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

by W Hunter Lesser

  The weather aggravated sickness, resulting in many deaths. Row upon row of freshly dug graves sprung up behind the regimental camps. “ To die, away from all the comforts and endearments of home, on the ground, in a wilderness, and be buried alone, without a stone to mark our resting-place, is pitiable,” mourned a Tennessee officer.387

  The Confederates were stymied—mired in the mud—unable to move until the heavens relented and the roads dried up. Yet there was no let-up in sight. Lee wrote to his daughters in late August, “It is raining now. Has been all day, last night, day before & day before that, &c. But we must be patient.”388

  It was little consolation that the Federals were also suffering. “The angels in Heaven seem to be weeping constantly over the unhappy condition of this once most peaceful and prosperous Republic,” wrote an Indiana soldier of the rain. Downpours swelled the Tygart Valley River, inundating Camp Elkwater. The hospital tent had been imprudently placed on a small island. As rising waters threatened the sick, John Beatty led a rescue effort that left him stranded in a tree above the raging torrent. Men and horses were drowned in the flood.389

  Cold, chiseling rains wore on the constitutions of the volunteers. Even in the “dog days” of August, brisk temperatures on Cheat Mountain compelled the men to heat flat rocks by campfires and place them at their feet each night for any hope of comfortable rest. “Very wet, cold and disagreeable. Almost as cold as December,” scrawled a member of the Fourteenth Indiana upon his diary in mid-August. “ We are shivering in an almost winter atmosphere. The scarcity of overcoats render it still more disagreeable.”390

  Frigid it was on the summit of Cheat Mountain. To the Hoosiers' disbelief, snow fell on the afternoon of August 13! “What do you say to that, ye drinkers of Patrick's soda water, and eaters of Scudder's ice creams?” howled J.T. Pool in a report to the folks at home. Huffed an astonished Federal, “While our friends in the States are basking in the sunshine, eating peaches and watermelons, we poor devils are nearly freezing to death upon the top of Cheat Mountain.”391

  To make matters worse, their flimsy wedge tents were attacked by mildew and began to rot. The crumbling shelters offered little protection against fierce mountain storms that drove rain through “as though they had been mosquito bars.” The Hoosiers' state-issued uniforms fared no better. “Our regiment is sadly in want of clothing,” wrote an officer of the Fourteenth Indiana on August 23. “The worse than second rate clothing which was issued to us at Camp Vigo is in rags.”

  Scouts returned to camp with only the waistband of what had been a pair of pantaloons—having left the remainder shredded in the laurel thickets. It was said that a man's rank could be determined by the amount of his backside exposed. If the view proved too offensive, dab! would come a pound of black mud from snickering comrades. To hide their nakedness, many strolled around camp wrapped in blankets—like “Scotch Highlanders” in their kilts.392

  As the rain and temperatures plummeted, so did morale. “[W]e are still stationed on the summit of this infernal mountain which is the meanest camping ground that I have ever seen,” growled a soldier on Cheat Mountain. “The mud is not less than shoe top deep any place and if [it] continues to rain there is no telling how deep it will be….” Tents were pitched on the slopes, and men had to brace their feet against rocks or stumps at night to keep from sliding down the mountainside. Speaking for all, a Hoosier declared: “The name of this mountain certainly could not have been more appropriate…For we have been cheated in various ways…since our arrival.”393

  The mood blackened. Shivering men watched their comrades fall to disease, then laid them to rest in shallow, rocky graves. Tall spruces around the dreary, windswept fortress on Cheat Mountain seemed to wail a constant “funeral dirge.”394

  Political intrigue grew thick as the billowing fog. The Ohio Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry regiments appeared on Cheat Mountain with new uniforms, overcoats, and money from the paymaster. Kimball's suffering Fourteenth Indiana boys had none of those luxuries. Bitterness turned to mutiny. Homesick Hoosiers were determined to leave that wretched mountain. Their leaders were openly denounced. “I know that there is not a man in our company but what would be pleased to get rid of our captain,” swore one, “and many are the curses not loud but deep that he gets.” When officers began to resign, the men refused to elect replacements. Resistance grew so impassioned that General Reynolds was called up to force the issue. Malcontents were tossed in the guardhouse; everyone was ordered not to write home of the incident.395

