General Anderson's route led for twenty miles over winding farm lanes, stock trails, and untrodden wilderness along the western slope of Cheat Mountain. Guides blazed the trees with hatchets to mark the way. Marcus Toney of the First Tennessee called it “the roughest and wildest country that I ever beheld.” The troops marched in single file, strung out for miles. “It was no uncommon thing for a mule to slide twenty feet down a slope,” wrote a surgeon of that march, “and I could see strong men sink exhausted trying to get up the mountain side.” Confederates tumbled into steep ravines, rising painfully only to fall again—a tortuous advance that one Tennessean styled the “perfect roll down.”438
Anderson's Confederates neared the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike by nightfall on September 11. “It was the most awful night I ever spent,” recalled a soldier of the Fourteenth Tennessee of his bivouac on the slopes of Cheat Mountain. “Here we tried to sleep,” wrote another, “but the rain poured so, and the torrents ran down the mountain such a flood of water that we would have been drowned had we lain on the ground.” Nervous soldiers tried to keep their powder dry, for the ominous sound of drumbeats had been heard in the distance.439
On September 11, General Loring's column marched north toward Elkwater, overwhelming Federal outposts along the Huttonsville road. Near Conrad's Mill, members of John Worsham's Twenty-first Virginia Infantry passed their first dead Yankee. “He made a lasting impression,” Worsham noted, “for he lay on the side of the road, his face upturned and a fresh pool of blood at his side, showing that his life had just passed away.” By nightfall, Loring was before Camp Elkwater, and General Henry Jackson's brigade was on the Staunton-Parkersburg pike in front of Cheat Fort.440
That night, the dreadful tempest lashed Cheat Mountain with a fury. The Federals were confident that no humans lurked about. They had not considered the will of Lee's men. When Anderson's waterlogged Confederates cut the telegraph wire, the operator assumed that a tree had fallen across it in the storm.
“There lay the camp on Cheat Mountain summit,” wrote correspondent J.T. Pool, “and spread out on the slopes were the tents of full three thousand Union soldiers who were that moment under their shelter, snoring away in all the fancied security of men who expected to wake up in the morning with a whole skin and an appetite that would astonish the commissary department.”
Few would have dreamed that five thousand enemy troops surrounded their mountain fortress, waiting for dawn to spring the trap.441
CHAPTER 17
ROBERT E. LEE'S
FORLORN HOPE
“The fort on Cheat Mountain is said to be a defense almost impregnable.”
—Richmond Daily Dispatch
September 12, 1861, opened with great promise for General Lee's Confederates. The brigades of Rust, Anderson, and Jackson surrounded the Union fortress on Cheat Mountain. Despite numbing cold and billowing fog, the Confederates were ready to strike. Union defenders were blissfully unaware of their presence. Lee's aide Walter Taylor relished the dawn, for everything was “just as the most confident could have hoped.”
Matters rested on the broad shoulders of Colonel Albert Rust. “Day at length dawned upon the most forlorn and wretched set of human beings that ever existed,” wrote a member of Rust's mountaintop bivouac. The big colonel seemed indefatigable, but found his wet, shivering Confederates barely able to rise. With almost superhuman effort, Rust prodded his soldiers into line. Down the ridge he led them in single file, to the Staunton-Parkersburg pike, about one half-mile behind the enemy fort.
The Confederates burst upon a pair of Federal pickets, who went screaming up the road and were shot down. Three supply wagons appeared from the fort; Rust's men captured the teams and drivers. The prisoners told Colonel Rust that their fort held nearly five thousand defenders (the true number was no more than three thousand) and boasted of its great strength. Rust entered a clearing to view the redoubt. A blockhouse and “heavy guns” could be seen, with infantry in the trenches. The Cheat Mountain fortress was stronger than he had supposed. It not only looked impregnable in a military sense; it was literally unapproachable, due to the “abatis” of wooden spikes on the perimeter. Summoning his officers, Rust concluded that it would be “madness” to storm those works.442
Now the Federals were aroused. Colonel Nathan Kimball led a detachment to the point of attack. Supposing Rust's brigade was only a scouting party of the enemy, he deployed two companies of the Fourteenth Indiana Infantry as skirmishers. Turning up their slouch hats, Kimball's men plunged into the thick woods and opened fire. Rust's sixteen hundred Confederates broke for the rear, casting aside guns, clothing, blankets—anything that impeded their flight. Colonel Kimball rushed into the fray, swinging his hat in the air. “Hurrah for Indiana!” he roared. “Trail them boys! Trail them!”
