Slavery and Four Years of War Part 27

(17) Letter of Adjutant-General Thomas to Garfield. _Army of c.u.mberland Society Proceedings_ (Cleveland), 1870, p. 94.

(18) _War Records_, vol. i., pp. 11-13.

It is worthy of note that at high noon, exactly four years later (1865) the identical flag lowered in dishonor was "raised in glory"

over Fort Sumter, Robert Anderson partic.i.p.ating.

(19) Crawford, p. 421.

(20) _Life of Toombs_ (Stovall), p. 226.

(21) One man was killed on each side by accident.

(22) Letter to Greeley, August 22, 1862, Lincoln's _Com. Works_, vol. ii., p. 227; also same sentiment, letter to Robinson, August 17, 1864, p. 563.

(23) General Benjamin Lincoln, of the Revolution, affords a striking example. He was brave, skillful, often held high command, and always possessed Was.h.i.+ngton's confidence, yet he never won a battle.

To compensate him somewhat for his misfortunes Was.h.i.+ngton designated him to receive the surrender at Yorktown, October 19, 1781.-- _Was.h.i.+ngton and His Generals_ (Headley), vol. ii., pp. 104, 121.

(24) Euripides said, more than two thousand years ago: "Cowards do no _count_ in battle; they are _there_, but _not in it._"

(25) _Hist. of Rebellion_ (McPherson), pp. 114, 115.

(26) Ordnance and inspecting officers during the War of the Rebellion contended that the .58 calibre rifle was the smallest practicable. In 1863 I purchased for special use a small number of Martini-Henry repeating rifles, calibre .44, and on applying for ammunition, the ordnance officer protested against supplying it on the ground that the ball used was too small for effective use. This, I demonstrated at the time, was a mistake. And now (1896), after years of most careful experiments and tests by the most skilled boards of officers, English, German, French, Austrian, Swedish, United States, etc., it has been ascertained that a steel- jacket, leaden ball fired from a rifle of .30 calibre has the highest velocity and greatest penetrating power.

The armies of all these countries are now, or are fast being, armed with this superior, small-calibre rifle.

(27) As late as April, 1862, Jeff. Davis, though a soldier by training and experience, attached importance to "pikes and knives"

as war-weapons.--_War Records_, vol. x., pt. 2., p. 413.

CHAPTER III Personal Mention--Occupancy of Western Virginia under McClellan (1861)--Campaign and Battle of Rich Mountain, and Incidents

Events leading, as we have seen, to the secession of States; to the organization of the Confederate States of America; to the a.s.sembling of Confederate forces in large numbers; to the firing on Fort Sumter and its subsequent capitulation, and to the summons to arms of seventy-five thousand volunteer United States troops, ended all thoughts of peace through means other than war.

President Lincoln and his advisers did not delude themselves with the notion that three months would end the war. He and they knew too well how deep-seated the purpose was to consummate secession, hence before the war had progressed far the first three years' call was made.

By common judgment, South as well as North, Virginia was soon the be the scene of early battle. Its proximity to Was.h.i.+ngton, the Capital, made it necessary to occupy the south side of the Potomac.

The western part of the State was not largely interested in slaves or slave labor, and it was known to have many citizens loyal to the Union. These it was important to protect and recognize. The neutral and doubtful att.i.tude Kentucky at first a.s.sumed made its occupation a very delicate matter.

While many volunteer troops were hastened to the defense of Was.h.i.+ngton, large numbers were gathered in camps throughout the North for instruction, organization, and equipment.

When Lincoln's first call for troops was made I was at Springfield, Ohio, enjoying a fairly lucrative law practice as things then went, but with compet.i.tion acutely sharp for future great success.

