A runaway slave named Jim and a “poor idiot boy” named Moses were Fletcher's jail-mates. With kindness, he soon won their confidence. Jim waited on Fletcher, brushed his clothes with an old broom, and blackened his weathered shoes with soot. Fletcher, in turn, taught Jim the alphabet by drawing figures on the floor with bits of charcoal. Jim learned quickly, and when citizens came to gawk at Fletcher, he would take a stand by the door and do all the talking “as the keeper of wild animals stands by their cage and explains where they were caught, how trained, and their habits.” Jim spun marvelous tales of “the Yankee,” embellishing his story with gusto.
But with each passing day, Fletcher grew weaker. He could not sleep in that stifling cell; the foul air was a poison. The weeks passed slowly until one day, a body of Federal prisoners from Cheat Mountain arrived in Huntersville. Fletcher learned he would accompany them to Richmond.
Jim and Moses shared tearful good-byes. The huge door was thrown open at last. “Oh, how soft and balmy seemed the air,” Fletcher marveled. “How quiet and free everything seemed!” Fletcher hobbled into line with the Yankee prisoners, looked each man in the face, hoping for some sign of recognition. The soldiers glared at his wild, furrowed countenance.
Finally, a young man stepped forward.
“My God,” he said, “is this Dr. Fletcher?”
“Yes,” came the feeble reply, “it is what remains of him.”
Fletcher was introduced to Captain Bense of the Sixth Ohio Infantry, the ranking officer among the prisoners. The long imprisonment left Fletcher unable to march. A comrade shouldered him for a time, then he was laid in a wagon, and finally atop a mule for the journey to the railroad at Millboro.509
There the prisoners were loaded into boxcars and taken to Richmond. Citizens and soldiers taunted and jeered as the captives were led through the city to a large tobacco warehouse. “The guards threw up their guns, and we walked in amid the noise and bustle of a soldier-prison,” recalled Fletcher. “The rooms were very large, and the gas burning brightly. Here were men from every State, in all sorts of uniforms, laughing, singing, playing cards…. Before we had been in half an hour, I heard some two shots fired at the new prisoners who had foolishly gone near a third-story window.”
By a stroke of luck, the list of new inmates was unreadable—scrawled by a drunken lieutenant. A perplexed Confederate officer handed it to Captain Bense for translation. Coming to the last name, instead of reading Fletcher's charge as “captured in July as a spy,” the clever captain read; “captured in September at Elk Water; belonging to the Sixth Regiment Indiana Volunteers.” A scribe copied those words onto the new roll sheet.
“All commissioned officers step two paces to the front,” a Confederate sergeant commanded. Captain Bense and two others stepped out. Bense looked back, saw Fletcher in line, and said, “There is Dr. Fletcher, Assistant Surgeon of the Sixth Regiment.” Fletcher took the hint and followed them to the officers' quarters. He was ragged and filthy—shunned by the other prisoners—but alive! The fate of Clark now became his obsession.510
The date was October 3, 1861. Back in Western Virginia, the crash of artillery echoed from the hills around a little tavern known as Travellers Repose.
CHAPTER 20
A TOUCH OF LOYAL
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING
” To meet those cannonballs & muskets is an awful thing; a man can see death tolerable plain.”
—Shepherd Pryor, Twelfth Georgia Infantry
Travellers Repose was once a renowned wayside inn. It was located astride the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, a vital link between the Shenandoah Valley and the Ohio River. Tucked in a picturesque glen near the eastern base of Cheat Mountain, about seventy miles west of the Virginia Central Railroad and more than one hundred and fifty miles from Richmond, this delightful tavern, mill, and farmstead sprawled along the lonely headwaters of the Greenbrier River. Its pastoral setting offered welcome respite from a bone-jarring stagecoach ride across the Alleghenies.
Guests could expect comfortable lodging at Travellers Repose. The inn exuded tranquility and charm. Feasts of mountain trout and mutton awaited; the breakfast tables overflowed with stacks of pancakes and maple syrup. Meals were offered for the quaint charge of “four pence ha’ penny” (six and one quarter cents).