Rebel baggage littered the woods in quantity, revealing the stakes to Kimball's men. Inside the fort, bandsmen, teamsters, and sutlers gathered up spare guns and joined defenders in the trenches. Colonel Kimball returned from the action, his face red with excitement. “Our boys are peppering them good out there,” he told the cheering garrison.443
Over on “Flood Mountain,” a cold, gray dawn found General Donelson's brigade glaring down on the unsuspecting Federals at Camp Elkwater. Fearful that the storm had dampened their powder enough to cause a “flash in the pan,” Donelson's Confederates attended to their weapons. “Of all the picking, hammering, rattling of ramrods, rubbing, twisting out bullets and wet powder from old muskets ever witnessed,” reflected a member of the Eighth Tennessee, “perhaps the occasion here presented was never surpassed. The wet loads had to be drawn from the guns and the guns thoroughly dried before they could be reloaded. To do this much noise and confusion existed. The popping of caps, the shooting of blank cartridges, intermingled with the Babel-like confusion existing at the time, all contributed to a general ‘hoodlum’ on the mountain.”444
Their clamor drew the attention of General Lee. He had followed Donelson's brigade on the evening of September 11, believing they had advanced too far. Darkness and the terrible storm had forced Lee and his small escort to bivouac against some haystacks near Becky Creek, less than a mile from Flood Mountain—well behind enemy lines.
Lee was back in the saddle at dawn. He had scarcely emerged from the woods when a large troop of Federal cavalry thundered along the Becky Creek road in his front. Those horsemen spotted Donelson's infantry and galloped away, but aide Walter Taylor shuddered at the close call. General Lee “came very near” being captured!445
“Just as the scattering rays of the morning sun began to make their appearance over the eastern hills,” recalled one of Donelson's men, “to the great surprise of the whole command, Gen. Lee and staff rode to the head of the brigade.” Soldiers rose to present arms, but Lee waved off the tribute, offering sympathy to those “who had lain out all night in such a drenching storm.” Confederates jostled to get a glimpse of their leader. “He looked like a hero,” thought one as Lee sat erect “on his fine white horse, half hid in the bushes…. Grand and dignified he sat there…seeming to grasp the situation and to hold it in the hollow of his hand.”446
Lee climbed to a point on the ridge overlooking Camp Elkwater. “I could see the enemy's tents on Valley River, at the point on the Huttonsville road just below me,” he wrote. “It was a tempting sight. We waited for the attack on Cheat Mountain, which was to be the signal, till 10 A.M.; the men were cleaning their unserviceable arms. But the signal did not come.”
Lee found the men of Donelson's brigade in no condition to fall upon the Federals at Elkwater. The storm had destroyed their scant provisions and sapped their will. The enemy had been alerted. The chance for surprise was lost. Reluctantly, Lee ordered Donelson to withdraw.447
As the Tennesseans followed a narrow path down the ridge to Becky Creek, they came upon sixty Federal scouts from Cheat Fort under Captain John Coons of the Fourteenth Indiana Infantry. Coons had been sent to picket the important bridle path
to Elkwater. Here a sharp skirmish broke out. Hidden by dense undergrowth, both sides fired wildly at the smoke of enemy guns. Confederate regiments swarmed down the slope, forming lines of battle near the creek. Captain Coons's little band was nearly overwhelmed by a bayonet charge before he broke off the fight and retreated.448
Nearly two miles west of Cheat Fort, Confederate General Anderson's brigade held the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike in dense fog. “I was well soaked,” recollected Dr. Charles Quintard, chaplain of the First Tennessee Infantry, “my fingers were corrugated and my whole body chilled through. I was very hungry also, but all I could get to eat was one tough biscuit that almost defied my most vigorous assaults.” So quiet had been their approach that at least two well-mounted Federals rode unwarily into the line and were taken. One of them, Lieutenant William Merrill—a member of General Reynolds's staff—was so astonished to see Confederate soldiers that he muttered, “Did you men come from the clouds?”
