colonel John C. Vaughn advanced from Romney and burned Bridge No. 21 on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and defeated the Cumberland Home Guards, capturing two small cannon.
June 23. Skirmish between Federals and Confederates at Righter's.
June 26. Skirmish on Patterson Creek, Hampshire County, in which Richard Ashby was killed by thirteen Federals under Corporal David Hays.
June 29. Skirmish at Hannahsville, in Tucker County, in which Lieu- tenant Robert McChesney was killed by Federals under Captain Miller.
July 2. Fight at Falling Waters, near Martinsburg. Colonel John C. Starkweather defeated Stonewall Jackson. This was Jackson's first skir- mish in the Civil War.
July 4. Skirmish at Harper's Ferry. Federals under Lietenant Gal- braith were fired upon from opposite bank of the river. The Federals fell back with a loss of 4.
July 6. The forces under Mcclellan which were advancing upon Rich Mountain encountered Confederate outposts at Middle Fork Bridge, eighteen miles west of Beverly. The Federals fell back.
July 7. The Federals drove the Confederates from Middle Fork Bridge.
July 7. Skirmish at Glennville, Gilmer County.
July 8. Skirmish at Belington, Barbour County. General Morris with the left wing of Mcclellan's army attempted to dislodge the Confederates from the woods in the rear of the village, and was repulsed, losing 2 killed and 3 wounded.
July 11. Battle of Rich Mountain. The Confederates under Colonel Pegram were defeated by General Rosecrans.
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July 12. General Garnett, with 4,585 Confederates, retreated from Laurel Hill through Tucker County, pursued by General Morris with 3,000 menl.
July 12. Beverly was occupied by Mcclellan's forces, and a Confeder- ate force, under Colonel Scott, retreated over Cheat Mountain toward Staunton.
July 13. Colonel Pegram surrendered six miles from Beverly to Mcclellan's army.
July 13. Battle of Corrick's Ford, in Tucker County. Garnett was killed and his army routed by Federals under General Morris.
July 13. General Lew Wallace with a Federal force advanced from Keyser and captured Romney.
July 15. Harper's Ferry was evacuated by the Confederates.
July 16. Skirmish at Barboursville, Cabell County. The Confederates were defeated.
July 17. Scarry Creek skirmish. Colonel Patton, with 1200 Confeder- ates, defeated an equal number of Federals under Colonel Norton.
July 20. General W. W. Loring was placed in command of the Confed- erate forces in Northwestern Virginia.
August 1. General R. E. Lee was sent to take command of Confederate forces in West Virginia.
August 11. General John B. Floyd took command of Confederate troops in the Kanawha Valley.
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