Slavery and Four Years of War Part 29

"Owing to the reduced and almost famished condition of the force now here under my command, I am compelled to offer to surrender them to you as prisoners of war. I have only to ask that they receive at your hands such treatment as Northern prisoners have invariably received from the South."

McClellan sent staff officers to Pegram's camp to conduct him and his starving soldiers to Beverly, they numbering 30 officers and 525 men.(12) Others escaped.

The prisoners were paroled and sent South on July 15th, save such of the officers, including Colonel Pegram, as had recently left the United States army to join the Confederate States army; these were retained and sent to Fort McHenry.(13)

Garnett retreated through Tucker County to Kalea's Ford on Cheat River, where he camped on the night of the 12th. His rear was overtaken on the 13th at Carrick's Ford, and a lively engagement took place, with loss on both sides; during a skirmish at another ford about a mile from Carrick's, Garnett, while engaged in covering his retreat and directing skirmishers, was killed by a rifle ball.(14)

Garnett had been early selected for promotion in the Confederate army, and he promised to become a distinguished leader. His army, now much demoralized and disorganized, continued its retreat _via_ Horse-Shoe Run and Red House, Maryland, to Monterey, Virginia.

General C. W. Hill, through timidity or inexperience, permitted the broken Confederate troops to pa.s.s him unmolested at Red House, where, as ordered, he should have concentrated a superior force.

McClellan, July 14th, moved his army over the road leading through Huttonville to Cheat Mountain Pa.s.s, and a portion of it pursued a small force of the enemy to and beyond the summit of Cheat Mountain, on the Staunton pike, but no enemy was overtaken, and the campaign was at an end.

It was the first campaign; it had the appearance of success, and McClellan, by his dispatches, gathered to himself all the glory of it. He received the commendation of General Scott, the President, and his Cabinet.(15)

From Beverly, July 16, 1861, McClellan issued a painfully vain, congratulatory address to the "_Soldiers of the Army of the West_."(16)

As early as July 21, 1861, he dispatched his wife that he did not "feel sure that the men would fight very well under any one but himself"; and that it was absolutely necessary for him to go in person to the Kanawha to attack General Wise. Thus far _he had led no troops in battle_. The Union defeat, on this date, at Bull Run, however, turned attention to McClellan, as he alone, apparently, had achieved success, though a success, as we have seen, mainly, if not wholly, due to Rosecrans.

On July 22, 1861, he was summoned to Was.h.i.+ngton, and on the 24th left his "Army of the West" to a.s.sume other and more responsible military duties, of which we will not here speak. In dismissing him from this narrative, I desire to say that I wrote to a friend in July, 1861, an opinion as to the capacity and character of McClellan as a military leader, which I have not since felt called on to revise, and one now generally accepted by the thoughtful men of this country. McClellan was kind and generous, but weak, and so inordinately vain that he thought it unnecessary to accept the judgment of men of higher attainments and stronger character. Even now strong men shudder when they recall the fact that George B.

McClellan apparently had, for a time, in his keeping the destiny of the Republic.

To indicate the state of his mind, and likewise the immensity of his vanity, I here give an extract from a letter, of August 9, 1861, to his wife, leaving the reader to make his own comment and draw his own conclusions.

"General Scott is the great obstacle. He will not comprehend the danger. I have to fight my way against him. To-morrow the question will probably be decided by giving me absolute control independently of him... . The people call on me to save the country. _I_ must save it, and cannot respect anything that is in the way.

"I receive letter after letter, have conversation after conversation, calling on me to save the nation, alluding to the presidency, dictators.h.i.+p, etc... . _I would cheerfully take the dictators.h.i.+p and agree to lay down my life when the country is saved_," etc.(17)

General McClellan was not disloyal, nor did he lack a technical military education. He was a good husband, an indulgent father, a kind and devoted friend, of pure life, but unfortunately he was for a time mistaken for a great soldier, and this mistake _he_ never himself discovered.

He had about him, while holding high command, many real and professed friends, most of whom partook of his habits of thought and possessed only his characteristics. President Lincoln did not fail to understand him, but sustained and long stood by him for want of a known better leader for the Eastern army, and because he had many adherents among military officers.

Greeley, in the first volume of his _American Conflict_, written at the beginning of the war, has a page containing the portraits of twelve of the then most distinguished "Union Generals." Scott is the central figure, and around him are McClellan, Butler, McDowell, Wool, Fremont, Halleck, Burnside, Hunter, Hooker, Buell, and Anderson. All survived the war, and not one of them was at its close a distinguished commander in the field. One or two at most had maintained only creditable standing as officers; the others (Scott excepted, who retired on account of great age) having proved, for one cause or another, failures.

In Greeley's second volume, published at the close of the war, is another group of "Union Generals." Grant is the central figure, and around him are Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Hanc.o.c.k, Blair, Howard, Terry, Curtis, Banks, and Gilmore--not one of the first twelve; and he did not even then exhaust the list of great soldiers who fairly won eternal renown.

The true Chieftains had to be evolved in the flame of battle, amid the exigencies of the long, b.l.o.o.d.y war, and they had to win their promotions on the field.

( 1) For a summary life of the writer before and after the war, see Appendix A.