  Reynolds placed the troops under tighter discipline. Haphazardly pitched regimental camps were lined up in the strictest military order. Company streets were paved with stone to combat the mud. All the ditching, paving, and cleaning brought a remarkable transformation to the camp on Cheat Mountain. The hum of camp life became more animated. The stroke of axes, the roar and crash of towering spruces, the clash of shovels and picks in the trenches, and the ringing of blacksmith hammers all had a sound of renewed purpose.396

  Discord seemed to melt away with the August snow. “I for one say we will neve[r] give up the ship,” vowed a member of the Fourteenth Indiana. “We have been looking so long for a battle,” wrote another, “that the men are really anxious to be attacked.”397

  CHAPTER 15

  FEUDING GENERALS AND

  DICKERING DELEGATES

  “Old Governor Wise, with his goggle eyes.”

  —A popular Federal tune

  His face was deeply chiseled. His hair was long, thick, and nearly white. His eyes bulged with fierce intensity. His form was trim and active. His style was charismatic, rash, and independent. His name was Henry Alexander Wise.

  Wise was born a Virginian in 1806, native of Accomac County. He could swagger; he could bully; he was not averse to a duel. He had been a lawyer, Congressman, foreign minister and governor of Virginia (1856–60). He was a champion of Southern rights—he had sent John Brown to the gallows and been the linchpin of Virginia secession.

  Governor Henry Wise had earned the respect of Virginia's western counties, and President Davis commissioned him a brigadier general in the hope that his influence could rally wavering secessionists in the Kanawha Valley. During June–July 1861, he patched together an independent body of Confederate infantry, cavalry, and artillery known as the “Wise Legion.” His force, coupled with local militia, totaled about 3,500 men.

  With a few notable exceptions, the Wise Legion was poorly armed and equipped. The ex-governor, however, was not troubled in the least. A recruiting advertisement in the Richmond Enquirer boasted that no long-range arms (rifles) would be needed, as “Gov. Wise is not the man to stand at longrange.”398

  On July 17, General Wise backed up his bluster at Scary Creek with a victory of sorts. But he was soon overwhelmed by Federal troops under General Jacob Cox and fled the Kanawha Valley by the end of the month. The ex-governor justified his move in a letter to General Lee: “The Kanawha Valley is wholly disaffected and traitorous. It was gone from Charleston down to Point Pleasant before I got there.…I have fallen back not a minute too soon.” It was not a retreat, Wise informed his troops, only a “retrograde movement.”399

  Wise and his legion regrouped at White Sulphur Springs on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, more than sixty miles east of the enemy at Gauley Bridge—minus several hundred volunteers who had disappeared along the way. There he awaited the arrival of a rifle brigade from Covington led by John B. Floyd. Generals Wise and Floyd had orders to “cordially co-operate” in an effort to check Union General Cox's advance up the Kanawha River. Unfortunately for the Confederates, their union would be anything but cordial.400

  Wise and Floyd seemed to have much in common. John Buchanan Floyd was, like Henry Wise, in his fifty-fifth year of life. He too was a lawyer, former legislator, and Virginia governor (1849–1852). President James Buchanan had appointed him secretary of war in 1857, but Floyd resigned his post in December 1860 upon Buchanan's refusal to withdraw Federa
l troops from Fort Sumter. Floyd had been accused of stockpiling weapons in southern arsenals before his resignation. He was further sullied in a government bond scandal. As a result, he became known in the north as “Thieving Floyd.”

  General Floyd hoped to extract a measure of revenge for the Northern charges, and carried no fewer than three newspaper reporters on his staff. Like General Wise, he had been awarded a brigadier's star by President Davis for political, rather than military, prowess. Despite his former role as secretary of war, Floyd knew little of the art. His own inspector-general, the West Point–trained Henry Heth, claimed that Floyd “was as incapacitated for the work he had undertaken as I would have been to lead an Italian opera.”

