Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Vol.1&2). Jacob D. Cox

Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Vol.1&2) - Jacob D. Cox


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general had not been able to carry away or destroy. It is safe to say that in the wild defile which we had threaded for the last twenty miles there were as many positions as there were miles in which he could easily have delayed my advance a day or two, forcing me to turn his flank by the most difficult mountain climbing, and where indeed, with forces so nearly equal, my progress should have been permanently barred. At Gauley Bridge he burned the structure which gave name to the place, and which had been a series of substantial wooden trusses resting upon heavy stone piers. My orders definitively limited me to the point we had now reached in my advance, and I therefore sent forward only a detachment to follow the enemy and keep up his precipitate retreat. Wise did not stop till he reached Greenbrier and the White Sulphur Springs, and there was abundant evidence that he regarded his movement as a final abandonment of this part of West Virginia. 16 A few weeks later General Lee came in person with reinforcements over the mountains and began a new campaign; but until the 20th of August we were undisturbed except by a petty guerilla warfare.

      CHAPTER V

      GAULEY BRIDGE

       Table of Contents

      The gate of the Kanawha valley--The wilderness beyond--West Virginia defences--A romantic post--Chaplain Brown--An adventurous mission--Chaplain Dubois--"The River Path"--Gauley Mount--Colonel Tompkins's home--Bowie-knives--Truculent resolutions--The Engineers--Whittlesey, Benham, Wagner--Fortifications--Distant reconnoissances--Comparison of forces--Dangers to steamboat communications--Allotment of duties--The Summersville post--Seventh Ohio at Cross Lanes--Scares and rumors--Robert E. Lee at Valley Mountain--Floyd and Wise advance--Rosecrans's orders--The Cross Lanes affair--Major Casement's creditable retreat--Colonel Tyler's reports--Lieutenant-Colonel Creighton--Quarrels of Wise and Floyd--Ambushing rebel cavalry--Affair at Boone Court House--New attack at Gauley Bridge--An incipient mutiny--Sad result--A notable court-martial--Rosecrans marching toward us--Communications renewed--Advance toward Lewisburg--Camp Lookout--A private sorrow.

      The position at Gauley Bridge was an important one from a military point of view. It was where the James River and Kanawha turnpike, after following the highlands along the course of New River as it comes from the east, drops into a defile with cliffs on one side and a swift and unfordable torrent upon the other, and then crosses the Gauley River, which is a stream of very similar character. The two rivers, meeting at a right angle, there unite to form the Great Kanawha, which plunges over a ledge of rocks a mile below and winds its way among the hills, some thirty miles, before it becomes


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