Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided

by W Hunter Lesser

  Local recruiting efforts added few more. By July 1, only twenty-three Confederates had signed up, not enough to make up for discharges. Garnett could muster just 4,500 men, a force President Davis described as “lamentably weak.” The dreary-hearted general saw little chance of offering battle. To Lee he confessed, “I cannot operate beyond my present position…with the present force under my command, and I deem it my duty to state the fact.…I can only say I shall watch vigilantly, and strike whenever and wherever I can see a reasonable hope of success.”213

  Exaggerated reports of the Confederate buildup had already reached General McClellan's Cincinnati headquarters. McClellan now personally took the field to “dispose of Garnett before he was in condition to do much mischief.”

  His young wife remained behind in Cincinnati. Mary Ellen McClellan was of modest height and shapely form. Her hair was golden, her eyes a splendid hazel. Her face beamed with affection, intelligence, and determination. She was utterly heartstopping—and six months pregnant. Now, just over a year after their union, George left his “charming Nelly” for the front. Her father, Randolph Marcy, the distinguished soldier and western explorer, accompanied his son-in-law as inspector general. “I may yet play my part on the stage of the world's affairs and leave my name in history,” George had told his love, “but Nelly whatever the future may have in store for me you will be the chief actor in the play.” He pledged to write a letter every day during the absence.214

  On June 20, McClellan boarded a train for Western Virginia. “At every station where we stopped, crowds had assembled to see the ‘Young General,'” he wrote Nelly. “Gray-headed old men & women; mothers holding up their children to take my hand, girls, boys, all sorts, cheering and crying, God bless you! I never went thro’ such a scene in my life & never expect to go thro’ such another one.”

  Trainloads of soldiers and ordinance were at his heels. McClellan brought nearly twenty thousand men—enough to thrash whatever might be ahead. “I will, without delay, beat them up in their quarters and endeavor to put an end to their attempts in this direction,” he told General Scott.215

  McClellan reached Grafton on June 23, less than fifty miles from the enemy. He found military affairs in confusion. “Everything here needs the hand of the master & is getting it fast,” Nellie was informed. His eye was on the B&O Railroad, a vital artery for communication, troops, and supplies. He noted the Tray Run Viaduct at Rowlesburg, one of the most remarkable engineering works on the entire line. The towering viaduct, six hundred feet long and one hundred sixty feet high, spanned a deep gorge by means of slender iron columns. It was located in an isolated setting on Cheat River—the very spot coveted by General Lee. McClellan visited Rowlesburg in person, left one thousand men to guard the viaduct and five times that number to protect his railroad lifeline.216

  McClellan's intelligence gathering was no more effective than Garnett's, a “peculiar characteristic” of that region. He did know that Confederates held the mountain passes. It was enough to formulate a plan. In a June 23 letter to General-in-Chief Scott, McClellan proposed a march on Beverly, via Clarksburg, Buckhannon, and Rich Mountain, to turn the Rebel position at Laurel Hill. The troops at Philippi under General Morris would follow up any retreat. Having disposed of Garnett, McClellan would dispatch troops to “reassure the Union men.”217

  He scripted another proclamation to rally those Unionists, informing them that his army, led by “Virginia troops,” would support loyal civil authorities, that they were enemies to “none but armed rebels and those voluntarily giving them aid.” In an address “To the Soldiers of the Army of the West,” McClellan admonished his troops to “Bear in mind that you are in the country of friends, not of enemies; that you are here to protect, not to destroy:”

  Your enemies have violated every moral law; neither God or man can sustain them. They have, without cause, rebelled against a mild and paternal Government; they have seized upon public and private property; they have out-raged…Northern men merely because they loved the Union; they have placed themselves beneath contempt, unless they can retrieve some honor on the field of battle. You will pursue a different course. You will be honest, brave, and merciful; you will respect the right of public opinion; you will punish no man for opinion's sake. Show to the world that you differ from our enemies…. Soldiers! I have heard that there was danger here. I have come to place myself at your head and to share it with you. I fear now but one thing—that you will not find foemen worthy of your steel.218

  Sophia Hawthorn, wife of the celebrated author, compared McClellan's words to the sound of “the silver trumpets of Judah.” A letter to Nelly described “crowds of the country people who have heard of me & read my proclamations come in from all directions to thank me, shake me by the hand, & look at their ‘liberator, the General!'…Well, it is a proud & glorious thing to see a whole people here, simple & unsophisticated, looking up to me as their deliverer from tyranny.”