  General Floyd was headstrong and impetuous, much like General Wise. Worst of all, the two were ancient political rivals. Floyd, a native of southwestern Virginia, was said to be furious when he learned of Wise's mission. He began to curse his old nemesis: “G__d___ him, why does he come to my country? Why does he not stay in the east and defend his own country, Accomac and Southampton; there is where he belongs. I don't want the d____ rascal here, I will not stand it.”401

  The two iron-willed ex-governors met at White Sulphur Springs on August 6 in a council of war. A few polite formalities were observed. And then General Wise grasped the back of a chair and began one of his famous “windbag” speeches. Wise reviewed the history of the country from its discovery, spanning the Revolution, the Mexican War, the cause of the present conflict, his march down the Kanawha, the affair at Scary Creek, and his so-called retrograde movement. The valedictory went on for nearly two hours.

  General Floyd sat patiently, not uttering a word.

  General Wise finally took a seat, and asked Floyd of his destination.

  “Down that road,” Floyd replied, pointing to the route upon which Wise had retreated.

  “What are you going to do, Floyd?”

  “Fight,” snapped Floyd, intimating that Wise had failed to do just that.

  General Wise began to quake with anger. “If a look could kill,” recalled Henry Heth, “Floyd would have been annihilated.”

  Floyd's commission predated that of Wise by only a few days, yet as the senior officer he was dead set on asserting his authority. But Wise was just as determined to retain the independent command given him by President Davis. A bitter feud was brewing in those mountains.402

  The relationship between these old rivals grew worse by the day. Even their military strategies clashed. Despite limited resources, Floyd sought to carry the war down the Kanawha Valley and into Ohio. Wise, in contrast, hoped to lure the Federals east, away from their supply line and into a trap deep within the Alleghenies.

  On August 11, Floyd assumed command of the Confederate Army of Kanawha and prepared to move on General Cox's position at Gauley Bridge without delay. Wise, however, needed time to refit his worn-out legion. Sparks flew as the hotheaded generals parted without agreement. Wise petitioned General Lee to detach his command from Floyd's. Lee rejected the appeal, hoping to unite their forces for an offensive. Although rebuffed, Wise looked to Lee as his defender. Floyd, in turn, sought out President Davis for his own counsel. By the time Lee reached Western Virginia as a “coordinator,” his two generals had already drawn a line in the sand.

  They refused to occupy the same camp. Wise and his tattered command remained at White Sulphur Springs, while Floyd marched fourteen miles west to Lewisburg. Their combined force was reportedly 5,500 men, but Floyd couldn't be sure of that—Wise refused to forward returns of his effective strength.403

  The two generals squared off like old gamecocks. When Floyd called for artillery, Wise sent a squad of demoralized gunners. Floyd retaliated by informing President Davis of the “great disorganization” in Wise's command. General Lee, preoccupied with the enemy seventy-five miles north at Valley Mountain, could only grit his teeth.

  As Wise and Floyd quarreled, Federal troops began to move against them. Under orders from General Rosecrans, Colonel Erastus B. Tyler's Seventh Ohio Infantry marched south on the Weston-Gauley Bridge Turnpike to open a line of communication with General Cox's Kanawha Brigade, then fortifying at Gauley Bridge. By August 15, Tyler reached a point near Summersville named (Kesslers) Cross Lanes, twenty miles northeast of Cox's position. The Weston-Gauley Bridge Turnpike intersected a road leading to the James River and Kanawha Turnpike at Cross Lanes, near an important Gauley River passage known as Carnifex Ferry.404

  Floyd's army was threatened by that move. Again he called on Wise for artillery. Wise dismissed the alarm. Floyd countered by ordering a regiment to join him at Meadow Bluff on the James River and Kanawha pike, but Wise argued the regiment could not move—had not Floyd himself criticized its state of “great dilapidation and destitution(!)”? In a third letter to his antagonist on August 13, Floyd instructed Wise to bring up his entire legion. Time was of the essence—the enemy was said to be only eighteen miles ahead. “I hope to see you early,” Floyd added in a bit of wishful thinking.