( 2) _War Records_, vol. ii., p. 48.

( 3) Colonel Pegram's Rep., _War Records_, vol. ii., p. 267.

( 4) _Citizen Soldier_ (John Beatty), p. 22.

( 5) It seems that this orderly did decline to say which flank Rosecrans was turning, as he must have had doubts after what had transpired as to his instructions; nevertheless Pegram decided Rosecrans was pa.s.sing around his right, and so notified Garnett.-- _War Records_, vol. ii., pp. 256, 260, 272.

( 6) _Ibid_., vol. ii., p. 275.

( 7) _War Records_, vol. ii., p. 245.

( 8) _Ibid_., (Pegram's Report), vol. ii., p. 265.

( 9) _War Records_ (McClellan's Report), vol. ii., p. 206.

(10) _Citizen Soldier_ (Beatty), p. 24.

(11) _War Records_, vol. ii., p. 206.

(12) _War Records_ (Pegram's Report), vol. ii., p. 267.

(13) At Beverly lived a sister of Thomas J. Jackson (Stonewall), Mrs. Arnold, who, though her husband was also disloyal, was a p.r.o.nounced Union woman and remained devoted to the Union cause throughout the war.

(14) _War Records_, vol. ii., p. 287.

(15) _Ibid_., p. 204.

(16) _Ibid_., p. 236.

(17) _McClellan's Own Story_, p. 84.

CHAPTER IV Repulse of General Lee and Affairs of Cheat Mountain and in Tygart's Valley (September, 1861)--Killing of John A. Was.h.i.+ngton, and Incidents, and Formation of State of West Virginia

General Rosecrans, from headquarters at Grafton, July 25, 1861, a.s.sumed command of the "Army of Occupation in Western Virginia."

He subsequently removed his headquarters to the field on the Kanawha and there actively partic.i.p.ated in campaigns.

Brigadier-General Joseph J. Reynolds, of Indiana, a regular officer, was a.s.signed to the first brigade and to command the troops in the Cheat Mountain region.

Many of the troops who served under McClellan were three-months'

men who responded to President Lincoln's first call and, as their terms of service expired, were mustered out, thus materially reducing the strength of the army in Western Virginia, and as the danger apprehended at Was.h.i.+ngton was great, new regiments, as rapidly as they could be organized, were sent there.

Already a movement at Wheeling had commenced to repudiate the secession of Virginia, and to organize a state government, and subsequently a new State.

Great efforts were put forth at Richmond by Governor Letcher and the Confederate authorities to regain possession of Western Virginia and to suppress this loyal political movement.

John B. Floyd and Henry A. Wise, both in the Confederate service, and others were active on the Kanawha and in Southwestern Virginia, but as the line from Staunton across Cheat Mountain led to Buchannon and Clarksburg, and also _via_ Laurel Hill to Webster and Grafton, striking the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at two points, it was regarded at Richmond as the gateway to Western Virginia which, if opened, would insure its permanent recovery.

General R. E. Lee, from the first a favorite of the Confederate authorities, who had thus far won no particular renown, not even partic.i.p.ating in the Bull Run battle and campaign, was now (about August 1st) sent to Western Virginia "to strike a decisive blow at the enemy in that quarter."( 1)

He established his headquarters at Staunton, but we find him, in August, with his main army at Valley Mountain (Big Springs), on the Huntersville road, and about twelve miles south of the Union camp at Elk Water on the Tygart's Valley River. General W. W.

Loring, late of the United States Army, an officer who won some fame in the Mexican War, was in immediate command of the Confederate troops at Valley Mountain. Brigadier-General H. R. Jackson--not Stonewall Jackson, as so often stated--commanded the Confederate forces, subject to the orders of Loring, on the Greenbrier, on the Staunton road leading over Cheat Mountain to Huttonville. On these two lines Lee soon had above 11,000 effective soldiers present for duty, and he could draw others from Floyd and Wise in the Kanawha country.( 2)

Confronting Lee's army was the command of General Reynolds, with headquarters at Cheat Mountain Pa.s.s,( 3) three miles from Huttonville on the Staunton pike. Here Colonel Sullivan's 13th Indiana, part of Loomis' battery, and Bracken's Indiana Cavalry were camped. On Cheat Mountain, at the middle mountain-top, about nine miles to the southeast of Huttonville on the Staunton pike, were the 14th Indiana, 24th and 25th Ohio, and parts of the same battery and cavalry, Colonel Nathan Kimball of the 14th in command. At Camp Elk Water, about one mile north of the mouth of Elk Water in the Tygart's River Valley, and about seven miles southward from Huttonville on the Huntersville pike, the 15th and 17th Indiana and the 3d and 6th Ohio Infantry, and still another part of Loomis'

battery, were posted. Reynolds' entire command did not exceed 4000 available men, and in consequence of almost incessant rains the roads became so bad that it was difficult to supply it with food and forage. The troops being new and unseasoned to camp life, suffered much from sickness. The service for them was hard in consequence of the necessarily great amount of scouting required on the numerous paths leading though the precipitous spurs of the ranges of both Rich and Cheat Mountains, which closely shut in the valley of the Tygart's.

The writer was often engaged leading scouting parties through the mountains.