  McClellan's mood was buoyant. To Nelly he boasted, “I hope to thrash the infamous scamps before a week is over—all I fear is that I can't catch them.” His soldiers were in fine spirits, too. “They will render a good account of themselves, or I am much mistaken,” he told Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase. “I think we can show that one Southerner is not equal to more than three Northern men!”219

  Foremost in mind were the Germans of the Ninth Ohio Infantry. On June 30, those “Bully Dutchmen” led the Federal march to Buckhannon, twenty-two miles west of Rich Mountain. At their head was William Starke Rosecrans, the engineer who had laid out Camp Dennison, and who was now a brigadier general. The forty-one-year-old Rosecrans was nearly six feet tall, compactly built with an aquiline nose, piercing eyes, a brilliant mind, and a sharp temper.

  Rosecrans had graduated fifth in the West Point class of 1842. He had been superintendent of a coal company in Western Virginia, and later, as head of a Cincinnati kerosene refinery, was burned in an explosion that left his face permanently scarred. A devout Catholic, Rosecrans was utterly destitute of pretense. His speech grew nearly to a stutter when excited, and he was “nervous and active in all his movements,” never retiring before two o'clock in the morning, very often not until four, and sometimes not at all.220

  While Federal troops closed on Garnett's army, McClellan also launched steps to “clean out the valley of the Kanawha.” He ordered General Jacob Cox at Camp Dennison to move toward Gallipolis, Ohio, with four regiments, in preparation for an advance up the Kanawha River. “Communicate frequently,” McClellan directed. “A telegraph line follows me out.”221

  As a former railroad man, George McClellan understood the promise of the telegraph. Railroads used the technology to coordinate traffic, and telegraph lines were in place along the B&O. McClellan appointed Anson Stager, general superintendent of Western Union Telegraph Company, as military director of telegraph lines within the Department of the Ohio. Two experienced men, William S. Fuller and T.B.A. David, were hired as managers. Ignoring skeptics, McClellan detailed Fuller and David to construct a telegraph line along his route of march. It was a novel idea—the telegraph had never followed an American army into battle.

  To discourage eavesdroppers, a way was needed to code the messages sent by wire. Stager accomplished this by developing a simple but ingenious cipher. Fittingly, McClellan's code name was “Mecca.” Morris was “Venice,” and General Scott “Baghdad.” Washington was “Nimrod;” Wheeling, “Peter;” Grafton, “Lot;” and so forth. It was the first telegraphic cipher ever used by an army in war.222

  The telegraph men had no problem keeping up with their general. McClellan did not join Rosecrans in Buckhannon until July 2; the laggard pace was blamed on delays in securing transportation. “I am bothered half to death in getting up supplies,” he informed Nelly, “unless where I am in person everything seems to go wrong.” He remained at Buckhannon for three more days, refusing to give way to impatience. It was a lesson learned from Winfield Scott—“not to move until I kn
ow that everything is ready, and then to move with the utmost rapidity and energy.”223

  Meanwhile, patrols explored the countryside. Among them was the first three-year volunteer cavalry unit in the field, a squad of Pennsylvanians known as the “Ringgold cavalry.” The Ringgolds carried huge old flintlock horse pistols. For the first time, those weapons were loaded and primed. First, a small handful of powder was poured in and sealed with newspaper. “On top of this we put eight or ten chunks of lead,” recalled trooper John Elwood. “This would fill the gun about one-half the length of the barrel, and, when filled to the muzzle with brick dust, we were ready for the fight.” Elwood's pistol went off accidentally, knocking him to the ground with a fearful roar. Stunned, he arose to find a hole in the earth “large enough to bury a good sized dog.”224

  “I doubt whether the rebels will fight,” McClellan informed Nelly. “It is possible they may, but I begin to think my successes will be due to manoeuvers, & that I shall have no brilliant victories to record.” He assured General Scott that “no prospect of a brilliant victory” would induce him to fight when he might outwit Garnett: “I will not throw these raw men of mine into the teeth of artillery and intrenchments if it is possible to avoid it.”