  Instead, Wise took his case to General Lee, arguing that Floyd had no grounds to interfere. Lee made clear that Floyd was in command, but he also reminded Floyd of President Davis's intention that the Wise Legion be independent. The divided Confederate command structure in Western Virginia was becoming a nightmare.405

  General Wise ignored another direct order to come to Floyd's aid. Grudgingly, Wise forwarded a troop of cavalry. General Floyd's temper must have reached the boiling point when he discovered that the horsemen sent by his rival lacked one important detail: Wise had neglected to issue any ammunition.406

  Despite Lee's best long-distance effort, this spat was beyond mending. Wise groused to the secretary of war that Floyd was out to “destroy” his command. He refused to stand by and watch the Wise Legion being “torn to pieces by maladministration.” He alleged that Floyd plotted to sink him—the second in command—“even below his majors and captains.”407

  On August 15, General Wise ended his filibuster and marched west toward General Floyd's camp on Big Sewell Mountain. But the petty bickering continued. Wise accused Floyd of meddling with his command; Floyd responded with less than the tact Lee had begged of him. In a scathing letter to President Davis, Floyd charged that Wise's “unwillingness to co-operate…is so great that it amounts…almost to open opposition.” Yet he admitted to no problem in handling his irascible second in command. “I know perfectly well how to enforce obedience,” Floyd avowed to the president, “and will, without the least hesitation, do it.”408

  Wise now began to harass the “other” foe. On August 20, his scouts dueled with Federal troops along the James River and Kanawha pike near Hawk's Nest. The commands of Wise and Floyd were “united,” more or less, at Dogwood Gap, just ten miles east of General Cox's position near Gauley Bridge. Yet even in the shadow of the enemy, those two rivals kept separate camps.

  Learning of the retreat of Colonel Tyler from Cross Lanes, Floyd crossed the Gauley River at Carnifex Ferry on the night of August 21, seized high bluffs north of the stream, and began to fortify Camp Gauley. By occupying that strategic point, about eight miles below Summersville, he threatened either General Cox or Colonel Tyler on the Weston and Gauley Bridge road. Floyd began to smell blood, but could accomplish little without help from General Wise. Frustrated beyond measure at his rival's obstinacy, Floyd wrote to the Confederate secretary of war, offering to trade the Wise Legion for any “three good regiments.”409

  Wise complained to Lee of vacillating orders from Floyd, asserting that his nemesis was in danger of being trapped. “I am willing, anxious, to do and suffer anything for the cause I serve,” Wise pleaded, “but…I have not been treated with respect by General Floyd, and cooperation with him will be difficult and disagreeable, if not impossible.”

  By this time, even Lee's proverbial patience must have neared the breaking point. “The Army of Kanawha is too small…to be divided,” he replied on August 27. “I beg, therefore, for the sake of the cause you have so
much at heart, you will permit no division of sentiment or action to disturb its harmony or arrest its efficiency.”410

  General Floyd, entrenched at Camp Gauley, was distracted by the Federals. Colonel Tyler's Seventh Ohio Infantry had reappeared at Cross Lanes, only three miles in Floyd's front. Tyler, an old Virginia fur trader who had earlier seized the gold from Weston's Exchange Bank, announced he was back to deal in “rebel skins.” He nearly lost his own hide, instead.

  As the sun rose on August 26, Floyd surprised Tyler's men at breakfast. Driving the Buckeyes from hot meals, he routed them, killing or wounding about thirty and capturing more than one hundred. Floyd jubilantly notified Lee of his success. The envious General Wise informed the secretary of war that Floyd was recklessly exposed. Wise cautioned that his fellow general was too “elated” by victory to see the danger. He blamed it on Floyd's little success—that “battle of knives and forks at Cross Lanes.”411

  Wise could suffer his rival no longer. If forced to remain with Floyd's brigade, he warned Lee in dark tones, “we will unite in more wars than one.”412

  The feuding of Generals Wise and Floyd was nearly matched by the political wrangling of Virginia's new “Restored Government.” That body had received a boost when President Lincoln extended official recognition in his July 4 message to Congress: “These loyal citizens,” Lincoln pledged, “this government is bound to recognize, and protect, as being Virginia.”413