my command, I recalled a scene I had witnessed there which left many doubts in my mind whether he would prove an agreeable subordinate. I had gone, one morning, to General Bates’s office, and as I entered found McCook expressing himself with more vigor than elegance in regard to some order which had been issued respecting his regiment. My presence did not seem to interfere with the fluency of his remarks or the force of his expletives, but after a moment or two he seemed to notice a look of surprise in my face, and his own broadened humorously as his manner changed from vehemence to geniality. General Bates and he were familiar acquaintances at the bar in Cincinnati, and McCook had evidently presumed upon this as a warrant for speaking his mind as he pleased. When he reported to me at this later period, I found a hearty and loyal character under his bluff exterior and rough speech, with real courage, a quick eye for topography, and no lack of earnest subordination when work was to be done. Although our service together was short, I learned to have real respect for him, and sincerely mourned his loss when, later in the war, he met his tragic death. The other brigade commander was _Colonel E. P. Scammon _ of the Twenty-third Ohio. He had graduated from West Point in 1837, and had served in the Topographical Engineers of the regular army and as instructor in the Military Academy. In the Mexican War he had been aide-de-camp to General Scott. He had been out of the army for some years before the rebellion, and was acting as professor of mathematics in St. Xavier’s College, Cincinnati, when he was appointed to the colonelcy of the Twenty-third Ohio upon Rosecrans’s promotion. Like Rosecrans, he was a Roman Catholic, though himself of Puritan descent. It seems that at the time of the Puseyite movement in England and in this country there had been a good many conversions to Romanism among the students and teachers at West Point, under the influence of the chaplain of the post, and Scammon, among a number of young men who subsequently became distinguished officers, was in this number. It need hardly be said that Scammon was well instructed in his profession. He was perhaps too much wedded to the routine of the service, and was looked upon by his subordinates as a martinet who had not patience enough with the inexperience of volunteer soldiers. He was one of the older men of our army, somewhat under the average height and weight, with a precise politeness of manner which reminded one of a Frenchman, and the resemblance was increased by his free use of his snuff-box. His nervous irritability was the cause of considerable chafing in his command, but this left him under fire, and those who had been with him in action learned to admire his courage and conduct. He was with me subsequently at South Mountain and Antietam, and still later had the misfortune to be one of those prisoners in the Confederates’ hands who were exposed to the fire of our batteries in front of Charleston, S. C.
But being a subordinate, I was most interested in the characteristics of our commander. Our Camp Dennison acquaintance had been a pleasant one, and he greeted me with a cordiality that was reassuring. His general appearance was attractive. He was tall but not heavy, with the rather long head and countenance that is sometimes called Norman. His aquiline nose and bright eyes gave him an incisive expression, increased by rapid utterance in his speech, which was apt to grow hurried, almost to stammering, when he was excited. His impulsiveness was plain to all who approached him; his irritation quickly flashed out in words when he was crossed, and his social geniality would show itself in smiles and in almost caressing gestures when he was pleased. In discussing military questions he made free use of his theoretic knowledge, often quoted authorities and cited maxims of war, and compared the problem before him to analogous cases in military history. This did not go far enough to be pedantic, and was full of a lively intelligence; yet it did not impress me as that highest form of military insight and knowledge which solves the question before it upon its own merits and without conscious comparison with historical examples, through a power of judgment and perception ripened and broadened by the mastery of principles which have ruled the great campaigns of the world. He was fond of conviviality, loved to banter good-humoredly his staff officers and intimates, and was altogether an attractive and companionable man, with intellectual activity enough to make his society stimulating and full of lively discussion. I could easily understand Garfield’s saying, in his letter to Secretary Chase which afterward became the subject of much debate, that he “loved every bone in his body.” [Footnote: An anecdote told at my table in 1890 by the Rev. Dr. Morris, long Professor in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, is so characteristic of Rosecrans that it is worth repeating. After the battle of Stone’s River (January, 1863) Dr. Morris, who was then minister of a Presbyterian church in Columbus, was made by Governor Tod a member of a commission sent to look after the wounded soldiers. He called on General Rosecrans at his headquarters in Murfreesboro, and among others met there Father Tracy, the general’s chaplain, a Roman Catholic priest. During the visit Rosecrans was called aside (but in the same room) by a staff officer to receive information about a spy who had been caught within the lines. The general got quite excited over the information, talked loudly and hurriedly in giving directions concerning the matter, using some profane language. It seemed suddenly to occur to him that the clergymen were present, and from the opposite side of the room he turned toward them, exclaiming apologetically, “Gentlemen, I sometimes _swear_, but I never _blaspheme!_”]
Rosecrans’s adjutant-general was Captain George L. Hartsuff, an officer of the regular army, who was well qualified to supplement in many ways the abilities and deficiencies of his chief. [Footnote: Hartsuff was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers in the next year and was severely wounded at Antietam, after which he was made major-general and commanded the Twenty-third Army Corps in Burnside’s campaign of East Tennessee.] He was a large man, of heavy frame; his face was broad, and his bald head, tapering high, gave a peculiar pyramidal appearance to his figure. He was systematic and accurate in administrative work, patient and insistent in bringing the young volunteer officers in his department into habits of order and good military form. His coolness tempered the impulsiveness of his chief, and as they were of similar age and had about the same standing in the army before the war, the familiarity between them was that of comrades and equals more than of commander and subordinate.
My intercourse with these officers on the occasion of my visit to Cross Lanes was only the beginning of the acquaintance on which I based the estimate of them which I have given; but it was a good beginning, for the cordial freedom of thought and speech in the conference was such as to bring out the characteristics of the men. I rode back to my camp in the evening, feeling a sense of relief at the transfer of responsibility to other shoulders. The command of my brigade under the orders of Rosecrans seemed an easy task compared with the anxieties and the difficulties of the preceding three months. And so it was. The difference between chief responsibility in military movements and the leadership even of the largest subordinate organizations of an army is heaven-wide; and I believe that no one who has tried both will hesitate to say that the subordinate knows little or nothing of the strain upon the will and the moral faculties which the chief has to bear.
McCook’s brigade joined me on the 16th, and we immediately marched to Alderson’s, where we made a camp afterward known as Camp Lookout. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 481.] I was able to bring up the Second Kentucky Regiment from Gauley Bridge, giving me in hand three regiments of my own brigade. I sent forward Major Hines with five companies as an advance-guard, and with these he scouted the country as far as the top of Big Sewell Mountain, and was able to give us definite information that Floyd had retreated as far as Meadow Bluff, where the Wilderness road joins the turnpike. Wise halted at Big Sewell Mountain and persisted in keeping his command separate from Floyd, who ordered him to join the rest of the column at Meadow Bluff. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 854,855,862.] On the 20th September my advance-guard occupied the crest of the mountain, whilst Wise withdrew to a parallel ridge a mile beyond, and loudly insisted that Floyd should join him there instead of concentrating the Confederate force at Meadow Bluff. General Lee reached the latter place in person on the 21st, but found Wise’s headstrong and captious spirit hardly more amenable to his discipline than to Floyd’s. He shared Floyd’s opinion that it was better to await Rosecrans’s advance at Meadow Bluff, throwing upon the National forces the burden of transportation over the extended line, whilst guarding against a possible turning movement by the Wilderness road. But Wise was so noisy in his assertions that his was the only position in which to fight, that Lee hesitated to order him back peremptorily, and finally yielded to his clamor and directed Floyd to advance to Wise’s position. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 868,874,878,879.] The scandal of the quarrel between the two officers had, however, become so notorious that the Richmond government had authorized Lee to send Wise elsewhere, and, probably on his advice, the Confederate War Department ordered Wise to report at Richmond in person. The last scene in the comedy was decidedly amusing. Wise appealed passionately to Lee to say whether his military honor did not require that he should disobey the order till the expected battle should be fought, and Lee, no doubt in dismay lest he should still fail to get rid of so intractable a subordinate, gravely advised him that both honor and duty would be safe in obeying promptly the order. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 879.]
Whilst waiting at Camp Lookout for authority to move forward, an incident occurred which gave us a little excitement and amusement, and which shows, better than much explanation could do, the difficult and intricate character of the country in which we were operating. A wagon-master from our camp had gone out hunting for forage, which was very scarce. He soon came back in excitement, reporting that he had come upon an encampment of a regiment of the enemy between our camp and New River and somewhat in our rear. His report was very circumstantial, but was so improbable that I was confident there was some mistake about it. He was, however, so earnest in his assertions that he could not be mistaken, that McCook, in whose brigade he was, sent out an officer with some men, guided by the wagon-master, to verify the report. The story was confirmed, and the matter was brought to me for action. Puzzled but not convinced, and thinking that as McCook’s command was new to the country, it would be better to send some one who was used to scouting in the mountains, I ordered a lieutenant named Bontecou, of the Second Kentucky Regiment, to take a small party and examine the case anew. Bontecou had done a good deal of successful work in this line, and was regarded as a good woodsman and an enterprising scout. He too came back at nightfall, saying that there could be no mistake about it. He had crept close to the sentinels of the camp, had counted the tents, and being challenged by the guard, had made a run for it through the thicket, losing his hat. The position of the enemy was, by all the reports, about three miles from us, diagonally in rear of our right flank. It now seemed that it must be true that some detachment had been delayed in joining the retreating column, and had found itself thus partly cut off by our advance. I therefore ordered McCook to start at earliest peep of day, upon the Chestnutburg road (on which the wagon-master had been foraging), and passing beyond the hostile detachment, attack from the other side, it being agreed by all the scouting parties that this would drive the enemy toward our camp. My own brigade would be disposed of to intercept the enemy and prevent escape. McCook moved out as ordered, and following his guides came by many devious turns to a fork in the road, following which, they told him, a few minutes would bring him upon the enemy. He halted the column, and with a small skirmishing party went carefully forward. The guides pointed to a thicket from which the Confederates could be seen. His instinct for topography had made him suspect the truth, as he had noted the courses in advancing, and crawling through the thicket, he looked out from the other side upon what he at once recognized as the rear of his own camp, and the tents of the very regiment from which he had sent an officer to test the wagon-master’s report. All the scouts had been so deceived by the tangle of wooded hills and circling roads that they fully believed they were still miles from our position; and, bewildered in the labyrinth, they were sure the tents they saw were the enemy’s and not ours. The march had been through rain and mist, through dripping thickets and on muddy roads, and the first impulse was wrath at the erring scouts; but the ludicrous side soon prevailed, and officers and men joined in hearty laughter over their wild-goose chase. They dubbed the expedition the “Battle of Bontecou,” and it was long before the lieutenant heard the last of the chaffing at his talents as a scout. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 484, 485.]
Major Hines’s reports of the strength of the position on Sewell Mountain which the enemy had occupied, and my own reconnoissance of the intervening country, satisfied me that if we meant to advance on this line, we ought not to give the enemy time to reconsider and to reoccupy the mountain top from which he had retreated. On representing this to General Rosecrans, he authorized me to advance twelve miles to the Confederate camp on Big Sewell, directing me, however, to remain upon the defensive when there, and to avoid bringing on any engagement till he could bring up the rest of the column. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 484, 486.] His means of crossing at Carnifex Ferry were so poor that what he had thought would be done in two or three days from the time McCook joined me, took a full fortnight to accomplish.
I marched with my own and McCook’s brigades on the 23d September, but when I reached the Confederate camp where Hines with the advance-guard awaited me, it was evident at a glance that we must go further. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 487.] The position was a very strong one for resisting an approach from our direction, but was commanded by higher ground beyond. The true crest of the mountain was two miles further on, and there alone could we successfully bar the way against a superior force coming from the east. I therefore marched rapidly forward and occupied the crest in force. It was impossible to hide the whole of our camp from view and properly hold the position, but we made use of such cover as we could find, and prepared to defend the pass against all comers, since it was vain to attempt to mystify the enemy as to our advance in force.