Innkeeper Andrew Yeager must have turned heads in early 1861 with a prophecy that the scourge of war would reach his peaceful little valley. Armies would contend for the turnpike, he had stated, “houses and barns would be put to the torch and families turned out of their homes.” It all seemed unthinkable to the cheerful patrons of Travellers Repose.511
But Yeager's tranquil tavern soon lay square between the armies, in a coveted “middle ground.” By mid-July, Confederates dug in on Allegheny Mountain, only nine miles east of Travellers Repose, while the Federals erected their Cheat Mountain fortress twelve miles west. A wagon road led to the Confederate depot at Huntersville from a turnpike intersection near Yeager's front door. The East Fork of Greenbrier River rollicked through lush meadows in the rear, offering ample water and campgrounds for troops.
On August 13, 1861, Confederate forces under General Henry Jackson seized Travellers Repose. Tents soon covered the lush meadows. Majestic trees were felled and their branches sharpened as abatis. Above the inn, pleasant hills were girdled with rifle pits. The millrace became a defensive moat. Cannons frowned upon that once tranquil land.512
The Confederate defenses were named “Camp Bartow” after a brave Georgian killed at the battle of Manassas. General Jackson thought this new post was not so strong as it looked. His flanks were exposed to salient hills. Two Confederate brigades, greatly weakened by sickness and detached service, were barely adequate to cover the mile-long defenses.513
By mid-September, a sense of urgency filled the air. Frosty mornings hinted of winter and an end to campaigning. As Union General Rosecrans marched south to test Lee at Sewell Mountain, General Joseph Reynolds, now commanding some ten thousand Federal troops in the Cheat Mountain District, was ordered to “worry and harass” the Rebels in his front. There was talk that Reynolds might “strike a decisive blow.” The soldiers on Cheat Mountain dreamed of leaving their cheerless lair for the Shenandoah Valley, eighty miles southeast, prayed that before snow whitened the ridge tops, they would march to the “garden of Virginia.” To reach that garden, they first had to drive the Rebels from Camp Bartow.514
But nature had yet to weigh in. On September 27 and 28, “one of the most terrible storms ever known” in that region slammed the Alleghenies. Howling winds flattened shelters and tents. Mountain freshets turned the rivers into raging torrents. Floodwaters drowned men, dashed away some of the works at Elkwater, and washed out entire camps. Temperatures plummeted on Cheat Mountain—more than a dozen horses “chilled to death” from exposure. “[I]t seemed as though the storm-king had become angry with the puny efforts of the contending hosts,” wrote J.T. Pool, “and was about to settle the disputes in the wilds of Western Virginia, by annihilating both parties.”515
As the skies cleared and the waters receded, Union General Reynolds amassed a large force on the summit of Cheat Mountain. There, during the night of October 2, soldiers gathered around bright campfires to speculate on the coming fight. “There was a constant jingle, jingle of iron ram-rods, snapping of caps, and sputtering of hot grease in sundry frying pans,” recalled one, “notes of preparation for the morrow.” Precisely at midnight, the order was given to advance. Within an hour, nearly five thousand Federal infantry, cavalry, and thirteen pieces of artillery wound down the mountain toward Camp Bartow.516
The night was dank and misty. Tall spruces overhanging the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike cast intense darkness upon the line of march. The troops were ordered to be silent; only the measured tramp, tramp, tramp of boots filled the night air. Suddenly, the cry of an owl reverberated from the forest: “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo!” Another feathered lookout picked up the call. Then another, and another, until the soun
d gradually died away in the direction of the Rebel camp. Many of the Federals were seized by terror—convinced that “cunning mountaineers” uttered those doleful notes to warn of their approach.517
It was the rumble of rolling artillery and caissons, not the hooting of owls, that alerted Confederate pickets to the enemy. Near dawn, at the bridge over West Fork Greenbrier River, they shot down two Federal soldiers before the Ninth Indiana Infantry fired a volley that put them to flight. The pickets retreated to a guard station about one mile in front of Camp Bartow and sounded the alarm.518
Here Colonel Edward Johnson of the Twelfth Georgia Infantry chose to make a stand. Virginia-born, forty-five years old, a West Point graduate, and decorated veteran of the Seminole and Mexican Wars, Ed Johnson was a man of “undoubted courage.” He was a rigid disciplinarian, irascible and profane, a real “bulldog” in combat. “His manner of fighting was like his speech,” thought one Confederate, “no circumvention, no flank movements, no maneuvering for position, no delay—in short, he seemed opposed to taking what might be considered any undue advantage of the enemy.”