The First Tennessee Infantry moved cautiously up the turnpike. “Pop, pop, pop, pop, went several guns and then a tremendous volley shook the mountain sides,” recalled a Tennessean. They had met a detachment of ninety Federals sent from the fort to aid Captain Coons. “The balls whistled in a way that can never be appreciated by one who has not heard them,” asserted Dr. Quintard. Pouring on the musketry, the Federals, led by Captain David Higgins of the Twenty-fourth Ohio, soon realized they were badly outnumbered and fell back.449
Captain Coons's little band of Federals now rejoined the fray. Emerging from the fog, Coons's skirmishers poured three quick volleys into General Anderson's rear guard, mostly slaves and quartermasters, causing the Tennesseans to scatter. Coons found the mountaintop swarming with Rebels. Vowing to cut his way through or die, the beleaguered captain barked “right face” and led his band in single file through the woods, finally reaching the fort at sunset.450
“After the fighting was over, where, O where, was all the fine rigging heretofore on our officers?” reflected Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee. “They could not be seen. Corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, all had torn all the fine lace off their clothing. I noticed that at the time and was surprised and hurt. I asked several of them why they had torn off the insignia of their rank, and they always answered, ‘Humph, you think that I was going to be a target for the Yankees to shoot at?'
“You see, this was our first battle, and the officers had not found out that minnie as well as cannon balls were blind; that they had no eyes and could not see. They thought that the balls would hunt for them and not hurt the privates. I always shot at privates. It was they that did the shooting and killing, and if I could kill or wound a private, why, my chances were so much the better.”451
The Confederates had no swagger. Meeting the enemy at every turn, their courage melted away. “ I had expected an open field and a fair fight,” complained Dr. Quintard, “but this bushwhacking was entirely out of my line.” In the dense forest, small roving bands of bluecoats looked like whole regiments. Anticipating mere scouting parties of the enemy, the Federals pitched in with vigor. Success against overwhelming numbers only made them bolder. “By this time, we felt that we could whip the whole rebel army,” declared one of Captain Coons's men.452
On the turnpike east of Cheat Fort, Confederate General Henry Jackson's brigade also grew nervous. Peering through the fog, Jackson's men shot into their advance guard by mistake—killing and wounding a number of fellow Georgians. Those disheartened Confederates remained in front of the enemy fort, listening for the sound of Colonel Rust's guns. But no signal came from the big Arkansas colonel. The few shots that morning from Rust's quarter had been muffled by the dense forest and the fog.
As the day wore on, from every position could be heard, “What has become of Rust? Why doesn't he attack? Rust must have lost his way.” General Jackson's men wondered why more Federal soldiers weren't visible in the fort. “We thought Reynolds had given us the slip,” fretted Isaac Hermann, “and that we would find him in our rear and in our camp before we could get back.” Morale plummeted as General Lee's plan unraveled. “Would Rust never attack?” agonized Walter Taylor. “Alas! he never did!”453
Union General Reynolds was distracted by events in the Tygart Valley. On the afternoon of September 12, skirmishers in front of Camp Elkwater kept up a bickering fire. Reynolds watched the drama from an outpost one mile in front of the fortifications. General Loring's Confederate infantry rested on their arms, clearly awaiting a signal. General Reynolds rode forward and swept the enemy position with a telescope. Rebel gunners lobbed a twelve-pound shot in his direction. Reynolds ordered up a cannon to hurl a few shots in reply. Darkness settled in, and with it a conviction that Loring would not attack. The Confederates were on their heels. “Detached, discovered, without knowledge of the cause of Rust's silence,” wrote Walter Taylor, “the other commands were powerless for good.”454
While Reynolds faced down Loring in the Tygart Valley, General Lee spent much of September 12 extricating Donelson's brigade from Federal pursuit on Becky Creek. Late that afternoon, the Confederates reached the safety of an isolated mountain farm and collapsed in a meadow, famished and utterly exhausted. Lee followed them up the trail on horseback. Word passed among the troops of how he learned of their critical position, how he had ridden for miles and placed himself in great peril to rescue them from the “jaws of death.” As Lee's horse ambled through the reposing brigade, someone raised a yell. Every man picked up the cheer, and for a few moments, the mountaintops echoed with wild cries in honor of the general.