On the 24th we had a lively skirmish with Wise’s legion in front, and forced it to retire to a ridge out of range of our artillery. We dismounted one of his howitzers in the engagement, but contented ourselves with making him yield the ground which would interfere with our easy holding of our own position and the spurs of the mountain directly connected with it. Wise had learned that Rosecrans was not with my column, and on the supposition that the advance was made by my brigade only, Lee concluded to order Floyd to Wise’s camp, being now satisfied that no movement of our troops had been made by way of the Wilderness road. It was at this time that Wise was relieved of command and ordered to Richmond, and Lee found it advisable to unite his forces and take command in person.
The relations of these three distinguished Virginians had not begun with this campaign, but dated back to the capture of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. Wise was then the governor of his State, and received from Lee the prisoner whose execution at Charlestown was to become an historical event. Floyd, who himself had once been governor of Virginia, was then Buchanan’s Secretary of War, and ordered Lee with the detachment of marines to Harper’s Ferry, where they stormed the engine-house which Brown had made his fort. Dealing with such men as his subordinates, and with such a history behind them, it can easily be understood that Lee would feel no ordinary delicacy in asserting his authority, and no common embarrassment at their quarrels.
Rosecrans was at first disturbed at my going further than had been expected; [Footnote: Rosecrans’s Dispatches, Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 486, 487.] but he was soon satisfied that nothing better could have been done. It is true that I was thirty-five miles from the supports in the rear, whether at Carnifex Ferry or Gauley Bridge; but the position was almost impregnable in front, and by watchfulness I should know of any attempt to turn it in time to make safe my retreat to Camp Lookout. On the 26th Scammon’s brigade came within easy supporting distance, and General Rosecrans came in person to my camp. He had not been able to bring up his headquarters train, and was my guest for two or three days, sharing my tent with me. Cold autumnal rains set in on the very day the general came to the front, and continued almost without intermission. In the hope of still having some favorable weather for campaigning, the other brigades were brought forward, and the whole force was concentrated at the mountain except the necessary garrisons for the posts in the rear. Brigadier-General Robert C, Schenck reported for duty in the evening of a fearfully stormy day whilst Rosecrans was still my tent-mate. He had heard rumors of fighting at the front, and had hurried forward with a couple of staff officers, but without baggage. My staff officers were sharing their shelter with the gentlemen who had accompanied Rosecrans, but the new-comers were made heartily welcome to what we had. In my own tent General Rosecrans occupied my camp cot; I had improvised a rough bunk for myself on the other side of the tent, but as General Schenck got in too late for the construction of any better resting-place, he was obliged to content himself with a bed made of three or four camp-stools set in a row. Anything was better than lying on the damp ground in such a storm; but Schenck long remembered the aching weariness of that night, as he balanced upon the narrow and unstable supports which threatened to tumble him upon the ground at the least effort to change the position of stiffened body and limbs. One could not desire better companionship than we had during our waking hours, for both my guests had had varied and interesting experience and knew how to make it the means of delightful social intercourse and discussion. The chilly temperature of the tent was pleasantly modified by a furnace which was the successful invention of the private soldiers. A square trench was dug from the middle of the tent leading out behind it; this was capped with flat stones three or four inches thick, which were abundant on the mountain. At the end of it, on the outside, a chimney of stones plastered with mud was built up, and the whole topped out by an empty cracker-barrel by way of chimney-pot. The fire built in the furnace had good draught, and the thick stones held the heat well, making, on the whole, the best means of warming a tent which I ever tried. The objection to the little sheet-iron stoves furnished with the Sibley tent is that they are cold in a minute if the fire dies out.
The rains, when once they began, continued with such violence that the streams were soon up, the common fords became impassable, and the roads became so muddy and slippery that it was with the utmost difficulty our little army was supplied. The four brigades were so reduced by sickness and by detachments that Rosecrans reported the whole as making only 5200 effective men. Every wagon was put to work hauling supplies and ammunition, even the headquarters baggage wagons and the regimental wagons of the troops, as well those stationed in the rear as those in front. We were sixty miles from the head of steamboat navigation, the wagon trains were too small for a condition of things where the teams could hardly haul half loads, and by the 1st of October we had demonstrated the fact that it was impossible to sustain our army any further from its base unless we could rely upon settled weather and good roads.
Lee had directed an effort to be made by General Loring, his subordinate, on the Staunton line, to test the strength of the posts under Reynolds at Cheat Mountain and Elkwater, and lively combats had resulted on the 12th, and 14th of September. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 185-193.] Reynolds held firm, and as Rosecrans was not diverted from his plans and was pushing forward on the Lewisburg line, Lee ordered Loring to report to him with most of his command. Reynolds, in return, made a forced reconnoissance upon the Confederate position at Greenbrier River on October 2d, but found it too strong to be carried. The reinforcement by Loring gave Lee a very positive advantage in numbers, but the storms and foundering roads paralyzed both armies, which lay opposite each other upon the crests of Big Sewell separated by a deep gorge. On the 5th of October the condition of the Kanawha valley had become such that Rosecrans felt compelled to withdraw his forces to the vicinity of Gauley Bridge. The freshet had been an extraordinary one. At Charleston the Kanawha River usually flows in a bed forty or fifty feet below the plateau on which the town is built; but the waters now rose above these high banks and flooded the town itself, being four or five feet deep in the first story of dwelling-houses built in what was considered a neighborhood safe from floods. The inundation almost stopped communication, though our quartermasters tried to remedy part of the mischief by forcing light steamers up as near to the Kanawha Falls as possible. But it was very difficult to protect the supplies landed upon a muddy bank where were no warehouses, and no protection but canvas covers stretched over the piles of barrels and boxes of bread and sacks of grain. There was enormous waste and loss, but we managed to keep our men in rations, and were better off than the Confederates, in regard to whom Floyd afterward reported to his government that the eleven days of cold storms at Sewell Mountain had “cost more men, sick and dead, than the battle of Manassas Plains.”
It has been asserted by Confederate writers that Lee was executing a movement to turn Rosecrans’s left flank when the latter marched back from Sewell Mountain. If so, it certainly had not gone far enough to attract our attention, and from my own knowledge of the situation, I do not believe it had passed beyond the form of discussion of a possible movement when the weather should become settled. Such plans were discussed on both sides, but the physical condition of the country was an imperative veto upon aggressive action.
During the 5th of October our sick and spare baggage were sent back to Camp Lookout. Tents were struck at ten o’clock in the evening, and the trains sent on their way under escort at eleven. The column moved as soon as the trains were out of the way, except my own brigade, to which was assigned the duty of rear-guard. We remained upon the crest of the hill till half-past one, the men being formed in line of battle and directed to lie down till the time for them to march. Our sentinels had been posted with extra precaution, so that they might be withdrawn an hour or two after the brigade should move. Extra reserves were assigned to them, and Major Hines put in command of the whole detachment, with orders to keep in communication with me at the extreme rear of the marching column. It was interesting to observe the effect of this night movement upon the men. Their imagination was excited by the novelty of the situation, and they furnished abundant evidence that the unknown is always, in such cases, the wonderful. The night had cleared off and the stars were out. The Confederate position was eastward from us, and as a bright star rose above the ridge on which the enemy was, we could hear soldiers saying in a low tone to each other, “There goes a fire balloon–it must be a signal–they must have discovered what we are doing!” The exaggerated parallax at the horizon made the rising star seem to move rapidly for the first few minutes, and men, ignorant of this, naturally mistook its character. In a similar way an occasional shot on the picket line would be the cause of a subdued excitement. I doubt if soldiers ever make a night movement in an enemy’s presence without being under a nervous strain which exaggerates the importance of everything they see and hear, and this gives uncertainty and increases the difficulty of such duty. It is no small part of the duty of officers, in such cases, to allay this tendency to excitement, to explain the situation, and by a wise mixture of information and discipline to keep the men intelligently cool and in full command of their faculties.
General Rosecrans had gone with the head of the column, and had left with me Major Slemmer, his inspector-general, to bring him word when the rear of the column should be in march. Slemmer was the officer who, as a lieutenant, had distinguished himself by holding Fort Pickens in Pensacola harbor at the outbreak of the rebellion. He was a man of marked character, and in view of his experience it may easily be understood that we had no lack of interesting matter for conversation as we paced in rear of the reclining men during the midnight hours. His failing health prevented his taking the prominent part in the war that his abilities warranted, but I have retained, from that evening’s work together, a pleasing impression of his character and a respect for his military knowledge and talents. In impressing on me the fact that my position was the one of special honor in this movement, he expressed the wish that Rosecrans had himself remained there; but the result showed that hardly less than the commanding general’s own authority and energy could have got the column forward in the mud and darkness. The troops had marched but a mile or two when they overtook part of the wagon train toiling slowly over the steep and slippery hills. Here and there a team would be “stalled” in the mud, and it looked as if daylight would overtake us before even a tolerably defensive position would be reached. Rosecrans now gave his personal supervision to the moving of the wagons and artillery,–wagon-master’s work, it maybe said, but it was work which had to be done if the little army was not to be found in the morning strung out and exposed to the blows of the enemy if he should prove enterprising.
We who were at the rear did not know of the difficulty the column was having, and when my messenger reported the rear of the preceding brigade a mile or more from the camp, I gave the order to march, and my men filed into the road. Slemmer went forward to inform the general that we were in movement, and I remained with Major Hines till all was quiet, when he was directed to call in his pickets and sentinels and follow. I had gone hardly a mile when we were brought to a halt by the head of the brigade overtaking those who had preceded us. Word was brought back that the artillery was finding great difficulty in getting over the first considerable hill west of the mountain. We ourselves were upon the downward road from the mountain crest, but our way led along the side of a spur of the mountain which towered above us on our left. We were in a dense wood that shut out the stars, and in darkness that could almost be felt. I rode back a little to meet Hines and to keep some distance between the column and his little rear-guard. We sent a chain of sentinels over the hill commanding the road, and waited, listening for any evidence that the enemy had discovered our movement and followed. An hour passed in this way, and the column moved on a short distance. Again there was a halt, and again a deployment of our sentries. When at last day broke, we were only three or four miles from our camp of the evening before; but we had reached a position which was easily defensible, and where I could halt the brigade and wait for the others to get entirely out of our way. The men boiled their coffee, cooked their breakfast, and rested. Early in the forenoon a small body of the enemy’s cavalry followed us, but were contented with very slight skirmishing, and we marched leisurely to Camp Lookout before evening. Such night marches from the presence of an enemy are among the most wearing and trying in the soldier’s experience, yet, in spite of the temptation to invest them with extraordinary peril, they are rarely interfered with. It is the uncertainty, the darkness, and the effect of these upon men and officers that make the duty a delicate one. The risk is more from panic than from the foe, and the loss is more likely to be in baggage and in wagons than in men. I have several times been in command of rear-guards on such occasions, and I believe that I would generally prefer an open withdrawal by day. It is not hard to hold even a bold enemy at bay by a determined brigade or division, and a whole army may be saved from the exhaustion and exposure which rapidly fill the hospitals, and may cost more than several combats between rear and advance guards.