I had, in November, 1856, come from the common labor of a farm to a small city, to there complete a course of law reading, commenced years before and prosecuted at irregular intervals. After my removal to Springfield I finished a preparatory course, and January 12, 1858, when not yet twenty-two years of age, I was admitted to practice law by the Supreme Court of Ohio, and settled in Springfield, where I had the good fortune to enjoy a satisfactory share of the clientage. I had from youth a desire to learn as much as possible of war and military campaigns, but, save a little volunteer militia training of a poor kind, obtained as a member of a uniformed military company, and a little duty on a militia general's staff, I had no education or preparation for the responsible duties of a soldier-- certainly none for the important duties of an officer of any considerable command.

Thus situated and unprepared, on the first call for volunteers I enlisted as a private soldier in a Springfield company, and went with it to Camp Jackson, now Goodale Park, Columbus, Ohio.( 1)

The first volunteers were allowed to elect their own company and field officers. I was elected Major of the 3d Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and commissioned, April 27, 1861, by Governor William Dennison.

A few days subsequently, my regiment was sent to Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, to begin its work of preparation for the field.

Here I saw and came to know in some sense Major-General George B.

McClellan, also Wm. S. Rosecrans, Jacob D. c.o.x, Gordon Granger, and others who afterward became Major-Generals. I also met many others, whom in the campaigns and battles of the succeeding four years I knew and appreciated as accomplished officers. But many I met there fell by the way, not alone by the accidents of battle but because of unfitness for command or general inefficiency.

The Colonel of my regiment (Marrow) so magnified a Mexican war experience as to make the unsophisticated citizen-soldier look upon him with awe, yet he never afterwards witnessed a real battle. John Beatty, who became later a Colonel, then Brigadier-General, was my Lieutenant-Colonel; he did not, I think, even possess the equivalent of my poor pretense of military training. He was, however, a typical volunteer Union soldier; brainy, brave, terribly in earnest, always truthful, and what he did not know he made no pretense of knowing, but set about learning. He had by nature the spirit of a good soldier; as the war progressed the true spirit of the warrior became an inspiration to him; and at Perryville, Stone's River, Chickamauga, and on other fields he won just renown, not alone for personal gallantry but for skill in handling and personally fighting his command.

The 3d Ohio and most of the three-months' regiments at Camp Dennison were promptly re-enlisted under the President's May 3d call for three years' volunteers, and I was again (June 12, 1861) commissioned its Major.

In early June, McClellan, who commanded the Department of Ohio, including Western Virginia, crossed the Ohio and a.s.sembled an army, mainly at and in the vicinity of Grafton.

He had issued, May 26th, 1861, from his headquarters at Cincinnati, a somewhat bombastic proclamation to the people of Western Virginia, relating in part to the recent vote on secession, saying his invasion was delayed to avoid the appearance of influencing the result. It promised protection to loyal men against armed rebels, and indignantly disclaimed any disposition to interfere with slaves or slavery, promising to crush an attempted insurrection "with an iron hand."

The proclamation closed thus:

"Notwithstanding all that has been said by the traitors to induce you to believe that our advent among you will be signalized with interference with your slaves, understand one thing clearly--not only will we abstain from all such interference, but we will, on the contrary, with an iron hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part. Now that we are in your midst, I call upon you to fly to arms and support the General Government.

"Sever the connection that binds you to traitors. Proclaim to the world that the faith and loyalty so long boasted by the Old Dominion are still preserved in Western Virginia, and that you remain true to the Stars and Stripes."( 2)

This proclamation won no friends for the Union in the mountains of Western Virginia, where slaves were few and slavery was detested.

The mountaineers were naturally for the Union, and such an appeal was likely to do more harm than good.

The proclamation, however, was in harmony with the then policy of the Administration at Was.h.i.+ngton and with public sentiment generally in the North.

Colonel George A. Porterfield, on May 4th, was ordered by Robert E. Lee, then in command of the Virginia forces, to repair to Grafton, the junction of two branches of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and there a.s.semble the Confederate troops with a view to holding that part of the State of Virginia; in case, however, he failed in this and was unable permanently to hold that railroad, he was instructed to cut it.