“Yes, shout after shout rang out on the mountain wilderness,” recalled a Tennessean of Lee's appearance. “With a grand and noble heart, he lifted his hat, and with a smile on his face, and bowing to the men on the left and on the right, he rode off and by many of us was never seen again.”455
Donelson's Confederates soon discovered a browsing herd of cattle, making their deliverance complete. Hungry Tennesseans dispatched the entire herd. Huge chunks of raw meat soon dangled from ramrods over sputtering fires. Every man ate his fill—one swore the meal was savored “as no king or potentate ever relished his most sumptuous banquets or feast.” Confederates fondly remembered the spot as “Jubilee” or “Beef” Mountain.456
On September 13, Generals Lee and Loring conferred in front of Camp Elkwater. Loring wished to storm the works, but Lee ruled out a frontal assault as too costly. Now that the enemy was fully aroused, Lee would probe his right flank—hoping to coax Reynolds out of his trenches.457
The mounted general cut a prominent figure at the head of his troops. Aides urged him to withdraw as Federal artillery opened fire. A shell howled across the contested valley and struck the ground nearly at his feet. Miraculously, it did not explode. Was the lucky horseman Lee? Federal gunners claimed so. Regardless, it was a strange twist on a day known for misfortune—Friday the thirteenth.458
Fate would not be so kind to Lee's aide-de-camp, Lt. Colonel John Augustine Washington. Forty years of age, trim and courtly, he was the great-grandnephew of America's first president. Washington had inherited Mt. Vernon, the ancestral estate. Yet he lacked financial means for its upkeep or to entertain the influx of visitors and curiosity seekers. Facing bankruptcy, he had sold out to the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association of the Union in 1859 and moved to Waveland in Fauquier County, Virginia. Washington's wife died not long after, leaving seven young children.
Critics decried the sale of Mt. Vernon and blasted Washington as a vile speculator in his ancestor's legacy. His decision to take up arms for Virginia proved equally unpopular. The chestnut-haired Washington became “Chief of Staff” to his kinsman, Robert E. Lee. Morning and evening found him at prayer in the tent shared with Lee and Walter Taylor at Valley Mountain. He read the Bible in spare moments or used it to press wildflowers for his beloved daughters.459
On that Friday the thirteenth of September 1861, Colonel Washington joined Rooney Lee's cavalry battalion on a reconnaissance. From a ta
ll hill overlooking the enemy right flank, they spied a vidette, or mounted rifleman, near the mouth of Elkwater Fork. Rooney Lee studied the ground for some minutes before declaring the mission complete. But Colonel Washington dared him on. “Let us ride down and capture that fellow on the gray horse,” he urged. Young Lee consented. Joined by a pair of escorts, he and Washington spurred their mounts down the little valley toward their quarry.
Federal scouts were at that moment prowling a wooded hillside just above the mouth of Elkwater Fork. Led by Sergeant John Weiler of the Seventeenth Indiana Infantry, the small party heard galloping horses below, spotting the riders as they wheeled past a fallen tree. Weiler's men recognized the white badge on Colonel Washington's cap as that of the enemy, raised their guns, and fired.
Colonel Washington toppled from his bay charger, struck in the back by three balls. Rooney Lee's horse crumpled to the ground. Unscathed, young Lee sprang to his feet and raced up Elkwater Fork, using the bank as cover until he leaped onto Washington's mount and made his escape.460
Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided Page 20