My brigade remained two or three days at Camp Lookout, where we were put upon the alert on the 7th by a reported advance of the enemy, but it amounted to nothing more than a lively skirmish of some cavalry with our outposts. Lee was glad to move back to Meadow Bluff to be nearer his supplies, and Rosecrans encamped his troops between Hawk’s Nest and the Tompkins farm, all of them being now within a few miles of Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 253. See also Official Atlas, pl. ix.] Part of my brigade garrisoned the post at the bridge, but by Rosecrans’s direction my own headquarters tents were pitched near his own upon the Tompkins farm. Both parties now remained in observation till near the end of October. Floyd, more enterprising in plans than resolute or skilful in carrying them out, had obtained Lee’s consent to make an attempt to render our position untenable by operations on the opposite side of New River. Lee had intended to co-operate by moving against us with the rest of his force, but on the 20th of October the reports from the Staunton region were so threatening that he determined to send Loring back there, [Footnote: _Id_., p. 908.] and this, of course, settled it that Lewisburg would be covered in front only by Wise’s Legion, commanded by Colonel Davis. Although Floyd complained of this change of plan, he did not abandon his purpose, but ordering the militia on that side of the river to reassemble, he marched to Fayette C. H. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 286.]
Rosecrans had distributed his brigades in _echelon_ along the turnpike,–Schenck’s, the most advanced, being ten miles from Gauley Bridge; McCook’s eight miles, where the road from Fayette C. H. by way of Miller’s Ferry comes in across New River; Benham’s six miles, whilst of my own one regiment at the Tompkins farm guarded headquarters, and the rest were at Gauley Bridge and lower posts where they could protect the navigation of the Kanawha. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 253.] McCook by Rosecrans’s direction marched to Fayette C. H. about the 20th of October, and on his return reported that only guerilla parties were abroad in that vicinity. Rosecrans seems to have expected that at least a foothold would be kept on the other side of New River at Miller’s Ferry, but McCook left nothing there, and when he tried to place a detachment on that side about the 25th, the shore and cliffs were found to be held by a force of sharpshooters. This marked the advance of Floyd, who established his camp in front of Fayette C. H. at the forking of the roads to Miller’s Ferry and to Gauley Bridge. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 285.] For a few days he made no serious demonstration, and Rosecrans hastened forward the work of clothing and paying his men, recruiting his teams and bringing back to the ranks the soldiers whom exposure had sent to the hospital. He had heard in a trustworthy way of Lee’s intention to move against us by the turnpike whilst Floyd advanced on the other side of the river, but Tie had not yet learned of the withdrawal of Lee with Loring’s troops. He therefore remained quiet and expectant, awaiting the definite development of events.
As this had been my first service in the field as part of a larger command, I was keenly alive to the opportunity of comparing the progress we had made in discipline and instruction with that of other brigades, so that I might cure defects in my own methods and improve the soldierly character as well as the administration of my own command. I was gratified to see in my troops evidence of a pride in their own organization and a wholesome emulation, which made them take kindly to the drill and discipline which were necessary to improvement. I was particularly interested in observing Rosecrans’s methods with the men. His standard of soldierly excellence was high, and he was earnest in insisting that his brigadiers and his staff officers should co-operate vigorously in trying to attain it. His impulsiveness, however, led him sometimes into personal efforts at discipline where the results were at least doubtful. He would sometimes go out through the camps in the evening, and if he saw a tent lighted after “taps,” or heard men singing or talking, he would strike loudly on the canvas with the flat of his sword and command silence or the extinguishment of the light. The men, in good-humored mischief, would try different ways of “getting even” with him. One that gave much amusement to the camp was this: the men in a tent thus attacked pretended to believe that their regimental wagon-master was playing a practical joke on them, and shouted back to him all sorts of rough camp chaff. When the exasperated general appeared at the door of the tent, they were, of course, overwhelmed with the most innocent astonishment, and explained that that wagon-master was in the habit of annoying them, and that they really had not heard the “taps.” I have been with the general in approaching a picket, when he would hotly lecture a sentinel who showed ignorance of some of his duties or inattention to them. I thought I could see in all such cases that it would have been wiser to avoid any unnecessary collision with the privates, but to take the responsible officer aside and make him privately understand that he must answer for such lack of instruction or of discipline among his men. An impulsive man is too apt to meddle with details, and so to weaken the sense of responsibility in the intermediate officers, who hate to be ignored or belittled before the soldiers. But if Rosecrans’s method was not an ideal one, it was at least vigorous, and every week showed that the little army was improving in discipline and in knowledge of duty.
CHAPTER VII
COTTON MOUNTAIN
Floyd cannonades Gauley Bridge–Effect on Rosecrans–Topography of Gauley Mount–De Villiers runs the gantlet–Movements of our forces–Explaining orders–A hard climb on the mountain–In the post at Gauley Bridge–Moving magazine and telegraph–A balky mule-team–Ammunition train under fire–Captain Fitch a model quartermaster–Plans to entrap Floyd–Moving supply trains at night–Method of working the ferry–of making flatboats–The Cotton Mountain affair–Rosecrans dissatisfied with Benham–Vain plans to reach East Tennessee.
On the 1st of November the early morning was fair but misty, and a fog lay in the gorge of New River nearly a thousand feet below the little plateau at the Tompkins farm, on which the headquarters tents were pitched. General Rosecrans’s tents were not more than a hundred yards above mine, between the turnpike and the steep descent to the river, though both our little camps were secluded by thickets of young trees and laurel bushes. Breakfast was over, the fog was lifting out of the valley, and I was attending to the usual morning routine of clerical work, when the report and echo of a cannon-shot, down the gorge in the direction of Gauley Bridge, was heard. It was unusual, enough so to set me thinking what it could mean, but the natural explanation suggested itself that it was one of our own guns, perhaps fired at a target. In a few moments an orderly came in some haste, saying the general desired to see me at his tent. As I walked over to his quarters, another shot was heard. As I approached, I saw him standing in front of his tent door, evidently much excited, and when I came up to him, he said in the rapid, half-stammering way peculiar to him at such times: “The enemy has got a battery on Cotton Mountain opposite our post, and is shelling it! What d’ ye think of that?” The post at the bridge and his headquarters were connected by telegraph, and the operator below had reported the fact of the opening of the cannonade from the mountain side above him, and added that his office was so directly under fire that he must move out of it. Indeed he was gone and communication broken before orders could be sent to him or to the post. The fact of the cannonade did not disturb me so much as the way in which it affected Rosecrans. He had been expecting to be attacked by Lee in front, and knew that McCook was exchanging shots across the river with some force of the enemy at Miller’s Ferry; but that the attack should come two miles or more in our rear, from a point where artillery had a plunging fire directly into our depot of supplies and commanded our only road for a half-mile where it ran on a narrow bench along New River under Gauley Mountain cliffs, had been so startling as to throw him decidedly off his balance. The error in not occupying Cotton Mountain himself was now not only made plain, but the consequences were not pleasant to contemplate. I saw that the best service I could render him for the moment was to help him back into a frame of mind in which cool reasoning on the situation would be possible. I have already stated the contrast between my own sense of care when in sole command and the comparative freedom from it when a senior officer came upon the field; and I now realized how much easier it was for a subordinate to take things coolly. I therefore purposely entered into a discussion of the probabilities of the situation, and drew it out at length enough to assist the general in recovering full control of himself and of his own faculties. We could not, from where we stood, see the post at Gauley Bridge nor even the place on Cotton Mountain where the enemy’s battery was placed, and we walked a little way apart from our staff officers to a position from which we could see the occasional puffs of white smoke from the hostile guns. From our camp the road descended sharply along the shoulders of steep hills covered with wood for a mile and a half, till it reached the bottom of the New River gorge, and then it followed the open bench I have mentioned till it reached the crossing of the Gauley. On the opposite side of New River there was no road, the mass of Cotton Mountain crowding close upon the stream with its picturesque face of steep inclines and perpendicular walls of rock. The bridge of boats which Rosecrans had planned at Gauley Bridge had not been built, because it had been found impossible to collect or to construct boats enough to make it. We were therefore still dependent on the ferry. Whilst the general and I were talking, Colonel De Villiers galloped up, having crossed at the ferry and run the gantlet of skirmishers whom he reported as lining the other side of New River opposite the unsheltered part of our road. He had recently reported for duty, having, as he asserted, escaped in a wonderful way from captivity in Libby Prison at Richmond. [Footnote: The Confederates claimed that he had been allowed to act as hospital attendant on parole, and that he violated his obligation in escaping. We had no means of verifying the facts in the case.] His regiment was at the bridge and he was the senior officer there; but, in his characteristic light-headed way, instead of taking steps to protect his post and re-establish the telegraph communications, he had dashed off to report in person at headquarters. As he was willing to take the risks of the race back again, he was allowed to go, after being fully instructed to set up a new telegraph office in a ravine out of range of fire, to put the ferry-boat out of danger as soon as he should be over, and prepare the ordnance stores to be moved into the valley of Scrabble Creek at night. I begged the general to be allowed to go back with De Villiers, as the thing I most feared was some panic at the post which might result in the destruction of our stores in depot there. He, however, insisted on my staying at headquarters for a time at least.
Information of the attack was sent to the brigades up the river, and Schenck, who was farthest up, was directed to push out scouting parties and learn if there was any advance of the enemy from Sewell Mountain. Benham, who was nearest, was ordered to send down part of his brigade to meet the efforts of the enemy to stop our communication with Gauley Bridge. The battery of mountain howitzers under Captain Mack of the regular army was also ordered to report at headquarters, with the intention of placing it high up on Gauley cliffs, where it could drop shells among the enemy’s skirmishers on the opposite bank of the river. An hour or two passed and the detachment from Benham’s brigade approached. It was the Thirteenth Ohio, led by one of its field officers, who halted the column and rode up to General Rosecrans for orders. The general’s manner was still an excited one, and in the rapidity with which his directions were given the officer did not seem to get a clear idea of what was required of him. He made some effort to get the orders explained, but his failure to comprehend seemed to irritate Rosecrans, and he therefore bowed and rode back to his men with a blank look which did not promise well for intelligent action. Noticing this, I quietly walked aside among the bushes, and when out of sight hurried a little in advance and waited at the roadside for the column. I beckoned the officer to me, and said to him, “Colonel, I thought you looked as if you did not fully understand the general’s wishes.” He replied that he did not, but was unwilling to question him as it seemed to irritate him. I said that was a wrong principle to act on, as a commanding officer has the greatest possible interest in being clearly understood. I then explained at large what I knew to be Rosecrans’s purposes. The officer thanked me cordially and rode away. I have ventured to give this incident with such fulness, because subsequent events in Rosecrans’s career strengthened the impression I formed at the time, that the excitability of his temperament was such that an unexpected occurrence might upset his judgment so that it would be uncertain how he would act,–whether it would rouse him to a heroism of which he was quite capable, or make him for the time unfit for real leadership by suspending his self-command. [Footnote: See Crittenden’s testimony in Buell Court of Inquiry, Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. i. p. 578. Cist’s account of Chickamauga, Army of the Cumberland, p. 226, and chap, xxvii., _post_.]
