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

by W Hunter Lesser

  567. “From Camp Bartow,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, November 13, 1861; “From Cheat Mountain,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, October 22, 1861; Parson Parker, “Sufferings of the Twelfth Georgia Reg't, in the Mountains of Virginia,” WVSA; “The Fourteenth Georgia Regiment,” Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, November 15, 1861.

  568. William Houghton Diary, November 8, 1861, Houghton Papers, IHS: Adams, A Post of Honor, 99; Ben May to his brother, October 5, 1861, PC.

  569. Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 142; Pool, Under Canvas, 57–58; Adams, The Pryor Letters, 64, 111; Beatty, The Citizen-Soldier, 82; “Our Cheat Mountain Correspondence,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, October 9, 1861.

  570. “A Bad Egg for a Sutler,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, October 25, 1861; Ben May to his brother, December 12, 1861, PC; Joseph Snider Diary, October 30, 1861, Snider Papers, WVU; Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 35–36.

  571. Hermann, Memoirs of a Veteran, 54–55; Clark, Under the Stars and Bars, 37; James Atkins Diary, November 17, 1861, GDAH.

  572. Ben May to his brother, November 22, 1861, PC; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 15; “Report of Rev. Gordon Battelle,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 18, 1861; Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, 6 ; Diary of Co. A, 32nd Ohio Infantry, 13, Jacob Pinock Papers, WVU; Hermann, Memoirs of a Veteran, 55; “From Beverly,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, November 6, 1861; Augustus Van Dyke to his father, October 26, 1861, Van Dyke Papers, IHS.

  573. Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 80; “The Fourteenth Georgia Regiment,” Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, November 15, 1861; “Letter from Western Virginia,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, November 8, 1861; “Letter from the Fourteenth,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, November 25, 1861.

  574. O.R. vol. 5, 900, 943; “From Jackson's Brigade,” Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, October 2, 1861; “The Fourteenth Georgia Regiment,” Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, November 15, 1861; Tucker Randolph Diary, October 25, 1861, MC.

  575. O. R. vol. 5, 909, 913, 933, 937–40, 965–66, 968–69. Confederate authorities created the Valley District, Department of Northern Virginia, on October 22, 1861. This new district embraced “the section of country between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains.”

  576. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 382–83; James Atkins Diary, November 22, 1861, GDAH; “From the Alleghany Mountains,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, November 30, 1861; Irby Scott to his father, November 26, 1861, Irby Scott letters, DU; “From the 12th Georgia Regiment,” Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, December 17, 1861.

  577. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 388; O. R. vol. 5, 460, 968, 975; Adams, A Post of Honor, 117.

  578. O. R. vol. 5, 644, 669–71, 691; Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 157; Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 97; Letter to the Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 10, 1861.

  Chapter 22. Night Clothes and a War Club

  579. James Atkins Diary, December 11, 1861, GDAH; Price, “Guerrilla Warfare,” 248. Camp Allegheny, often spelled “Alleghany,” was also known as “Camp Baldwin” in honor of John B. Baldwin, colonel of the Fifty-second Virginia Infantry and a respected state politician.

  580. Gen. Orders No. 17, Army of N.W., December 10, 1861, Edward Willis Papers, HL; O. R. vol. 5, 989–90.

  581. “War Recollections,” Evelyn Yeager Beard, The Pocahontas Times, November 25, 1926; Bierce, Battlefields and Ghosts, 16; “The Army of the Northwest,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, September 7, 1861.

  582. Keifer, Slavery and Four Years, vol. 1, 311, 316; Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 552; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 159.

  583. Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 95.

  584. Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, 194–95; O. R. vol. 5, 461; Thomas Prickett to Matilda, December 9, 1861, Prickett Papers, IHS; “History of Valley Furnace,” The Barbour Democrat, September 4, 1968; Poe, Personal Reminiscences, 11. The five Confederate deserters, all members of Hansbrough's Ninth Battalion, Virginia Infantry, were said to be Jeff Glenn, Doc Rogers, Wm. Lynn, Eugene Murphy, and Andy Murphy.

  585. “The Battle of Alleghany Summit,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, December 1861; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 16–17; “Full Account of the Late Battle in Western Virginia,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 25, 1861.

  586. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 51. General Milroy listed his force as follows: seven hundred members of the Ninth Indiana Infantry under Col. Gideon Moody; four hundred of the Twenty-fifth Ohio Infantry, Col. James Jones; two hundred and fifty of the Second (U.S.) Virginia Infantry, Major James Owens; three hundred of the Thirteenth Indiana Infantry, Major Cyrus Dobbs; one hundred and thirty of the Thirty-second Ohio Infantry, Captain William Hamilton; thirty of Captain James Bracken's Indiana cavalry, and seventy-five members of Rigby's Indiana artillery.

