Military Reminiscences of the Civil War: Autobiographical Account by a General of the Union Army. Jacob D. Cox
cavalry were with Floyd, besides a detachment of 50 artillerists. This makes his total force 3100. At that time he gives Floyd's force at 1200 with two strong regiments coming up, besides 2000 militia under General Chapman. The aggregate force operating on the Kanawha line he gives as 7800. (Official Records vol. v. p. 787.)
5 See Official Atlas, Plate IX. 3, and map, p. 106, post
6 Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 449, 453, 454.
7 Dispatch of August 16.
8 Dispatch of August 17.
9 Official Records, vol. v. pp. 792, 799; Id., vol. li. pt. i. pp. 450–453.
10 Id., vol. v. p.800.
11 Dispatch of August 20.
12 Id., vol. li. pt. i. p. 454.
13 Dispatch of August 24.
14 Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 457.
15 Id., pp. 458, 459, 461.
16 Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 462.
17 Rosecrans's dispatch, Id., p. 460.
18 Official Records, vol. v. pp. 155–165, 800, 802–813.
19 My dispatch to Rosecrans of August 19; also Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 454.
20 Id., p. 462.
21 Id., p. 464.
22 Id., vol. v. p. 816; Id., vol. li. pt. i. p. 457.
23 C. R., vol. li. pt. i. pp. 465, 468, 472.
24 Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. pp. 468, 470. Wise's Report, Id., vol. v. p. 124.
25 Id., vol. v. p. 840.
26 Dispatch to Rosecrans, August 29.
27 Some twenty years later a bill passed the House of Representatives pensioning the mother of the man killed, under the law giving pensions to dependent relatives of those who died in the line of duty! It could only have been smuggled through by concealment and falsification of facts, and was stopped in the Senate.
28 Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 478.
29 Id., pp. 479, 481.
30 Id., p. 482.
CHAPTER VI
CARNIFEX FERRY--TO SEWELL MOUNTAIN AND BACK
Rosecrans's march to join me--Reaches Cross Lanes--Advance against Floyd--Engagement at Carnifex Ferry--My advance to Sunday Road--Conference with Rosecrans--McCook's brigade joins me--Advance to Camp Lookout--Brigade commanders--Rosecrans's personal characteristics--Hartsuff--Floyd and Wise again--"Battle of Bontecou"--Sewell Mountain--The equinoctial--General Schenck arrives--Rough lodgings--Withdrawal from the mountain--Rear-guard duties--Major Slemmer of Fort Pickens fame--New positions covering Gauley Bridge--Floyd at Cotton Mountain--Rosecrans's methods with private soldiers--Progress in discipline.
General Rosecrans had succeeded McClellan as ranking officer in West Virginia, but it was not until the latter part of September that the region was made a department and he was regularly assigned to command. 1 Meanwhile the three months' enlistments were expiring, many regiments were sent home, new ones were received, and a complete reorganization of his forces took place. Besides holding the railroad, he fortified the Cheat Mountain pass looking toward Staunton, and the pass at Elkwater on the mountain summit between Huttonsville and Huntersville. My own fortifications at Gauley Bridge were part of the system of defensive works he had ordered. By the middle of August he had established a chain of posts, with a regiment or two at each, on a line upon which he afterwards marched, from Weston by way of Bulltown, Sutton, and Summersville to Gauley Bridge.
As soon as he received the news of Floyd's attack upon Tyler at Cross Lanes, he hastened his preparations and began his march southward from Clarksburg with three brigades, having left the Upper Potomac line in command of General Kelley, and the Cheat Mountain region in command of General J. J. Reynolds. His route (already indicated) was a rough one, and the portion of it between Sutton and Summersville, over Birch Mountain, was very wild and difficult. He crossed the mountain on the 9th, and left his bivouac on the morning of the 10th of September, before daybreak. Marching through Summersville, he reached Cross Lanes about two o'clock in the afternoon. 2 Floyd's position was now about two miles distant, and, waiting only for his column to close up, he again pressed forward. General Benham's brigade was in front, and soon met the enemy's pickets. Getting the impression that Floyd was in retreat, Benham pressed forward rather rashly, deploying to the left and coming under a sharp fire from the right of the enemy's works. Floyd had intrenched a line across a bend of the Gauley River, where the road from Cross Lanes to Lewisburg finds its way down the cliffs to Carnifex Ferry. His flanks rested upon precipices rising abruptly from the water's edge, and he also intrenched some rising ground in front of his principal line. Benham's line advanced through dense and tangled woods, ignorant of the enemy's position till it was checked by the fire from his breastworks. It was too late for a proper reconnoissance, and Rosecrans could only hasten the advance and deployment of the other brigades under Colonels McCook and Scammon.