Soon after noon I obtained permission to go to Gauley Bridge and assume command there; but as the road along New River was now impracticable by reason of the increased fire of the enemy upon it, I took the route over the top of Gauley Mountain, intending to reach the Gauley River as near the post as practicable. I took with me only my aide, Captain Christie, and an orderly. We rode a little beyond the top of the mountain, and sending the orderly back with the horses, proceeded on foot down the northern slope. We soon came to the slashing which I had made in August to prevent the enemy’s easy approach to the river near the post. The mist of the morning had changed to a drizzling rain. We had on our heavy horsemen’s overcoats with large capes, cavalry boots and spurs, swords and pistols. This made it toilsome work for us. The trees had been felled so that they crossed each other in utmost confusion on the steep declivity. Many of them were very large, and we slid over the great wet trunks, climbed through and under branches, let ourselves down walls of natural rock, tripped and hampered by our accoutrements, till we came to the end of the entanglement at what we supposed was the edge of the river. To our dismay we found that we had not kept up stream far enough, and that at this point was a sheer precipice some thirty feet high. We could find no crevices to help us climb down it. We tried to work along the edge till we should reach a lower place, but this utterly failed. We were obliged to retrace our steps to the open wood above the slashing. But if the downward climbing had been hard, this attempt to pull ourselves up again,–
“… superasque evadere ad auras,”–
was labor indeed. We stopped several times from sheer exhaustion, so blown that it seemed almost impossible to get breath again. Our clothes were heavy from the rain on the outside and wet with perspiration on the inside. At last, however, we accomplished it, and resting for a while at the foot of a great tree till we gained a little strength, we followed the upper line of the slashing till we passed beyond it, and then turned toward the river, choosing to reach its banks high up above the camp rather than attempt again to climb through the fallen timber. Once at the water’s edge we followed the stream down till we were opposite the guard post above the camp, when we hailed for a skiff and were ferried over.
It was now almost dark, but the arrangements were soon made to have wagons ready at the building on the Kanawha front used as a magazine, and to move all our ammunition during the night to the place I had indicated in the ravine of Scrabble Creek, which runs into the Gauley. The telegraph station was moved there and connection of wires made. We also prepared to run the ferry industriously during the night and to put over the necessary trainloads of supplies for the troops above. A place was selected high up on the hill behind us, where I hoped to get up a couple of Parrott guns which might silence the cannon of the enemy on Cotton Mountain. I was naturally gratified at the expressions of relief and satisfaction of the officers of the post to have me in person among them. They had already found that the plunging fire from the heights across the river was not a formidable thing, and that little mischief would happen if the men were kept from assembling in bodies or large groups within range of the enemy’s cannon.
The fatigues of the day made sleep welcome as soon as the most pressing duties had been done, and I went early to rest, giving orders to the guard at my quarters to call me at peep of day. The weather cleared during the night, and when I went out in the morning to see what progress had been made in transferring the ammunition to a safe place, I was surprised to find the train of wagons stopped in the road along the Gauley in front of the camp. General Rosecrans’s ordnance officer was of the regular army, but unfortunately was intemperate. He had neglected his duty during the night, leaving his sergeant to get on without guidance or direction. The result was that the ordnance stores had not been loaded upon the waiting wagons till nearly daylight, and soon after turning out of the Kanawha road into that of the Gauley, the mules of a team near the head of the train balked, and the whole had been brought to a standstill. There was a little rise in the road on the hither side of Scrabble Creek, where the track, cutting through the crest of a hillock, was only wide enough for a single team, and this rise was of course the place where the balky animals stopped. The line of the road was enfiladed by the enemy’s cannon, the morning fog in the valley was beginning to lift under the influence of the rising sun, and as soon as the situation was discovered we might reckon upon receiving the fire of the Cotton Mountain battery. The wagon-drivers realized the danger of handling an ammunition train under such circumstances and began to be nervous, whilst the onlookers not connected with the duty made haste to get out of harm’s way. My presence strengthened the authority of the quartermaster in charge, Captain E. P. Fitch, helped in steadying the men, and enabled him to enforce promptly his orders. He stopped the noisy efforts to make the refractory mules move, and sent in haste for a fresh team. As soon as it came, this was put in place of the balky animals, and at the word of command the train started quickly forward. The fog had thinned enough, however, to give the enemy an inkling of what was going on, and the rattling of the wagons on the road completed the exposure. Without warning, a ball struck in the road near us and bounded over the rear of the train, the report of the cannon following instantly. The drivers involuntarily crouched over their mules and cracked their whips. Another shot followed, but it was also short, and the last wagon turned the shoulder of the hill into the gorge of the creek as the ball bounded along up the Gauley valley. It was perhaps fortunate for us that solid shot instead of shrapnel were used, but it is not improbable that the need of haste in firing made the battery officer feel that he had no time to cut and adjust fuses to the estimated distance to our train; or it is possible that shells were used but did not explode. It was my first acquaintance with Captain Fitch, who had accompanied Rosecrans’s column, and his cool efficiency was so marked that I applied for him as quartermaster upon my staff. He remained with me till I finally left West Virginia in 1863, and I never saw his superior in handling trains in the field. He was a West Virginian, volunteering from civil life, whose outfit was a good business education and an indomitable rough energy that nothing could tire.
During the evening of the 1st of November General Benham’s brigade came to the post at Gauley Bridge to strengthen the garrison, and was encamped on the Kanawha side near the falls, where the widening of the valley put them out of range of the enemy’s fire. The ferry below the falls was called Montgomery’s and was at the mouth of Big Falls Creek, up which ran the road to Fayette C. H. A detachment of the enemy had pushed back our outposts on this road, and had fired upon our lower camp with cannon, but the position was not a favorable one for them and they did not try to stay long. After a day or two we were able to keep pickets on that side with a flatboat and hawser to bring them back, covered by artillery on our side of the Kanawha.
During November 2d Rosecrans matured a plan of operations against Floyd, who was now definitely found to be in command of the hostile force on Cotton Mountain. It was also learned through scouting parties and the country people that Lee had left the region, with most of the force that had been at Sewell Mountain. It seemed possible therefore to entrap Floyd, and this was what Rosecrans determined to attempt. Benham was ordered to take his brigade down the Kanawha and cross to the other side at the mouth of Loup Creek, five miles below. Schenck was ordered to prepare wagon bodies as temporary boats, to make such flatboats as he could, and get ready to cross the New River at Townsend’s Ferry, about fifteen miles above Gauley Bridge. McCook was ordered to watch Miller’s Ferry near his camp, and be prepared to make a dash on the short road to Fayette C. H. I was ordered to hold the post at Gauley Bridge, forward supplies by night, keep down the enemy’s fire as far as possible, and watch for an opportunity to co-operate with Benham by way of Montgomery’s Ferry. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 254.] Benham’s brigade was temporarily increased by 1500 picked men from the posts between Kanawha Falls and Charleston. He was expected to march up Loup Creek and cut off Floyd’s retreat by way of Raleigh C. H., whilst Schenck should co-operate from Townsend’s Ferry. On the 5th the preparations had been made, and Benham was ordered to cross the Kanawha. He did so on the night of the 6th, but except sending scouting parties up Loup Creek, he did nothing, as a sudden rise in New River made Rosecrans suspend the concerted movement, and matters remained as they were, awaiting the fall of the river, till the 10th.
For a week after the 1st, Floyd’s battery on Cotton Mountain fired on very slight provocation, and caution was necessary in riding or moving about the camp. The houses of the hamlet were not purposely injured, for Floyd would naturally be unwilling to destroy the property of West Virginians, and it was a safe presumption that we had removed the government property from buildings within range of fire, as we had in fact done. Our method of forwarding supplies was to assemble the wagon trains near my lower camp during the day, and push them forward to Gauley Mount and Tompkins farm during the night. The ferry-boat at Gauley Bridge was kept out of harm’s way in the Gauley, behind the projection of Gauley Mount, but the hawser on which it ran was not removed. At nightfall the boat would be manned, dropped down to its place, made fast to the hawser by a snatch-block, and commence its regular trips, passing over the wagons. The ferries, both at the bridge and at Montgomery’s, were under the management of Captain Lane of the Eleventh Ohio and his company of mechanics. [Footnote: Captain P. P. Lane of Cincinnati, later colonel of the regiment.] We had found at points along the Kanawha the gunwales of flatboats, gotten out by lumbermen in the woods and brought to the river bank ready to be put into boats for the coal trade, which had already much importance in the valley. These gunwales were single sticks of timber, sixty or eighty feet long, two or three feet wide, and say six inches thick. Each formed the side of a boat, which was built by tying two gunwales together with cross timbers, the whole being then planked. Such boats were three or four times as large as those used for the country ferries upon the Gauley and New rivers, and enabled us to make these larger ferries very commodious. Of course the enemy knew that we used them at night, and would fire an occasional random shot at them, but did us no harm.
The enemy’s guns on the mountain were so masked by the forest that we did not waste ammunition in firing at them, except as they opened, when our guns so quickly returned their fire that they never ventured upon continuous action, and after the first week we had only occasional shots from them. We had planted our sharpshooters also in protected spots along the narrower part of New River near the post, and made the enemy abandon the other margin of the stream, except with scattered sentinels. In a short time matters thus assumed a shape in which our work went on regularly, and the only advantage Floyd had attained was to make us move our supply trains at night. His presence on the mountain overlooking our post was an irritation under which we chafed, and from Rosecrans down, everybody was disgusted with the enforced delay of Benham at Loup Creek. Floyd kept his principal camp behind Cotton Mountain, in the position I have already indicated, in an inaction which seemed to invite enterprise on our part. His courage had oozed out when he had carried his little army into an exposed position, and here as at Carnifex Ferry he seemed to be waiting for his adversary to take the initiative.
To prepare for my own part in the contemplated movement, I had ordered Captain Lane to build a couple of flatboats of a smaller size than our large ferry-boats, and to rig these with sweeps or large oars, so that they could be used to throw detachments across the New River to the base of Cotton Mountain, at a point selected a little way up the river, where the stream was not so swift and broken as in most places. Many of our men had become expert in managing such boats, and a careful computation showed that we could put over 500 men an hour with these small scows.
From the 5th to the both Rosecrans had been waiting for the waters to subside, and pressing Benham to examine the roads up Loup Creek so thoroughly that he could plant himself in Floyd’s rear as soon as orders should be given. Schenck would make the simultaneous movement when Benham was known to be in march, and McCook’s and my own brigade would at least make demonstrations from our several positions. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 255, 261-265.] From my picket post at Montgomery’s Ferry I had sent scouts up the Fayette road, and by the 9th had discovered such symptoms of weakness in the enemy that I thought the time had come to make an effort to dislodge the battery and get command of the crest of Cotton Mountain overlooking my camp. On the both I made a combined movement from both my upper and lower camps. Colonel De Villiers was ordered to take all of the Eleventh Ohio fit for duty (being only 200 men), and crossing by the small boats, make a vigorous reconnoissance over the New River face of Cotton Mountain, reaching the crest if possible. Lieutenant-Colonel Enyart of the First Kentucky was directed to cross below the falls with a similar force, and push a reconnoissance out on the Fayette road, whilst he also should try to co-operate with De Villiers in clearing the enemy from the heights opposite Gauley Bridge. The place at which De Villiers crossed was out of sight and range from the enemy’s battery. His first boat-load of forty men reached the opposite shore safely, and dividing into two parties, one pushed up the New River to a ravine making a somewhat easy ascent toward the crest, whilst the others skirmished up the almost perpendicular face of the rocks where they landed. The remainder of the men of the Eleventh were put over as fast as possible, and joined their colonel in the ravine mentioned, up which they marched to a little clearing high up the hill, known as Blake’s farm, where the advanced party had found the enemy. The battery was withdrawn as soon as De Villiers’ approach at the Blake farm was known, supports being sent to the outpost there to check our advance. The men of the Eleventh, led by Major Coleman, attacked sharply, drove back the enemy, and succeeded in extending their right to the crest above the recent position of the battery. They were of course stretched out into a mere skirmish line, and I directed them to hold the crest without advancing further till Enyart should be heard from. He also found the enemy indisposed to be stubborn, and skirmished up the opposite side of the mountain till he joined hands with De Villiers on the top. The enemy seemed to be increasing before them, and our men held their position as directed, having relieved us from the hostile occupation of ground commanding our camps. Enyart’s reconnoitring party sent toward Fayette advanced a mile on that road and remained in observation, finding no enemy. I reported our success to Rosecrans, and doubtful whether he wished to press the enemy in front till Benham and Schenck should be in his rear, I asked for further instructions. General Rosecrans authorized me to take over the rest of my available force and press the enemy next day, as he was very confident that Benham would by that time be in position to attack him in rear. Accordingly I passed the Second Kentucky regiment over the river during the night and joined them in person on the crest at daybreak. The remainder of the First Kentucky, under Major Lieper, was ordered to cross at Montgomery’s Ferry later in the day, and advance upon the Fayette road as far as possible. My climb to the crest of Cotton Mountain was a repetition of the exhausting sort of work I had tried on Gauley Mount on the 1st. I took the short route straight up the face of the hill, clambering over rocks, pulling myself up by clinging to the laurel bushes, and often literally lifting myself from one great rocky step to another. This work was harder upon officers who were usually mounted than upon the men in the line, as we were not used to it, and the labor of the whole day was thus increased, for of course we could take no horses. Resuming the advance along the mountain crest, the enemy made no serious resistance, but fell back skirmishing briskly, till we came to more open ground where the mountain breaks down toward some open farms where detachments of Floyd’s forces had been encamped. Their baggage train was seen in the distance, moving off upon the Fayette turnpike. As we were now in the close neighborhood of the whole force of the enemy, and those in our presence were quite as numerous as we, I halted the command on the wooded heights commanding the open ground below, till we should hear some sound from Benham’s column. Toward evening Major Lieper came up on our right to the place where the Fayette road passes over a long spur of the mountain which is known in the neighborhood as Cotton Hill. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 272-275, and map, p. 82, _ante_. The greater mass in the angle of the rivers was not uniformly called Cotton Mountain then, and in my report I spoke of passing along those crests toward Cotton Hill, meaning this elevation on the Fayette road.] Here he was halted, and nothing being heard from co-operating columns, the troops bivouacked for the night.