  587. “Joseph R.T. Gordon,” Julia Dumont Gordon Scrapbook, ISL; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 51; “Full Account of the Late Battle in Western Virginia,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 25, 1861; Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, 8.

  588. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 51; Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, 196–97.

  589. Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, 8; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 18; Hamilton, Recollections, 23.

  590. O. R. vol. 5, 462; Price, “Rich Mountain in 1861,” 42; “A Notable War Club,” Richmond Examiner, January 7, 1862; James C. Gamble to his brother, December 20, 1861, PC; Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 20. The Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 18, 1861, reported that Colonel Johnson “appeared on the field in the dress of a wagoner.”

  591. O. R. vol. 5, 460, 462–63; Adam W. Kersh to his brother, October 20, 1861, Adam W. Kersh Letters, MML.

  592. Hall, The Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 41; Poe, Personal Reminiscences, 12; O. R. vol. 5, 457, 466; James Atkins Diary, December 13, 1861, GDAH.

  593. Letter from W. W. Hardwicke, Richmond Whig, December 20, 1861; O. R. vol. 5, 466; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 19.

  594. O. R. vol. 5, 462; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 42; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 52; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 19.

  595. Ibid., 19; Hall, The Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 41; Joseph Snider Diary, December 13, 1861, WVU.

  596. “War Recollections,” Evelyn Yeager Beard, The Pocahontas Times, November 25, 1926; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 52; James M. King Journal, 91–92, IHS; Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 21.

  597. Joseph Snider Diary, December 13, 1861, WVU; Letter to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 18, 1861; O. R. vol. 5, 458, 462–63; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 52–54; “Battle of Camp Alleghany, Va.,” Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 3, Documents, 467. During close-quarters fighting on the Confederate right flank, artillerists fired mostly at Milroy's reserve and wagons along the turnpike.

  598. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 53; “Greenbank Community History,” R.W. Brown, The Pocahontas Times, July 18, 1935; “Battle of Camp Alleghany, Va.,” Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 3, Documents, 467; Bierce, Battlefields and Ghosts, 14; O. R. vol. 5, 463.

  599. Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, 7 ; O . R. vol. 5, 463; “The Battle on the Alleghany,” Macon Daily Telegraph, January 4, 1862; “War Recollections,” Evelyn Yeager Beard, The Pocahontas Times, November 25, 1926; Letter to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 23, 1861.

  600. Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, 201–02; “The Battle of Alleghany Summit,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, December 24, 1861; Letter from J. Chilcott, Indianapolis Daily Journal, January 1, 1862.

  601. Bierce, Battlefields and Ghosts, 15; “Full Account of the Late Battle in Western Virginia,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 25, 1861; “Joseph R.T. Gordon,” Julia Dumont Gordon Scrapbook, ISL: Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, 202; Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 98. Lt. Colonel Z.T. Connor of the Twelfth Georgia Infantry reported a timber barricade extended to “within 50 paces” of the Confederate earthworks.

  602. “The Battle on the Alleghany,” Macon Daily Telegraph
, January 4, 1861; “The Battle of Alleghany Summit,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, December 24, 1861.

  603. Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 21; “Captain John Miller,” Letter to The Pocahontas Times, February 18, 1904; O. R. vol. 5, 460. During the battle, Captain Miller ignored the protests of a Confederate officer, seated in advance, that his guns were “firing too low!” The good captain was later acquitted of a “reckless shooting” charge. Imagine his consternation afterward upon finding a grape shot embedded in a tree not three inches above the offended officer's head. The incriminating tree was promptly chopped down!

  604. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 53; Hamilton, Recollections, 28; Hays, History of the Thirty-second Regiment, 20; Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, 8–9.

  605. Bierce, Battlefields and Ghosts, 13; “The Battle at Alleghany Summit—Great Exaggerations…,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, December 23, 1861; Frank Ingersoll to his sister, December 15, 1861, Ingersoll Letters, IU.

  606. “The Battle of the Alleghany,” Macon Daily Telegraph, January 4, 1862; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 1, 54; Geiger, “Holding the Line,” 75.