  He hoped instead to pull a “Cerro Gordo,” duplicating Scott's brilliant flanking movement in the Mexican War. McClellan would send Morris's brigade to “amuse” Garnett at Laurel Hill—making him think the main attack would come there—while he took three brigades and swept around the Confederate left flank at Rich Mountain. He would then march into Beverly, cutting off Garnett's retreat. The Rebels would be captured or destroyed.225

  A sweltering Independence Day found McClellan reviewing the troops at Buckhannon. Citizens gawked as regiment after regiment passed the bareheaded young general in parade. “Lordy!” exclaimed one mountaineer. “I didn't know there was so many folkses in the world.”226

  McClellan's review of Garnett's numbers was also growing. Magnifying enemy strength would become one of his signature traits. He now estimated that the Rebel general had some ten thousand soldiers—eight thousand at Laurel Hill and two thousand at Rich Mountain. In reality, Garnett possessed half that number. Only 1,300 Confederates were dug in at Rich Mountain; Garnett's total strength would never exceed 5,300 men. While McClellan moved against a Rich Mountain force he outnumbered more than five to one, General Morris was about evenly matched at Laurel Hill.

  Had Garnett the numbers McClellan believed, what might keep him from taking the offensive? If he counterattacked and defeated Morris, a race for the railroad would take place at McClellan's rear. “I confess I feel apprehensive unless our force could equal theirs,” offered the soft-spoken Morris to his commander.227

  McClellan's reply was terse. “I am not a little surprised that you feel the defense of Philippi so hazardous and dangerous an operation. If four thousand (nearly) of our men…are not enough to hold the place against any force these people can bring against it, I think we had better all go home at once.” He grudgingly sent reinforcements with a warning not to ask for more. McClellan's disdain spilled out in a letter to Nelly: “I have not a Brig Genl worth his salt—Morris is a timid old woman—Rosecranz a silly fussy goose—Schleich knows nothing,” he complained.228

  On July 5, McClellan's know-nothing brigadier, politician Newton Schleich of Ohio, sent fifty men on an unauthorized expedition to Middle Fork Bridge, a covered span midway between Buckhannon and the Rebels at Camp Garnett. When that party lost six men in a firefight the next day, McClellan was livid. General Schleich, Democratic leader in the Ohio Senate, was relieved of command. McClellan's advance guard cleared Middle Fork Bridge on the morning of July 7. “I got my pants and bootlegs riddled with bullets,” wrote Confederate Captain John Higginbotham of the skirmish, “but without serious injury in fact ‘no meat hurt.'” Not one to shy from a fight, the youthful Higginbotham would prove to be a magnet for Yankee lead.229

  As McClellan's troops neared the Confederates at Camp Garnett, Lt. Colonel John Pegram arrived at that post with the remainder of his Twentieth Virginia Infantry and took command. Pegram was twenty-nine years old, born of a distinguished tidewater Virginia family, short, goateed, haughty, and handsome. At West Point, J.E.B. Stuart had called him “the best-hearted fellow I ever knew,” which perhaps explained Cadet Pegram's first-year collection of more than one hundred demerits. He was said to be the first U.S. Army officer on active duty to offer his sword to Virginia.230

  Pegram knew next to nothing about Rich Mountain, but a civilian named Jedediah Hotchkiss had recently learned much. Born at Windsor, New York, in 1828, he had moved to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley as a teacher. Hotchkiss was a gifted cartographer. He could walk over a tract once and map it with astounding accuracy. For nearly a week, the bearded professor had been shooting angles and taking elevations around Camp Garnett.231

  While this talented mapmaker surveyed the laurel thickets of Rich Mountain, General George McClellan surveyed his own chances for winning laurels there. The rugged terrain gave him pause. “There were few regions,” he fretted, “more difficult for the operations of large bodies of troops.”232