Rosecrans had informed Benham of my advance and ordered him to push forward; but he spent the day in discussing the topography which he was supposed to have learned before, and did not move. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 266-268.] Schenck had not been put across New River at Townsend’s Ferry, because Rosecrans thought it hazardous to do this whilst Floyd was near that point in force, and he intended that when Floyd should be forced to attack Benham (whose command was now equal to two brigades), it would withdraw the enemy so far that Schenck would have room to operate after crossing. But as Benham had not advanced, toward evening of the 11th Rosecrans sent him orders to march immediately up the Kanawha to my position and follow Major Lieper on the road that officer had opened to the top of Cotton Hill, and as much further toward Fayette C. H. as possible, taking Lieper’s detachment with him; meanwhile I was ordered to keep the remainder of my troops on the mountain in the position already occupied. Benham was expected to reach Lieper’s position by ten o’clock that evening, but he did not reach there in fact till three o’clock in the following afternoon (12th). [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 256, 273.] After some skirmishing with an outpost of the enemy at Laurel Creek behind which Major Lieper had been posted, nothing more was done till the evening of the 13th. Floyd’s report shows that he retired beyond Fayette C. H. on the 12th, having conceived the mistaken idea that Benham’s column was a new reinforcement of 5000 men from Ohio. [Footnote: _Id_., p. 287.] Abandoning the hope of using Schenck’s brigade in a movement from Townsend’s Ferry, Rosecrans now ordered him to march to Gauley Bridge on the 13th, and joining Benham by a night march, assume command of the moving column. Schenck did so, but Floyd was now retreating upon Raleigh C. H. and a slight affair with his rear-guard was the only result. Fayette C. H. was occupied and the campaign ended. It would appear from official documents that Floyd did not learn of Benham’s presence at the mouth of Loup Creek till the 12th, when he began his retreat, and that at any time during the preceding week a single rapid march would have placed Benham’s brigade without resistance upon the line of the enemy’s communications. Rosecrans was indignant at the balking of his elaborate plans, and ordered Benham before a court-martial for misconduct; [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 669.] but I believe that McClellan caused the proceedings to be quashed to avoid scandal, and Benham was transferred to another department. It is very improbable that Schenck’s contemplated movement across New River at Townsend’s Ferry could have been made successfully; for his boats were few and small, and the ferrying would have been slow and tedious. Floyd would pretty surely learn of it soon after it began, and would hasten his retreat instead of waiting to be surrounded. It would have been better to join Schenck to Benham by a forced march as soon as the latter was at the mouth of Loup Creek, and then to push the whole to the Fayette and Raleigh road, Rosecrans leading the column in person. As Floyd seems to have been ignorant of what was going on in Loup Creek valley, decisive results might have followed from anticipating him on his line of retreat. Capturing such a force, or, as the phrase then went, “bagging it,” is easier talked of than done; but it is quite probable that it might have been so scattered and demoralized as to be of little further value as an army, and considerable parts of it might have been taken prisoners.
Rosecrans had begun the campaign in August with the announced purpose of marching to Wytheville and Abingdon in the Holston valley, and thence into East Tennessee. McClellan had cherished the idea of making the Kanawha line the base of operations into the same region; still later Fremont, and after him Halleck did the same. Looking only at the map, it seemed an easy thing to do; but the almost wilderness character of the intervening country with its poor and sparsely scattered people, the weary miles of steep mountain-roads becoming impassable in rainy weather, and the total absence of forage for animals, were elements of the problem which they all ignored or greatly underestimated. It was easy, sitting at one’s office table, to sweep the hand over a few inches of chart showing next to nothing of the topography, and to say, “We will march from here to here;” but when the march was undertaken, the natural obstacles began to assert themselves, and one general after another had to find apologies for failing to accomplish what ought never to have been undertaken. After a year or two, the military advisers of the War Department began to realize how closely the movements of great bodies of soldiers were tied to rivers and railways; but they seemed to learn it only as the merest civilian could learn it, by the experience of repeated failures of plans based on long lines of communication over forest-clad mountains, dependent upon wagons to carry everything for man and beast.
Instead of reaching Wytheville or Abingdon, Rosecrans found that he could not supply his little army even at Big Sewell Mountain; and except for a few days, he occupied no part of the country in advance of my positions in August, then held by a single brigade in the presence of the same enemy. It was not Floyd’s army, but the physical obstacles presented by the country that chained him to Gauley Bridge. I shall have occasion hereafter to note how the same ignoring of nature’s laws came near starving Burnside’s command in East Tennessee, where the attempt to supply it by wagon trains from Lexington in Kentucky or from Nashville failed so utterly as to disappear from the calculation of our problem of existence through the winter of 1863-64.
CHAPTER VIII
WINTER-QUARTERS
An impracticable country–Movements suspended–Experienced troops ordered away–My orders from Washington–Rosecrans objects–A disappointment–Winter organization of the Department–Sifting our material–Courts-martial–Regimental schools–Drill and picket duty–A military execution–Effect upon the army–Political sentiments of the people–Rules of conduct toward them–Case of Mr. Parks–Mr. Summers–Mr. Patrick–Mr. Lewis Ruffner–Mr. Doddridge–Mr. B. F. Smith–A house divided against itself–Major Smith’s journal–The contrabands–A fugitive-slave case–Embarrassments as to military jurisdiction.
Floyd’s retreat was continued to the vicinity of Newberne and Dublin Depot, where the Virginia and East Tennessee Railway crosses the upper waters of New River. He reported the country absolutely destitute of everything and the roads so broken up that he could not supply his troops at any distance from the railroad. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. pp. 287,288.] Rosecrans was of a similar opinion, and on the 19th of November signified to General McClellan [Footnote: _id_., p. 657.] his purpose to hold Gauley Bridge, Cheat Mountain, and Romney as the frontier of his department, and to devote the winter to the instruction and discipline of his troops, and the sifting out of incompetent officers. About the 1st of December he fixed his headquarters at Wheeling, [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 669, 685. On January 21 I called attention to the anomaly of bounding the department by the Kanawha River on the south, and correction was at once made by General McClellan. _Id_., p. 706.] assigning the District of the Kanawha to my command, with headquarters at Charleston. [Footnote: _Id_., pp. 670, 691.] This gave me substantially the same territorial jurisdiction I had in the summer, but with a larger body of troops.
Before we left Gauley Bridge, however, I received orders direct from army headquarters at Washington to take my three oldest Ohio regiments and report to General Buell in Kentucky. This was exactly in accordance with my own strong desire to join a large army on one of the principal lines of operation. I therefore went joyfully to Rosecrans, supposing, of course, that he also had received orders to send me away. To my intense chagrin I found that he not only was without such orders, but that he was, naturally enough, disposed to take umbrage at the sending of orders direct to me. He protested against the irregularity, and insisted that if his forces were to be reduced, he should himself indicate those which were to go. He carried his point on the matter, and was directed to send eight regiments to Buell. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. v. p. 671.] He insisted that I should stay, and whilst the reasons he gave were sufficiently complimentary, it was none the less a great disappointment to have to abandon the hope of service in a more important field. [Footnote: _Id._ pp. 259, 657.] There was nothing to be done but to summon philosophy to my aid, and to hope that all would turn out for the best. Before Rosecrans left Gauley Bridge four more regiments were added to the eight already ordered away, together with four batteries of artillery. Some new regiments had joined us, and the aggregate of troops remaining was perhaps not much below the number present when Rosecrans reached Carnifex Ferry in September; but most of them were freshly organized regiments, with whom the work of drill and discipline had to begin at first lessons. Three of the batteries taken away were regulars, and the other was Loomis’s Michigan battery, one of the oldest and best instructed of our volunteer batteries. The places of these were not supplied. The good policy of these reductions is not to be questioned; for it was agreed that nothing aggressive could be done in the mountains during the winter, and it was wise to use part of the forces elsewhere.–Yet for those of us who had hoped to go with the troops, and now found ourselves condemned to the apparently insignificant duty of garrisoning West Virginia, the effect was, for the time, a very depressing one.
General Schenck had left us on account of sickness, and did not return. His brigade was again commanded by Colonel Scammon, as it had been at Carnifex Ferry, and was stationed at Fayette C. H. One regiment was at Tompkins farm, another at Gauley Bridge, two others at intervals between that post and Charleston, where were three regiments out of what had been my own brigade. Three partially organized West Virginia regiments of infantry and one of cavalry were placed at recruiting stations in the rear, and one Ohio regiment was posted at Barboursville. The chain of posts which had been established in the summer between Weston and Cross Lanes was not kept up; but the Thirty-sixth Ohio, Colonel George Crook, was stationed at Cross Lanes, reporting to me, as did all the other troops enumerated above.
The Cheat Mountain district continued in command of General Milroy, his principal posts being at Beverly and Huttonsville, with small garrisons holding the mountain passes. General Kelley remained also in command of the railroad district covering the communication with Washington by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. General J. J. Reynolds was assigned to command a new division organizing at Romney, but was soon transferred to another department.
Such was the general organization of the department for the winter, and we soon settled down to regular work in fitting the troops for the next campaign. Courtsmartial were organized to try offenders of all grades, and under charges of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline, worthless officers were driven from the service and negligent ones disciplined. Regimental schools were opened, and strenuous efforts were made to increase the military knowledge and skill of the whole command. Careful drill was enforced, and picket and outpost duty systematically taught. Each post became a busy camp of instruction, and the regiments repeated under more favorable circumstances the work of the original camp in Ohio.
