Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Vol.1&2). Jacob D. Cox
habits. His system of discipline was based on these peculiarities. He aimed at a stoical command of himself as the means of commanding others, and avoided noisy bluster of every sort, going, perhaps, to an excess in brevity of speech and in enforcing his orders by the consequences of any disobedience. His subordinates recognized his purpose to be just, and soon learned to have the greatest confidence in him as a military officer. Unless common fame did him injustice, he was one of those officers who had, at the beginning, no deep sympathy with the National cause, and had no personal objection to the success of the Rebellion. But he was a Northern man, and an ambitious professional soldier who did not mean to let political opinions stand in the way of military success. 17 In his case, as in many others, I believe this attitude was modified by his service under the flag, and that in 1864 he voted for Mr. Lincoln's re-election; he, with General Sheridan, casting at the improvised army ballot-box, what was understood to be their first vote ever cast in a civil election.
Colonel Lightburn was one of the loyal West Virginians whose standing and intelligence made him naturally prominent among his people. He was a worthy man and an honorable officer, whose knowledge of the country and of the people made him a fit selection to preserve the peace and protect our communications in the valley during our forward movement. As his duties thus separated him from the principal columns, I saw less of him than of the other brigade commanders. The two West Virginia regiments which remained in the district were freshly organized, and were distributed in camps where they could practise company drill and instruction whilst they kept the country in order. Of Colonel Scammon, my senior brigade commander, I have already spoken in a former chapter. 18
Frémont limited our advance to the line of Flat-top Mountain until he should himself be ready to open the campaign in the north. 19 Blenker's division had been given to him from the Potomac army when McClellan began his movement to the peninsula, but on the 12th of April it had only reached Salem, a station on the Manassas Gap Railway between the Bull-Run Mountains and the Blue Ridge. 20 The War Department now sent General Rosecrans to conduct the division with speed to Frémont, but extraordinary delays still occurred, and the command did not reach Frémont at Petersburg till the 11th of May, when he immediately moved forward with it to the support of Schenck and Milroy at Franklin. 21 This delay was one of a series of misfortunes; for could Frémont have been at McDowell with this strong reinforcement added to Schenck's and Milroy's brigades, there can be no reasonable doubt that Jackson's attack, if delivered at all, would have proven a disaster for the Confederates. This, however, would not have ensured success for the general campaign, for Banks might still have been driven back in the Shenandoah valley, and Frémont's position would have been compromised. Nothing but a union of the two columns would have met the situation.
At the beginning of May, the additional transportation necessary for my advance beyond Flat-top had not arrived, but we did not wait for it. 22 The regiments were ordered to leave tents behind, and to bivouac without shelter except such as they could make with "brush," for the expected shelter tents also were lacking. The whole distance from the head of navigation to the railroad at Newberne was one hundred and forty miles. Flat-top Mountain and Lewisburg were, respectively, about halfway on the two routes assigned to us. Some two thousand of the enemy's militia were holding the mountain passes in front of us, and a concentration of the regular Confederate troops was going on behind them. These last consisted of two brigades under General Henry Heth, as well as J. S. Williams's and Marshall's brigades, under General Humphrey Marshall, with the Eighth Virginia Cavalry. General Marshall appears to have been senior when the commands were united. Looking south from Flat-top Mountain we see the basin of the Blue-stone River, which flows northeastward into New River. This basin, with that of the Greenbrier on the other side of New River, forms the broadest stretch of cultivated land found between the mountain ranges, though the whole country is rough and broken even here. The crest of Flat-top Mountain curves southward around the headwaters of the Blue-stone, and joins the more regular ranges in Tazewell County. The straight ridge of East-River Mountain forms a barrier on the southern side of the basin, more than thirty miles away from the summit of Flat-top where Scammon's camp was placed on the road from Raleigh C. H. to Princeton, the county-seat of Mercer. The Narrows of New River were where that stream breaks through the mountain barrier I have described, and the road from Princeton to Giles C. H. passes through the defile. Only one other outlet from the basin goes southward, and that is where the road from Princeton to Wytheville passes through Rocky Gap, a gorge of the wildest character, some thirty miles south-westward from the Narrows. These passes were held by Confederate forces, whilst their cavalry, under Colonel W. H. Jenifer, occupied Princeton and presented a skirmishing resistance to our advance-guard.
On the 1st of May a small party of the Twenty-third Ohio met the enemy's horse at Camp Creek, a branch of the Blue-stone, six miles from the crest of Flat-top, and had a lively engagement, repulsing greatly superior numbers. On hearing of this, Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Hayes marched with part of the Twenty-third Ohio and part of the West Virginia cavalry, and followed up the enemy with such vigor that Jenifer was driven through Princeton too rapidly to permit him to remove the stores collected there. 23 To avoid their falling into our hands, Jenifer set fire to the town. Hayes succeeded in saving six or eight houses, but the rest were destroyed. Jenifer retreated on the Wytheville road, expecting us to follow by that route; but Hayes, learning that the Narrows were not strongly held, and being now reinforced by the rest of his regiment (the Twenty-third), marched on the 6th to the Narrows which he held, 24 whilst he sent Major Comly with a detachment into Pearisburg, the county-seat of Giles. 25 The affair at Camp Creek had cost Jenifer some twenty in killed and wounded, and an equal number were captured in the advance on Giles C. H. Our casualties were 1 killed and 20 wounded. Our line, however, was getting too extended, and the utmost exertions were needed to supply the troops in their present positions. Princeton, being at the forking of the roads to Pearisburg and Wytheville, was too important a point to be left unguarded, and I at once sent forward Colonel Scammon with the Thirtieth Ohio to hold it. 26 On the 9th of May the Twelfth Ohio was put in march from Raleigh to join him, and Moor's brigade was approaching the last-named place where my headquarters were, that being the terminus, for the time, of the telegraph line which kept me in communication with Frémont. 27 The same day the department commander informed me of the attack by Jackson on Milroy on the 7th, and ordered me to suspend movements in advance until my forces should be concentrated. 28 The weather was rainy, and the roads suffered badly from cutting up by the wagons, but I had hoped to push forward a strong advanced guard to the great railway bridge near Newberne, and destroy it before the enemy had time to concentrate there. This made it necessary to take some risk, for it was not possible to move the whole command till some supplies could be accumulated at Raleigh and at Flat-top Mountain.
As fast as the supplies would permit, Moor went forward, taking no tents beyond Raleigh, and all of the troops on this line now faced the continuing rains without shelter. Guerilla parties were set actively at work by the Confederates in the region of the Guyandotte and at other points in our rear. Colonel Lightburn was directed to keep his forces actively moving to suppress these outbreaks, and the forward movement was pressed. On the 10th of May Heth's two brigades of the enemy attacked our advance-guard at Pearisburg, and these, after destroying the enemy's stores, which they had captured there, retired skirmishing, till they joined Scammon, who had advanced from Princeton to their support.