On June 8th, General R. S. Garnett was a.s.signed by Lee to the command of the Confederate troops of Northwestern Virginia.

The Union forces under Col. B. F. Kelley, 1st Virginia Volunteers, occupied Grafton May 30th, the forces under Porterfield having retired without a fight to Philippi, about sixteen miles distant on a turnpike road leading from Webster (four miles from Grafton) over Laurel Hill to Beverly. As roads are few in Western Virginia, and as this road proved to be one of great importance in the campaign upon which we are just entering, it may be well to say that it continues through Huttonville, across Tygart's Valley River, through Cheat Mountain Pa.s.s over the summit of Cheat Mountain, thence through Greenbrier to Staunton at the head of the Shenandoah Valley.

At Beverly it is intersected by another turnpike from Clarksburg, through Buchannon _via_ Middle Fork Bridge, Roaring Creek (west of Rich Mountain), Rich Mountain Summit, etc. From Huttonville a road leads southward up the Tygart's Valley River, crossing the mouth of Elk Water about seven miles from Huttonville, thence past Big Springs on Valley Mountain to Huntersville, Virginia. The region through which these roads pa.s.s is mountainous.

Ohio and Indiana volunteers made up the body of the army under McClellan. These troops a.s.sembled first in the vicinity of Grafton.

The first camp the 3d Ohio occupied was at Fetterman, two miles west of Grafton. Porterfield made a halt at Philippi, where he gathered together about eight hundred poorly-armed and disciplined men.

Detachments under Col. B. F. Kelley and Col. E. Dumont of Indiana, surprised him, June 3d, by a night march, and captured a part of his command, much of his supplies, and caused him to retreat with his forces disorganized and in disgrace. There Colonel Kelley was seriously wounded by a pistol shot. General Garnett, soon after the affair at Philippi, collected about four thousand men at Laurel Hill, on the road leading to Beverly. This position was naturally a strong one, and was soon made formidable with earthworks and artillery. He took command there in person. At the foot of Rich Mountain (western side), on the road leading from Clarksville through Buchannon to Beverly, a Confederate force of about two thousand, with considerable artillery, was strongly fortified, commanded by Colonel John Pegram, late of the U.S.A. Beverly was made the base of supplies for both commands. Great activity was displayed to recruit and equip a large Confederate force to hold Western Virginia. They had troops on the Kanawha under Gen. Henry A. Wise and Gen. J. B. Floyd. The latter was but recently President Buchanan's Secretary of War.

Brig.-Gen. Thomas A. Morris of Indiana was given about 4000 men after the affair at Philippi to hold and watch Garnett at Laurel Hill. McClellan having concentrated a force at Clarksburg on the Parkersburg stem of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, moved it thence on the Beverly road, _via_ Buchannon, to the front of Pegram's position.

His army on this road numbered about 10,000.

Gen. Wm. S. Rosecrans, the second in command, led a brigade; Gen.

N. Schleich, a three-months' general from Ohio, and Col. Robert L.

McCook (9th O.V.I.), also in some temporary way commanded brigades.

The 3d Ohio Infantry was of Schleich's brigade.

While the troops were encamped at Buchannon, Schleich, on July 6th, without the knowledge of McClellan, sent two companies under Captain Lawson of the 3d Ohio on a reconnoitring expedition to ascertain the position of the enemy. Lawson found the enemy's advance pickets at Middle Fork Bridge, and a spirited fight occurred in which he lost one man killed and inflicted some loss on the enemy. This unauthorized expedition caused McClellan to censure Schleich, who was only to be excused on the score of inexperience.

By the evening of July 9th the Union army reached and camped on Roaring Creek, near the base of Rich Mountain, about one and a half miles from the front of Pegram's fortified position.

General Morris was ordered at this time to take up a position immediately confronting Garnett's entrenched position at Laurel Hill, to watch his movements, and, if he attempted to retreat, to attack and pursue him.