Military Reminiscences of the Civil War: Autobiographical Account by a General of the Union Army. Jacob D. Cox
hands. Tyler, with his lieutenant-colonel, Creighton, came into Gauley Bridge with a few stragglers from the regiment. Others followed until about 200 were present. His train had reached the detachment I had sent to Peters Creek, and this covered its retreat to camp, so that all his wagons came in safely. He reported all his command cut to pieces and captured except the few that were with him, and wrote an official report of the engagement, giving that result.
On the 28th, however, we heard that Major Casement had carried 400 of the regiment safely into Charleston. He had rallied them on the hills immediately after the rout, and finding the direct road to Gauley Bridge intercepted, had led them by mountain paths over the ridges to the valley of Elk River, and had then followed that stream down to Charleston without being pursued. 16 This put a new face on the business, and Tyler in much confusion asked the return of his report that he might re-write it. I looked upon his situation as the not unnatural result of inexperience, and contented myself with informing General Rosecrans of the truth as to the affair. Tyler was allowed to substitute a new report, and his unfortunate affair was treated as a lesson from which it was expected he would profit. 17 It made trouble in the regiment, however, where the line officers did not conceal their opinion that he had failed in his duty as a commander, and he was never afterward quite comfortable among them.
The lieutenant-colonel, Creighton, was for a time in the abyss of self-reproach. The very day they reached Gauley Bridge in their unceremonious retreat, he came to me, crying with shame, and said, "General, I have behaved like a miserable coward, I ought to be cashiered," and repeated many such expressions of remorse. I comforted him by saying that the intensity of his own feeling was the best proof that he had only yielded to a surprise and that it was clear he was no coward. He died afterward at the head of his regiment in the desperate charge up the hills at Ringgold, Georgia, in the campaign following that of Chickamauga in the autumn of 1863, having had the command for two years after Tyler became a brigadier. During those two years the Seventh had been in numberless engagements, and its list of casualties in battle, made good by recruiting, was said to have reached a thousand. Better soldiers there were none, and Creighton proved himself a lion in every fight.
Casement, who rallied and led the most of the regiment from Cross Lanes over the mountains to Charleston, became afterward colonel of the One Hundred and Third Ohio. He came again under my command in East Tennessee in the winter of 1863, and continued one of my brigade commanders to the close of the war. He was a railway builder by profession, had a natural aptitude for controlling bodies of men, was rough of speech but generous of heart, running over with fun which no dolefulness of circumstance could repress, as jolly a comrade and as loyal a subordinate as the army could show.
After the Cross Lanes affair I fully expected that the Confederate forces would follow the route which Casement had taken to Charleston. Floyd's inactivity puzzled me, for he did no more than make an intrenched camp at Carnifex Ferry, with outposts at Peters Mountain and toward Summersville. The publication of the Confederate Archives has partly solved the mystery. Floyd called on Wise to reinforce him; but the latter demurred, insistent that the duty assigned him of attacking my position in front needed all the men he had. Both appealed to Lee, and Lee decided that Floyd was the senior and entitled to command the joint forces. 18 The letters of Wise show a capacity for keeping a command in hot water which was unique. If he had been half as troublesome to me as he was to Floyd, I should indeed have had a hot time of it. But he did me royal service by preventing anything approaching to co-operation between the two Confederate columns. I kept my advance-guards constantly feeling of both, and got through the period till Rosecrans joined me with nothing more serious than some sharp affairs of detachments.
I was not without anxiety, however, and was constantly kept on the alert. Rosecrans withdrew the Twelfth Ohio from my command, excepting two companies under Major Hines, on the 19th of August, 19 and the imperative need of detachments to protect the river below me was such that from this time till the middle of September my garrison at Gauley Bridge, including advance-guards and outposts, was never more than two and a half regiments or 1800 men. My artillerists were also ordered back to Ohio to reorganize, leaving the guns in the hands of such infantry details as I could improvise. 20 I was lucky enough, however, to get a very good troop of horse under command of Captain Pfau in place of the irregular squad I had before. 21
On the 25th my advance-guard under Lieutenant-Colonel Frizell very cleverly succeeded in drawing into an ambuscade a body of Floyd's cavalry under Colonel A. G. Jenkins. The principal body of our men lined a defile near the Hawk's Nest, and the skirmishers, retreating before the enemy, led them into the trap. Our men began firing before the enemy was quite surrounded, and putting their horses upon the run, they dashed back, running the gantlet of the fire. Wise reported that he met men with their subordinate officers flying at four miles' distance from the place of the action, and so panic-stricken that they could not be rallied or led back. 22 Jenkins was hurt by the fall of his horse, but he succeeded in getting away; for, as we had no horsemen to pursue with, even the wounded, except one, could not be overtaken. Hats, clothing, arms, and saddles were left scattered along the road in as complete a breakneck race for life as was ever seen. The result, if not great in the list of casualties, which were only reported at 10 or 15 by the enemy, was so demoralizing in its influence upon the hostile cavalry that they never again showed any enterprise in harassing our outposts, whilst our men gained proportionally in confidence.
About the 30th of August we heard of an encampment of Confederate militia at Boone C. H. which was so situated, southwest of the Kanawha River, as to menace our communications with the Ohio. I sent Lieutenant-Colonel Enyart with half of the First Kentucky Regiment to beat up this encampment, and he did so on the 2d of September, completely routing the enemy, who left 25 dead upon the field. Enyart's march and attack had been rapid and vigorous, and the terror of the blow kept that part of the district quiet for some time afterward. 23
We had heard for some days the news of the assembling of a considerable force of Confederate militia at Fayette C. H. under General Chapman and Colonel Beckley. They were reported at 2500, which was a fair estimate of the numbers which answered to the call. On the 3d of September a pretty well combined attack was made by Wise and this force; Wise pushing in sharply upon the turnpike, whilst Chapman, assisted by part of Wise's cavalry, drove back our small outpost on the Fayette road. Wise was met at Pig Creek as in his former attack, the eight companies of the Eleventh Ohio being strengthened by half of the Twenty-sixth Ohio, which was brought from below for this purpose. The effort was somewhat more persistent than before, and Wise indulged in considerable noisy cannonading; but the pickets retreated to the creek without loss, and the whole advance-guard, keeping under good cover there, repelled the attack with less than half a dozen casualties on our side, none being fatal. Wise retreated again beyond Hawk's Nest. 24 The irregular troops on the Fayette road were more boldly led, and as there was no defensible position near the river for our outposts, these fell slowly back after a very warm skirmish, inflicting a loss, as reported by prisoners, of 6 killed among the enemy. I expected Floyd to move at the same time, and was obliged to continue upon the defensive by reason of his threatening position up the Gauley River; I, however, sent Major Hines with his two companies in that direction, and Floyd appeared to be impressed with the idea that my whole force was moving to attack him and attempted nothing aggressive. As at this time Wise, in his letters to General Lee, puts Floyd's force at 5600, and his own at 2200, 25 I had good reason, therefore, to feel satisfied with being able to keep them all at bay.
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