Despite his brusque demeanor, this ruddy-faced bachelor was something of a ladies' man. Johnson had suffered a wound in the Mexican War that caused an incessant wink and twitch of the lip when aroused. His head was strangely cone-shaped, not unlike an old-fashioned beehive. “There are three tiers to it,” bubbled Richmond socialite Mary Chesnut. “It is like the Pope's tiara!”519
Colonel Johnson was no holy pontiff. He cursed the frightened pickets as “low grade” cowards and soon had them posted along a wooded mountain spur, part of a force of one hundred Confederates to meet the advancing foe. Around 7 A.M., the colonel began a spirited fight. Johnson stalled the attackers for nearly an hour until finally driven back—getting his horse shot out from under him in the process.520
From the parapets of Camp Bartow, Confederates cheered him as they prepared for battle. But Captain Henry Sturm's “Mountain Guards,” Thirty-first Virginia Infantry, were slow getting into the trenches—their sixty-seven-year-old captain had misplaced his boots! Finally, the missing footgear was uncovered; the veins of Captain Sturm's neck bulged as he strained to pull them on.
“Where is my gun?” hollered Sturm, a veteran of the War of 1812. One of the boys handed over an ancient, long-barreled mountain rifle.
“By hell I want my tackle,” the aged captain barked. Another soldier produced the old-fashioned powder horn and shot pouch.
Captain Sturm commenced to load in a series of jerks. With his rifle charged and primed, the captain dipped a hand into one pants pocket, then the other, patted his vest and coat in vain. A perplexed look came over his face.
“Where's my specks?”
One of his boys produced the glasses. The venerable patriarch led his tribe willy-nilly toward headquarters. “Captain Sturm, get your men in order,” yelled a scowling colonel.
“I'm no drill man,” Sturm replied, “but I know how to use this feller,” giving his old rifle a pat.521
That spirit was welcomed—the Confederates were badly outnumbered. General Jackson had only eighteen hundred men to contest the five thousand under Union General Reynolds. Deploying his regiments of Virginia, Georgia, and Arkansas infantry in the trenches, Jackson looked to batteries of Virginia artillery under Captains Pierce Anderson, William Rice, and Lindsey Shumaker to blunt the Federal assault.522
The defenders overlooked a broad meadow, framed by wooded ridges in splendid autumn foliage. Birds were singing; a welcome sun had just illuminated the horizon. One witness described the scene as reminiscent of an “immense floral wreath.” It was an unlikely setting for what followed.
Federal troops sprinted across the meadow. Behind them, the guns of Captain C.O. Loomis's First Michigan Light Artillery wheeled smartly into line. Loomis, a skilled artillerist, had been awarded six of the first rifled Parrott guns shipped to the U.S. Army. Rifling, or grooves inside the bore, imparted greater accuracy. The Parrott threw a ten-pound projectile—with those new guns Captain Loomis bragged his crews could “hit a hogshead” at more than a mile.523
Captain Albion Howe's battery of the Fourth U.S. Artillery and one gun of Captain Philip Daum's First (U.S.) Virginia Light Artillery dashed forward and unlimbered their guns within eight hundred yards of the enemy camp. Captain Loomis placed his long-range guns between them, behind an orchard, and opened fire. One of Captain Shumaker's cannons promptly answered with a roar. A ball whistled over the Federal guns, striking the ground within ten feet of General Reynolds.