The work of the military courts gave me one very unpleasant duty to perform, which, happily, was of rare occurrence and never again fell to my lot except on a single occasion in North Carolina near the close of the war. A soldier of the First Kentucky Volunteers was condemned to death for desertion, mutiny, and a murderous assault upon another soldier. The circumstances were a little peculiar, and gave rise to fears that his regiment might resist the execution. I have already mentioned the affair of Captain Gibbs [Footnote: Appointed Captain and Assistant Commissary of Subsistence, U. S. Vols., October 1.] who had shot down a mutinous man of the Second Kentucky at Gauley Bridge in the summer, and who had been acquitted by a court-martial. The camp is very like a city in which popular impressions and rumors have quick circulation and large influence. The two Kentucky regiments were so closely related as to be almost one, and were subject to the same influences. A bitter feeling toward Captain Gibbs prevailed in them both, and camp demagogues busied themselves in trying to make mischief by commenting on the fact that the officer was acquitted whilst the private was condemned. There was not a particle of justice in this, for the one had simply suppressed a mutiny, whereas the other was inciting one. But it is not necessary for complaints to be just among those who are very imperfectly informed in regard to the facts, and very unpleasant reports were received as to the condition of things in the regiment to which the condemned man belonged.
It is the military custom, in executions by shooting, to select the firing party from the regiment to which the condemned man belongs. To have changed the rule would have looked like timidity, and I determined that it must not be done, but resolved upon an order of procedure which would provide, as far as possible, against the chances of interference. On such occasions the troops are usually paraded upon three sides of a hollow square, without arms, the place of execution being in the middle of the open side, where the prisoner kneels upon his coffin. The place chosen was in the meadows on the lower side of the Elk River, opposite Charleston, a short distance from the regimental camp. The camps of two other regiments at the post were half a mile from the place of execution. These regiments were, therefore, marched to the field with their arms. That to which the prisoner belonged was marched without arms to its position as the centre of the parade, and the others were formed on their right and left at right angles, thus forming the three sides of the enclosure. The arms of these last regiments were stacked immediately behind them where they could be seized in a moment, but the parade was formed without muskets. Captain Gibbs was on duty as commissary at my headquarters, and his appearance with the staff would have been unpleasant to himself as well as a possible cause of excitement in the Kentucky regiment. To solve the difficulty without making a significant exception, I ordered only the personal staff and the adjutant-general with the chief surgeon to accompany me, leaving out the administrative officers of both quartermaster’s and commissary’s departments.
When the parade was formed, I took my place with my staff at the right of the line, and, as upon a review, rode slowly down the whole line, on the inside of the square. In going along the front of the First Kentucky, I took especial pains to meet the eyes of the men as they were turned to me in passing, desirous of impressing them with my own feeling that it was a solemn but inevitable duty. Immediately after we returned to our places, the music of the dead-march was heard, and an ambulance was seen approaching from the camp, escorted by the provost-marshal and the execution party with the music. The solemn strains, the slow funereal step of the soldiers, the closed ambulance, the statue-like stillness of the paraded troops made an impression deeper and more awful than a battle scene, because the excitement was hushed and repressed. The ambulance stopped, the man was helped out at the back, and led by the provost-marshal to his place upon the coffin, where he was blindfolded. The firing party silently took its place. The muskets were cocked and aimed, while the noise of the retiring ambulance covered the sound. The provost-marshal, with a merciful deception, told the prisoner he must wait a moment and he would return to him before the final order, but stepping quickly out of the range of the muskets, he gave the signal with his handkerchief, and the man fell dead at the volley, which sounded like a single discharge. The detail of soldiers for the firing had been carefully instructed that steadiness and accuracy made the most merciful way of doing their unwelcome duty. The surgeon made his official inspection of the body, which was placed in the coffin and removed in the ambulance. The drums and fifes broke the spell with quick marching music, the regiments took their arms, sharp words of command rattled along the lines, which broke by platoons into column and moved rapidly off the field.
I confess it was a relief to have the painful task ended, and especially to have it ended in the most perfect order and discipline. The moral effect was very great, for our men were so intelligent that they fully appreciated the judicial character of the act, and the imposing solemnity of the parade and execution made the impression all the more profound. As it was accompanied and followed by a searching test of the capacity and character of their officers, of which they daily saw the effects in the retirement of some from the service and in the increased industry and studious devotion to duty of all, it gave a new tone to the whole command. I spared no effort to make the feeling pervade every regiment and company, that the cause of the country, their own success and honor, and even their own personal safety depended upon their entering the next campaign with such improved discipline and instruction as should make them always superior to an equal number of the enemy. Leaves of absence and furloughs were limited as closely as possible, and I set the example of remaining without interruption on duty, though there were many reasons why a visit home was very desirable. My wife made me a visit at Charleston in mid-winter, and this naturally brought me into more frequent social relations to the people, and led me to observe more closely their attitude to the government and its cause.
Before the secession of Virginia a very large majority of the inhabitants of the Kanawha valley were Unionists; but the attachment to the state organization had become so exaggerated in all slave-holding communities, that most of the well-to-do people yielded to the plea that they must “go with their State.” The same state pride led this class of people to oppose the division of Virginia and the forming of the new State on the west of the mountains. The better class of society in Charleston, therefore, as in other towns, was found to be disloyal, and in sympathy with the rebellion. The young men were very generally in the Confederate army; the young women were full of the most romantic devotion to their absent brothers and friends, and made it a point of honor to avow their sentiments. The older people were less demonstrative, and the men who had a stake in the country generally professed acquiescence in the position of West Virginia within the Union, and a desire to bring back their sons from the Confederate service. The necessity of strict watch upon the communications sent through the lines brought to my notice a great deal of family history full of suffering and anxiety, and showed that that was indeed a fearful situation for a family when its young men were not only separated from them by military service in the field, but could only be heard from by the infrequent chances of communication under flags of truce, and with all the restrictions and reserves necessary to the method. The rule I adopted in dealing personally with non-combatants of either sex was to avoid all controversy or discussion, to state with perfect frankness but courteously my own attitude and sense of duty, and to apply all such stringent rules as a state of war compels with an evenness of temper and tone of dispassionate government which should make as little chafing as possible. Most intelligent people, when they are not excited, are disposed to recognize the obligations imposed upon a military officer in such circumstances, and it was rarely the case that any unpleasant collisions occurred.
The following incident will illustrate some of the embarrassments likely to occur. When I reached Charleston in July previous, I was visited by the wife of a gentleman named Parks, who told me that her husband had left the valley with General Wise, but not in any military capacity, being fearful that he might suffer arrest at our hands on account of his sympathy with the Confederates. I told her, what I had told to a formal deputation of citizens, that I did not propose to meddle with non-combatants if they in good faith remained at home, minding their own business, and carefully abstaining from giving aid or information to the enemy. I had, on general principles, a dislike for test oaths, and preferred to make conduct the test, and to base my treatment of people on that, rather than on oaths which the most unscrupulous would be first to take. Had her husband known this, she said, he would not have left home, and begged that she might be allowed to send an open letter through the lines to him to bring him back. I allowed her to do so at the first proper opportunity, and Mr. Parks at once returned. In the latter part of September, however, Governor Peirpoint of West Virginia thought it necessary to arrest some prominent citizens, known as Secessionists, and hold them as hostages for Union men that the Confederate troops had seized and sent to Richmond. It happened that Mr. Parks was arrested as one of these hostages, without any knowledge on the part of the civil authorities of the circumstances under which he had returned home. I was ignorant of his arrest till I received a letter from the lady, complaining bitterly of what seemed to her a breach of faith. I was at Sewell Mountain at the time, but lost no time in writing her a careful explanation of the complete disconnection between his arrest by the civil authorities as a hostage, and a promise of non-interference with him on my part as an officer of the United States army. I also showed her that the arrest of non-combatant Union men by the Confederate forces was the real cause of her husband’s unpleasant predicament. In view of the circumstances, however, I thought it right to request the Governor to substitute some other hostage for Mr. Parks, so that there might not be the least question whether the letter or the spirit of my military safeguard had been broken, and the result was that the gentleman was very soon at home again.
The most prominent citizen of the valley was the Hon. George Summers, who had represented it in the Congress of the United States, and had opposed secession in the Virginia Convention with a vigor that had brought him into personal peril. When, however, secession was an accomplished fact, his ideas of allegiance to his State so far influenced him that he was unwilling to take active part in public affairs, and sought absolute retirement at his pleasant home a little below Charleston on the Kanawha. His house was on a hill overlooking the beautiful valley, broad enough at this point to give room for ample fields in the rich bottom lands. I had called upon him, as I passed with my troops when I went up the valley. He was a dignified and able man, just past middle life, but in full physical and mental force, and capable of exerting a very great influence if he could have thrown himself heartily into public activity. But he was utterly saddened and depressed by the outbreak of civil war, and deliberately chose the part of suffering in seclusion whatever it might bring, unable to rouse himself to a combative part. As a slave-holder, he was bitter against the anti-slavery movement, and as a Unionist he condemned the Secessionists. He was very glad to have the Kanawha valley in the possession of the National troops, now that Wise had made the effort to occupy it for the Confederacy; though he had tried to procure the adoption of a policy which should leave it neutral ground,–a policy as impossible here as in Kentucky. The result was that he was distrusted by both sides, for in civil war each acts upon the maxim that “he that is not for us is against us.” I renewed my acquaintance with him in the winter, making his house the limit of an occasional ride for exercise. I appreciated his feelings, and respected his desire to set an example of obedient private citizenship with renunciation of all other or more active influence.
There were other men of social prominence who had less hesitation in throwing themselves actively upon the National side. Mr. Patrick was an elderly man, of considerable wealth, whose home was a very similar one to Mr. Summers’, a little nearer to Charleston upon the same road. His wife was of old Virginia stock, a relative of Chief Justice Marshall, and a pronounced Southern woman, though too good a wife to make her sympathies give annoyance to her husband or his guests. Lewis Ruffner was also a prominent Union man, and among the leaders of the movement to make West Virginia a separate State. Mr. Doddridge, long the cashier and manager of the Bank at Charleston, whose family was an old and well-known one, was an outspoken Unionist, and in the next year, when the war put an end for the time to banking in the valley, he became a paymaster in the National army. Colonel Benjamin F. Smith was a noteworthy character also. He was a leading lawyer, a man of vigorous and aggressive character, and of tough fibre both physically and mentally. He shared the wish of Summers to keep West Virginia out of the conflict if possible, but when we had driven Wise out of the valley, he took a pronounced position in favor of the new state movement. A little afterward he was appointed District Attorney for the United States. Although the loyal people had such competent leaders, the majority of the men of wealth and of the families recognized as socially eminent were avowed Secessionists. They were a small minority of the whole people, but in all slave-holding communities social rank is so powerful that their influence was out of proportion to their numbers. Even the leaders of the Unionists found their own “house divided against itself,” for scarce one of them but had a son in Wise’s legion, and the Twenty-second Virginia Regiment was largely composed of the young men of Charleston and the vicinity. I have already referred to the journal of Major Smith which fell into my hands as “captured rebel mail,” and its pages are full of pathetic evidence of the conflicting emotions which such a situation excited. He was the son of B. F. Smith, whom I have just mentioned, and whilst in Floyd’s camp in front of us at Sewell Mountain he wrote: “My source of constant trouble is that my father will be in danger. Wicked and unscrupulous men, with whom he has lived in friendship for years, absolutely thirst for his blood, as I truly believe. He and Summers, as one of their friends remarked to me to-day, are especial objects of hatred and aversion to men here. I am actually leading a set of men one of whose avowed objects is the arrest and the judicial or lynch murder of my father!” In the next month he heard “the startling news” that his father had fully identified himself with the new state movement, and writes: “Those with whom I was connected, call and curse him as a traitor,–and he knew it would be so! Why my dear father has chosen to place me in this terrible situation is beyond my comprehension. I have been shocked beyond description in contemplating the awful consequences to the peace, safety, and happiness of both of us!” The family distress and grief revealed by accident in this case is only an example of what was common in all the families of prominent Union men. In some cases, as in that of Major Smith, the young men resigned their commissions and made their way home, finding the mental and moral strain too great to bear; but in many more, pride and the influence of comrades kept them in the Confederate service with the enlisted men who could not resign, and with hearts sorely torn by conflicting duties, they fought it out to the end.