  McClellan's tone became less confident. “I realize now the dreadful responsibility on me—the lives of my men—the reputation of the country & the success of our cause,” he confided to Nelly. “I shall feel my way & be very cautious for I recognize the fact that everything requires success in my first operations.” To General Scott he wired, “Enemy said to be entrenched in force in my front. Cannot rely on reports. Will not learn what I have met until the advance guard comes in contact. I will be prepared to fight whatever is in front of me.”233

  On July 9, the young general led three brigades to within sight of Camp Garnett. “We came over the hills with all the pomp and circumstance of glorious war,” wrote Lt. Colonel John Beatty, “infantry, cavalry, artillery, and hundreds of army wagons; the whole stretching along the mountain road for miles.” The army bivouacked on Roaring Creek flats, just west of the Rebel camp. “These mountain passes must be ugly things to go through when in possession of an enemy,” wrote John Beatty as he steeled himself for battle. “I endeavor to picture to myself all its terrors, so that I may not be surprised and dumbfounded when the shock comes.” A loud clap of thunder cut short his musings. And then another soft rumbling. “There it goes again!” Beatty jotted in his diary. It was the sound of distant cannon fire.234

  Sixteen miles north, the artillery banged away in front of Garnett's defenses at Camp Laurel Hill. Confederates there held the second turnpike pass. The coveted crossings at Rich Mountain and Laurel Hill were gateways to the heart of Virginia. If the Federals were to claim Western Virginia for the Union and push on toward Richmond, those gates must be secured.

  On July 7, nearly four thousand Federal troops under General Morris had marched from Philippi on the Beverly-Fairmont Road to a hamlet named Belington, two miles west of Laurel Hill. Dr. William Fletcher, fife major of the Sixth Indiana Infantry, had crept between the lines to sketch the layout of Confederate defenses. Armed with that intelligence, General Morris pushed forward. Over the next four days, his troops grappled at arm's length with Garnett's army at Laurel Hill.

  Morris was only to amuse the Rebels, awaiting McClellan's flank movement at Rich Mountain. But the Federal troops at Laurel Hill proved difficult to restrain. “A few dozen of us, who had been swapping shots with the enemies' skirmishers, grew tired of the resultless battle,” recalled the Ninth Indiana's Ambrose Bierce, “and by a common impulse—and I think without orders or officers—ran forward into the woods and attacked the Confederate works. We did well enough considering the hopeless folly of the movement, but we came out of the woods faster than we went in—a good deal.”235

  Even a clergyman got into the act. Sergeant Copp, parson of the Ninth Indiana Regiment, was in the midst of a Sunday sermon at Belington when brisk firing broke out in the woods nearby. The parson dropped his Bible, snapped up a rifle, and led his congr
egation in a charge.

  After two days of skirmishing, the Federals won a hotly contested point known as Girard Hill, named for the first Indiana soldier to fall upon its crest. On July 10, Morris planted artillery within range of Garnett's camp and opened fire.236

  They “shot cannon balls, case shot and canister at us for near ten hours,” recalled Confederate James Hall. “We were sheltered from them, however, by the large trees in the woods.” Isaac Hermann of the First Georgia Regiment stood guard at Camp Laurel Hill during this fire. Nervously, Hermann collared an officer making the rounds. “Colonel,” he implored, “am I placed here as a target to be shot at by those fellows yonder?”

  “Take your beat in the ditch,” was the reply, “and when you see the smoke, tuck your head below the breastworks.” Hermann did so, watching for the smoke of the gun. He learned that the sound took eight seconds to reach him, followed about four seconds later by arrival of the ball—allowing time to hunker down. But the discovery gave small comfort. “I was very willing when relief came, for the other fellow to take my place,” recalled Hermann.237

  The spirited action at Laurel Hill induced General Garnett to believe that McClellan's main force was before him. Lt. Col. Pegram's optimistic dispatches from Rich Mountain intimated the same. Garnett prepared to meet the enemy with cold steel. To Lee he wrote, “My only apprehension is that by the guidance of Union men of the neighborhood they may get in my rear by some path unknown to me.”238