By 8 A.M., a lively artillery duel began. Thirteen Federal guns poured a tornado of shot and shell into Camp Bartow. From the hills behind Travellers Repose, six Confederate six-pounders replied. One of those, a rifled gun of Captain Shumaker's battery, was promptly taken out of action by a fouled ball. “They fired an average 4 rounds to our one,” noted a Georgian in the trenches.524
Huge billows of white smoke rolled from the cannon muzzles as the grim beat of war played out above Greenbrier River. “The ball was now opened,” wrote an Indiana soldier, “roar after [roar] in quick succession from the big guns on both sides—the storm of shot and shell traversing mid air not more than fifty feet from our heads, was at once terribly grand and terrific.” That noise was likened to “10,000 packs of fire-crackers set off [all] at once.”
The guns fired with extraordinary rapidity. “There was no cessation of the infernal roar of the artillery,” wrote a Union correspondent. “Sometimes a half-dozen of our pieces would send forth a simultaneous roar, making the earth tremble, and the return fire seemed spiteful as it whizzed the shot mostly over our heads.” Reports echoed back and forth against the ridges, making the duel of cannons in that little valley “ever memorable.”525
Projectiles arched through the sky and exploded in a shower of death, or smacked the earth and bored deep like “iron moles.” To escape them, Confederates huddled in the safety of their trenches. Federal soldiers laid flat behind rail fences. “The balls pass directly over us, bursted over us, and the fragments rattled like rain on our backs,” wrote a member of the Fourteenth Indiana, “some fell before us, ploughed great furrows in the earth and blinded us with dirt.” The shells emitted a wicked hiss or buzzing noise in flight—green troops dodged wildly at the sound of their approach. Wrote a horrified observer: “Of all the infernal inventions of war, it is these shells. They tear men and horses to tatters in an instant, as they fall whizzing among them.”526
Around 9:30 A.M., the pace of fire slowed. Federal infantry advanced to test the left flank of Camp Bartow. On the wooded heights above, Colonel Albert Rust's Third Arkansas Regiment waited—eager to atone for their failure at Cheat Mountain. A crisp volley by the Razorbacks chased the Yankees back. Federal guns turned spitefully on Rust's position, throwing shot and shell toward the woods in a futile effort to drive him out.527
Soldiers gradually became conditioned to the bombardment. Some began to joke at their predicament. In one fence corner, men huddled in a lively game of cards. Elsewhere, tired Federals warmed by the rising sun actually fell asleep as they lay on the battlefield.528
But there was little rest when the iron messengers of death arrived. “I laid about 20 feet from one of Howe's men that was struck in the breast and tore all to pieces,” wrote a soldier of the Thirteenth Indiana, “2 or 3 minutes after 3 horses attached to one of the ‘caissons’ was killed. This made the ‘Boys’ open their eyes.” A Union cannoneer, hit beneath the left shoulder by a round shot, used his pocketknife to detach the remaining sliver of flesh connecting his mangled arm. “That is pretty well done,” he muttered, then picked up the bloody limb and walked to the rear.529
One shell landed in a chicken coop, exploding in a cloud of feathers. Another bounced wildly through Camp Bartow until it struck the end of a Virginian's musket, doubling it into the shape of a hoop. Another sputtering ball rolled into the crowded trenches—only to be thrown out by a heroic Confederate just before it exploded. A small
kitten belonging to members of the Twenty-third Virginia Infantry seemed equally brave, scurrying back and forth on the parapet, oblivious to the storm of death. Whenever a ball kicked up the dirt nearby, the little feline gamboled about it in playful glee.530
At some point during the bombardment, a white flag appeared over Travellers Repose. Lacking a yellow flag to mark it as a hospital, a harried Confederate surgeon had unfurled it instead. When a messenger from General Reynolds rode forward to inquire if the Rebels meant to surrender, Colonel Ed Johnson dismissed him with the curt reply: “go back and shoot your d__n guns.”531
Those guns soon got the range of Confederate batteries. The artillerists were badly mauled, forcing Captain Shumaker to move his cannons after every third fire. Confederate gunners disabled Captain Daum's six-pounder—snapping the axle with a well-aimed, solid shot, but many had dropped out of the action with wounds. Federal troops picked up shells with uncut fuses—evidence that green hands were now working the guns. The fire slackened until only a single cannon answered the Union barrage. After nearly three hours of spirited fire, the bloodied Southerners wheeled their pieces behind the crests of hills to cool.532
Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided Page 23