The slavery question was the vexed one which troubled the relations of the army and the people in all the border States. My own position was that of the party which had elected Mr. Lincoln. We disclaimed any purpose of meddling with the institution in the States which remained loyal to the Union, whilst we held it to be within the war powers of the government to abolish it in the rebellious States. We also took satisfaction in enforcing the law which freed the “contrabands” who were employed by their masters in any service within the Confederate armies. These principles were generally understood and acquiesced in by the West Virginians; but it was impossible to come to any agreement in regard to fugitive slaves who took refuge in our camps. The soldiers and many of the officers would encourage the negroes to assert their freedom, and would resist attempts to recapture them. The owners, if Union men, would insist that the fugitives should be apprehended and restored to them by military authority. This was simply impossible, for the public sentiment of the army as a whole was so completely with the slaves that any such order would have been evaded and made a farcical dead letter. The commanders who made such orders uniformly suffered from doing it; for the temper of the volunteer army was such that the orders were looked upon as evidence of sympathy with the rebellion, and destroyed the usefulness of the general by creating an incurable distrust of him among his own men. Yet nearly all the department commanders felt obliged at first, by what they regarded as the letter of the law, to order that fugitive slaves claimed by loyal citizens should be arrested, if within the camps, and delivered up.
Within the district of the Kanawha I tried to avoid the difficulty by stringent orders that slaves should be kept out of the camps; but I declined to order the troops to arrest and return them. I had two little controversies on the subject, and in both of them I had to come in collision with Colonel Benjamin Smith. After they were over we became good friends, but the facts are too important an illustration of the war-time and its troubles to be omitted.
The first raised the question of “contraband.” A negro man was brought into my camp by my advance-guard as we were following Floyd to Sewell Mountain in September. He was the body-servant of Major Smith, and had deserted the major, with the intention of getting back to his family at Charleston. In our camp he soon learned that he was free, under the Act of Congress, and he remained with us, the servants about headquarters giving him food. When I returned to Gauley Bridge, Mr. Smith appeared and demanded the return of the man to him, claiming him as his slave. He, however, admitted that he had been servant to Major Smith in the rebel army with his consent. The man refused to go with him, and I refused to use compulsion, informing Mr. Smith that the Act of Congress made him free. The claimant then went to General Rosecrans, and I was surprised by the receipt, shortly after, of a note from headquarters directing the giving up of the man. [Footnote: Letter of Major Darr, acting A. A. G., November 18.] On my stating the facts the matter was dropped, and I heard no more of it for a month, the man meanwhile disappearing. Soon after my headquarters were moved to Charleston, in December, I received another note from headquarters, again directing the delivery of the fugitive. [Footnote: Letter of Captain Hartsuff, A. A. G., December 13.] Again I gave a temperate and clear statement of the facts, adding that I had reason to believe the man had now taken advantage of his liberty to go to Ohio. Mr. Smith’s case thus ended, but it left him with a good deal of irritation at what he thought a wrong done to him as well as insubordination on my part.
In March following, another case arose, and I received a paper from headquarters containing an alleged statement of the facts, and referred to me in usual course for report. I had been absent from Charleston when the incidents occurred, but made careful inquiry satisfying myself of the truth, and perhaps cannot give an intelligent explanation better than by quoting the report itself, for its tone shows the sort of annoyance I felt, and it exhibits some of the conditions of an army command involving administrative duties that were far from pleasant.
I said: “The document is in the handwriting of B. F. Smith, Esq., U. S. District Attorney, residing here, though signed only by John Slack, Jr., and William Kelly; the former an acting deputy U. S. marshal, the latter the jailer at the county jail. Its composition is so peculiar that it is difficult to tell what part of the statement is Slack’s or Kelly’s and what is Colonel Smith’s, and therefore I do not know whom to hold responsible for the misstatements contained in it.
“Mr. Slack is a respectable young man, who I believe would do his duty as far as he understands it, but who has not energy enough to keep him from being the tool of others. Mr. Kelly, the jailer, is sufficiently described when I state the fact that he has attempted to add to his profits as turnkey by selling bad whisky to soldiers put in his calaboose, at the rate of five dollars per pint bottle. Mr. Smith, the District Attorney, has lost no opportunity of being annoying to the military officers here, since the controversy about the negro man captured from his son, Major Isaac Smith of the rebel army. This reference to the parties concerned is necessary to enable the commanding general to understand the _animus_ of their complaints.
“The facts are substantially as follows: Henry H. Hopkins is a notorious Secessionist living near Coal River, and a man of considerable property. Some time before his arrest he sent the negro man mentioned in the complaint _South_, in charge of some Logan County ‘bushwhackers.’ On his way and in McDowell County the man managed to escape and returned into Hopkins’s neighborhood, near Boone C. H., where he took his wife and three children alleged to have been the property of a woman named Smoot, and brought them to this post. Upon his representation that he had escaped from armed rebels in McDowell County, and without further knowledge of the facts, the Post Quartermaster set him at work. About the 19th of February Hopkins came to town with Mrs. Smoot, and without notice to the quartermaster or any color of authority by any civil process, procured the aid of Kelly, the jailer, seized the negro and took him to Wright’s hotel. The provost-marshal, knowing that Hopkins was an active Secessionist and that he had been personally engaged in the combat at Boone C. H. last fall, ordered his arrest. Shortly after, he was waited upon by B. F. Smith, Esq., U. S. District Attorney, who stated that he had known Mr. Hopkins for a good many years and was confident he was a good Union man, although in fact the deputy-marshal at the very time held a warrant for the arrest of Hopkins for treason and conspiracy, under an indictment found in the U. S. Court, of which, to say the least of it, it is very strange Mr. Smith should have been ignorant. At the request of the provost-marshal, the warrant was served on Hopkins, who was admitted to bail in the sum of $2000, which is most inadequate security for the appearance of a man of Hopkins’s wealth and influence, accused of such a crime. After the arrest of Hopkins, the negro being left to himself returned to his quarters, but sometime during the night stole a skiff and attempted to escape with his family down the Kanawha River. The circumstances of his accident in the river, the drowning of his family and his subsequent capture, I have not been able to investigate fully.
“The only matter of controversy now is in regard to the horse. The bar-keeper at the tavern denies that he has said it was taken by Wagon-master West (a man who has since been discharged by the Post Quartermaster), and I have been unable to trace it, although every effort has been made in perfect good faith to do so. The man West was put under arrest, to see if that would make him admit anything with regard to it, but without effect. I advised Slack to procure some one who knew the horse to pass through the government stables and teams, and if he recognized the animal to let me know at once, and I would give an order to him to obtain it. The statement that ‘Slack says he told Cox he could not find him, that a soldier or employee in his command got him, and if proper measures were taken he could be had,’ is both impudent and false, and I respectfully submit that it is not, in matter or manner, such a complaint as the Commanding General should call upon me to reply to.
“The statement of these civil officials at once gives me the opportunity and makes it my duty to state to the Commanding General that the only occasions on which these gentlemen show any vitality, is when some Secessionist’s runaway negroes are to be caught. For any purpose of ordinary municipal magistracy they seem utterly incompetent. I have urged the organization of the county and of the town, but to no effect. Every street that is mended, every bridge that is repaired, or wharf that is put in order, must be done by the army at the expense of the U. S. government. They will not elect officers to look after the poor, but leave us to feed the starving near our camps. They will establish no police, and by force of public opinion keep suitors out of the courts ordered to be held by Governor Peirpoint. Yet a U. S. Commissioner, without any warrant or even pretended jurisdiction, will stop any vagrant negro, drive him through the streets in person, and say that he does it as a U. S. officer! Of course we simply look on and have had no controversy with them, unless driven to it by direct efforts on their part to interfere with our necessary regulations.
“The simple fact is that a few men of property who are avowed Secessionists control the town and make its public sentiment. By this means they practically control these officers also. Many of the negroes employed at the salt-works, and under hire in other capacities in the vicinity, are the slaves of rebels who are either in the rebel army or fled with it from the valley. The great problem upon which the Secessionists remaining here are exercising their ingenuity is to find the means of using the U. S. Commissioner and Marshal to secure to them the services of these persons without cost or legitimate contract of hiring, for the present profit of these gentlemen here, and the future advantage of their compatriots across the lines.
“Colonel Smith and Mr. Slack say that they made the statement at the express request of Major Darr of the Commanding General’s staff. A simple inquiry by the Major would have saved me the necessity of writing this long letter.”
It is due to General Rosecrans to say that although he had been anything but an anti-slavery man before the war, he made no pressure upon me to violate my own sense of right in these or similar cases, and they ended with my reports of the facts and of my reasons for the course I pursued. The side lights thrown upon the situation by the letter last quoted will be more instructive than any analysis I could now give, and the spice of flavor which my evident annoyance gave it only helps to revive more perfectly the local color of the time. In the case of Mr. Smith’s “negro boy Mike,” I had the satisfaction of finding in the intercepted correspondence of his son the major, the express recognition of the man’s right to liberty by reason of his use in the enemy’s service, and could not deny myself the pleasure of calling attention to it in my letters to headquarters.
My experience during the winter begot in me a rooted dislike for the military administration of the border districts, and strengthened my wish to be in the most active work at the front, where the problems were the strictly military ones of attack and defence in the presence of the armed enemy. [Footnote: I did not lack evidence that a steady rule, based on principles frankly avowed and easily understood, was rapidly bringing the people to be content to be in the Union, even those most inclined to secession. This result I am gratified to find attested by General Lee and General Floyd, who in dispatches very lately printed confessed the effect my administration had in quieting the valley during the first months of my occupation. Official Records, vol. li. pt. ii. pp. 220, 225.] Not that the winter was without compensating pleasures, for we were recipients of much social attention of a very kindly and agreeable sort, and carried away cherished memories of refined family circles in which the collision of opinions and the chafing of official relations were forgotten in hearty efforts to please. With the unconditionally loyal people our sympathies were very deep, for we found them greatly torn and disturbed in the conflict of duties and divided affections, where scarce a single household stood as a unit in devotion to the cause, and where the triumph of either side must necessarily bring affliction to some of them.
CHAPTER IX
VOLUNTEERS AND REGULARS
High quality of first volunteers–Discipline milder than that of the regulars–Reasons for the difference–Practical efficiency of the men–Necessity for sifting the officers–Analysis of their defects–What is military aptitude?–Diminution of number in ascending scale–Effect of age–Of former life and occupation–Embarrassments of a new business–Quick progress of the right class of young men–Political appointments–Professional men–Political leaders naturally prominent in a civil war–“Cutting and trying”–Dishonest methods–An excellent army at the end of a year–The regulars in 1861–Entrance examinations for West Point–The curriculum there–Drill and experience–Its limitations–Problems peculiar to the vast increase of the army–Ultra-conservatism–Attitude toward the Lincoln administration–“Point de zéle”–Lack of initiative–Civil work of army engineers–What is military art?–Opinions of experts–Military history–European armies in the Crimean War–True generalship–Anomaly of a double army organization.
The work of sifting the material for an army which went on through the winter of 1861-62, naturally suggests an analysis of the classes of men who composed both parts of the military force of the nation,–the volunteers and the regulars. I need add nothing to what I have already said of the unexampled excellence of the rank and file in the regiments raised by the first volunteering. Later in the war, when “bounty jumping” and substitution for conscripts came into play, the character of the material, especially that recruited in the great cities and seaports, was much lower. I think, however, that the volunteers were always better men, man for man, than the average of those recruited for the regular army. The rigidity of discipline did not differ so much between good volunteer regiments and regulars, as the mode of enforcing it. There were plenty of volunteer regiments that could not be excelled in drill, in the performance of camp duty, or in the finish and exactness of all the forms of parades and of routine. But it was generally brought about by much milder methods of discipline. A captain of volunteers was usually followed by his neighbors and relatives. The patriotic zeal of the men of the company as well as their self-respect made them easily amenable to military rule so far as it tended to fit them better to do the noble work they had volunteered for, and on which their hearts were as fully set as the hearts of their colonels or generals. In the regular army, officers and men belonged to different castes, and a practically impassable barrier was between them. Most of the men who had enlisted in the long years of domestic peace were, for one cause or another, outcasts, to whom life had been a failure and who followed the recruiting sergeant as a last desperate resource when every other door to a livelihood was shut. [Footnote: Since inducements to enlist have been increased by offering the chance to win a commission, I believe the quality of the rank and file of the regulars has been much improved, and as a natural consequence the officers have found it easy to enforce discipline by less arbitrary methods.] The war made some change in this, but the habits and methods of the officers had been formed before that time and under the old surroundings. The rule was arbitrary, despotic, often tyrannical, and it was notorious that the official bearing and the language used toward the regular soldiers was out of the question in a volunteer organization. Exceptions could be found in both parts of the service, but there could be no doubt as to the custom and the rule. To know how to command volunteers was explicitly recognized by our leading generals as a quality not found in many regular officers, and worth noting when found. A volunteer regiment might have a “free and easy” look to the eye of a regular drill sergeant, but in every essential for good conduct and ready manoeuvre on the field of battle, or for heroic efforts in the crisis of a desperate engagement, it could not be excelled if its officers had been reasonably competent and faithful. There was inevitable loss of time in the organization and instruction of a new army of volunteers; but after the first year in the field, in every quality which tends to give victory in battle to a popular cause, the volunteer regiment was, in my judgment, unquestionably superior. It is necessary to say this, because there has been a fashion of speaking of regular regiments or brigades in the civil war as though they were capable of accomplishing more in proportion to their numbers or on some occasion of peculiar peril than the volunteers. I did not find it so.
The material in the line, then, was as good as could be; the weakness was in the officers, and it was here that the sifting was necessary. Most of these officers had themselves enlisted as privates, and their patriotic zeal was not to be questioned. They had been chosen to be lieutenants, captains, and even colonels by their men because of faith in their ability to lead, or to recognize their influence in raising the troops. Yet a considerable part of them proved incompetent to command. The disqualifications were various. Some lacked physical strength and stamina. Some had or quickly developed intemperate habits. Some lacked the education and intelligence needful for official responsibility. Some were too indolent to apply themselves to the work of disciplining themselves or their men. Fitness for command is a very general term, yet it implies a set of qualities which intelligent people easily understand and attach to the phrase. Self-command is proverbially one of the chief. Courage and presence of mind are indispensable. Ability to decide and firmness to stick to a decision are necessary. Intelligence enough to understand the duties demanded of him and to instruct his subordinates in theirs is another requisite. But beside all these, there is a constitution of body and mind for which we can find no better name than military aptitude. For lack of it many estimable, intelligent, and brave men failed as officers. Again, not every good captain made a good colonel, and not every good brigade commander was fit for a division or a larger command. There was a constantly widening test of capacity, and a rapid thinning of the numbers found fit for great responsibilities until the command of great armies was reached, when two or three names are all that we can enumerate as having been proven during the four years of our civil strife to be fully equal to the task.
Besides the indications of unfitness for the subordinate commands which I have mentioned, another classification may be made. In an agricultural community (and the greater part of our population was and is agricultural), a middle-aged farmer who had been thrifty in business and had been a country magistrate or a representative in the legislature, would be the natural leader in his town or county, and if his patriotism prompted him to set the example of enlisting, he would probably be chosen to a company office, and perhaps to a field office in the regiment. Absolutely ignorant of tactics, he would find that his habits of mind and body were too fixed, and that he could not learn the new business into which he had plunged. He would be abashed at the very thought of standing before a company and shouting the word of command. The tactical lessons conned in his tent would vanish in a sort of stage-fright when he tried to practise them in public. Some would overcome the difficulty by perseverance, others would give it up in despair and resign, still others would hold on from pride or shame, until some pressure from above or below would force them to retire. Some men of this stamp had personal fighting qualities which kept them in the service in spite of their tactical ignorance, like brave old Wolford of Kentucky, of whom it used to be jocosely said, that the command by which he rallied his cavalry regiment was “Huddle on the Hill, boys!”
A man wholly without business training would always be in embarrassment, though his other qualifications for military life were good. Even a company has a good deal of administrative business to do. Accounts are to be kept, rations, clothing, arms, accoutrements, and ammunition are to be receipted and accounted for. Returns of various kinds are to be made, applications for furlough, musters, rolls, and the like make a good deal of clerical work, and though most of it may fall on the first sergeant, the captain and commissioned officers must know how it should be done and when it is well done, or they are sure to get into trouble. It was a very rare thing for a man of middle age to make a good company officer. A good many who tried it at the beginning had to be eliminated from the service in one way or another. In a less degree the same was found to hold true of the regimental field officers. Some men retain flexibility of mind and body longer than others, and could more easily adapt themselves to new circumstances and a new occupation. Of course such would succeed best. But it is also true that in the larger and broader commands solidity of judgment and weight of character were more essential than in the company, and the experience of older men was a more valuable quality. Such reasons will account for the fact that youth seemed to be an almost essential requisite for a company officer, whilst it was not so in the same degree in the higher positions.
It was astonishing to see the rapidity with which well-educated and earnest young men progressed as officers. They were alert in both mind and body. They quickly grasped the principles of their new profession, and with very little instruction made themselves masters of tactics and of administrative routine. Add to this, bravery of the highest type and a burning zeal in the cause they were fighting for, and a campaign or two made them the peers of any officers of their grade in our own or any other army.
Another class which cannot be omitted and which is yet very hard to define accurately, is that of the “political appointments.”
Of the learned professions, the lawyers were of course most strongly represented among officers of the line. The medical men were so greatly needed in their own professional department that it was hard to find a sufficient number of suitable age and proper skill to supply the regiments with surgeons and the hospitals with a proper staff. The clergy were non-combatants by profession, and a few only were found in other than chaplain’s duty. Civil engineers, railroad contractors, architects, and manufacturers were well represented and were valuable men. Scarce any single qualification was more useful in organizing the army than that of using and handling considerable bodies of men such as mechanics and railway employees.
The profession of the law is in our country so closely allied to political activity that the lawyers who put on the uniform were most likely to be classed among political appointments. The term was first applied to men like Banks, Butler, Baker, Logan, and Blair, most of whom left seats in Congress to serve in the army. If they had not done so, it would have been easy for critics to say that the prominent politicians took care to keep their own bodies out of harm’s way. Most of them won hard-earned and well-deserved fame as able soldiers before the war was over. In an armed struggle which grew out of a great political contest, it was inevitable that eager political partisans should be among the most active in the new volunteer organizations. They called meetings, addressed the people to rouse their enthusiasm, urged enlistments, and often set the example by enrolling their own names first. It must be kept constantly in mind that we had no militia organization that bore any appreciable proportion to the greatness of the country’s need, and that at any rate the policy of relying upon volunteering at the beginning was adopted by the government. It was a foregone conclusion that popular leaders of all grades must largely officer the new troops. Such men might be national leaders or leaders of country neighborhoods; but big or little, they were the necessity of the time. It was the application of the old Yankee story, “If the Lord _will_ have a church in Paxton, he must take _sech as ther’ be_ for deacons.”
I have, in a former chapter, given my opinion that the government made a mistake in following General Scott’s advice to keep its regular army intact and forbid its officers from joining volunteer regiments; but good or bad, that advice was followed at the beginning, and the only possible thing to do next was to let popular selection and natural leadership of any sort determine the company organizations. The governors of States generally followed a similar rule in the choice of field officers, and selected the general officers from those in the state militia, or from former officers of the army retired to civil life. In one sense, therefore, the whole organization of the volunteer force might be said to be political, though we heard more of “political generals” than we did of political captains or lieutenants. When the organization of the United States Volunteers took the place of the state contingents which formed the “three months’ service,” the appointments by the President were usually selections from those acting already under state appointment. The National Government was more conservative than the Confederacy in this respect. Our service was always full of colonels doing duty as brigadiers and brigadiers doing duty as major-generals, whilst the Southern army usually had a brigadier for every brigade and a major-general for every division, with lieutenant-generals and generals for the highest commands. If some rigid method had been adopted for mustering out all officers whom the government, after a fair trial, was unwilling to trust with the command appropriate to their grade, there would have been little to complain of; but an evil which grew very great was that men in high rank were kept upon the roster after it was proven that they were incompetent, and when no army commander would willingly receive them as his subordinates. Nominal commands at the rear or of a merely administrative kind were multiplied, and still many passed no small part of the war “waiting orders.” As the total number of general officers was limited by law, it followed, of course, that promotion had to be withheld from many who had won it by service in the field. This evil, however, was not peculiar to the class of appointments from civil life. The faults in the first appointments were such as were almost necessarily connected with the sudden creation of a vast army. The failure to provide for a thorough test and sifting of the material was a governmental error. It was palliated by the necessity of conciliating influential men, and of avoiding antagonisms when the fate of the nation trembled in the balance; but this was a political motive, and the evil was probably endured in spite of its well-known tendency to weaken the military service.
A few months’ campaigning in the field got us rid of most of the “town-meeting style” of conducting military affairs in the army itself, though nothing could cure the practice on the part of unscrupulous men of seeking reputation with the general public by dishonest means. The newspapers were used to give fictitious credit to some and to injure others. If the regular correspondents of the press had been excluded from the camps, there would no doubt have been surreptitious correspondence which would have found its way into print through private and roundabout channels. But this again was not a vice peculiar to officers appointed from civil life. It should be always remembered that honorable conduct and devoted patriotism was the rule, and self-seeking vanity and ambition the exception; yet a few exceptions would be enough to disturb the comfort of a large command. To sum up, the only fair way to estimate the volunteer army is by its work and its fitness for work after the formative period was passed, and when the inevitable mistakes and the necessary faults of its first organization had been measurably cured. My settled judgment is that it took the field in the spring of 1862 as well fitted for its work as any army in the world, its superior excellences in the most essential points fully balancing the defects which were incident to its composition.
This opinion is not the offspring of partiality toward the volunteer army on the part of one himself a volunteer. It was shared by the most active officers in the field who came from the regular service. In their testimony given in various ways during the war, in their Official Records, and in their practical conduct in the field which showed best of all where their reliance was placed, these officers showed their full faith in and admiration for the volunteer regiments. Such an opinion was called out by the Committee on the Conduct of the War in its examination of General Gibbon in regard to the Gettysburg campaign, and his judgment may fairly be taken as that of the better class of the regular officers. He declared of some of these regiments in his division, that they were as well disciplined as any men he ever wished to see; that their officers had shown practical military talent; that a young captain from civil life, whom he instanced, was worthy to be made a general. He named regiments of volunteers which he said were among the finest regiments that ever fought on any field, and in which every officer was appointed from civil life. [Footnote: Report of Committee on Conduct of the War, vol. iv. pp. 444-446.] He added the criticism which I have above made, that no proper method of getting rid of incompetent officers and of securing the promotion of the meritorious had been adopted; but this in no way diminishes the force of his testimony that every kind of military ability was abundantly found in our volunteer forces and needed only recognition and encouragement. It would be easy to multiply evidence on this