  607. O. R. vol. 5, 457, 459–60, 468; Hall, The Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 41–42, Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 24; Geiger, “Holding the Line,” 73; Richmond Dispatch Account, Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 3, Documents, 470. Most accounts place the engagement at Camp Allegheny between approximately 7 A.M. and 2 P.M. Official returns for the Federals include 20 killed, 107 wounded, and 10 missing for a total of 137. Confederate losses were 20 killed, 98 wounded, and 28 missing, a total of 146. Research by Joe Geiger, Jr. indicates actual Federal losses to have been 143; Confederate, 162.

  608. Cammack, Personal Recollections, 42; Letter to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 23, 1861; Ross, “Old Memories,” 158–59.

  609. “Joseph R.T. Gordon,” Julia Dumont Gordon Scrapbook, ISL; J.W. Gordon to G.W. Julian, February 8, 1862, George W. Julian Papers, ISL; “Obsequies,” Indianapolis Daily Journal, December 21, 1861.

  610. Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 21–22; T.D. Ranson to his cousin, December 27, 1861, Stuart Family Papers, VHS; Letter to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 18, 1861; “The Battle of Alleghany Mountain,” Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel, December 19, 1861; Letter to the Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 23, 1861. Along with his club, Ed Johnson reportedly carried a musket through much of the battle at Camp Allegheny.

  611. “A Notable War Club,” Richmond Examiner, January 7, 1862; O. R. vol. 5, 459; Robson, How a One-Legged Rebel Lives, 23; Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie, 299.

  Chapter 23. Cold as the North Pole

  612. O.R. vol. 5, 459; Jacob Pinock to William, October 15, 1861, Pinock Papers, WVU; Robert Hatton to his wife, November 2, 1861 in Drake, Life of General Robert Hatton, 382.

  613. Diary of Co. A, 32nd Ohio Infantry, 14, Pinock Papers, WVU; William Batts to his sister, November 28, 1861, William Batts letters, EU.

  614. Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 43.

  615. W.A. Hawkins to A.H. Stephens, January 22, 1861, Alexander H. Stephens Papers, EU; Schuyler Colfax to G.B. McClellan, December 12, 1861, Schuyler Colfax Papers, IHS.

  616. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 318–319; Hall, Rending of Virginia, 397, 404; “The New State,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, August 26, 1861.

  617. Curry, A House Divided, 86–88; Hall, Rending of Virginia, 407, 409–10; Ambler, Atwood and Mathews, Debates and Proceedings, vol. 1, 438.

  618. Hall, Rending of Virginia, 415–16, 421, 425, 429; Curry, A House Divided, 90–91; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, December 9, 1861.

  619. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 320–21; Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 5, 50.

  620. Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 42–43.

  621. O. R. vol. 5, 496–99.

  622. Dabney, Life and Campaigns, 242–43; O. R. vol. 5, 965–66, 1004–05; Worsham, One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry, 24; Toney, Privations, 26.

  623. O. R. vol. 5, 1004; Toney, Privations, 28; Watkins, “Company Aytch,” 56; Porterfield, “A Narrative,” 90.

  624. O. R. vol. 5, 390–93, 1066; Walter A. Clark Diary, January 2–4, 1862, PC; Lavender Ray to his brother, January 12, 1862 in Lane, Letters From Georgia Soldiers, 90–93; Toney, Privations, 31; Watkins, “Company Aytch,” 57–58, 62. Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 4, Documents, 15–16. “I ask you in all candor not to doubt the following lines,” Sam Watkins wrote of the “Death Watch.” Although the story is apocryphal, other accounts give mention of individual soldiers freezing to death that winter. More than one Confederate wrote of temperatures near twenty below zero on the march to Romney, yet weather records do not confirm it. Temperatures can vary greatly in that region. One thing is clear—it was bitterly cold!

  625. O. R. vol. 5, 392, 1034, 1036, 1047; Watkins, “Company Aytch,” 57.

  626. O. R. vol. 5, 1041–42, 1046–48.

  627. Ibid., 1053, 1062–63, 1065–66.

  628. Ibid., 1066–68, 1076, 1079; Warner, Generals in Gray, 194; Imboden, “Stonewall Jackson,” 301.

  629. Watkins, “Company Aytch,” 56–57; Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 46; James Atkins Diary, January 6, 1862, GDAH; “From the Alleghany Mountains,” Richmond Daily Dispatch, November 30, 1861; Parker, “Sufferings of the Twelfth Georgia Reg't,…” WVSA.

  630. Adam Kersh to his brother, January 29, 1862, Adam W. Kersh Letters,MML; James Atkins Diary, January 3, 19, 24, 1862, GDAH; Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 46–47; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 126.

  631. James Atkins Diary, January 18, 22, 1862, GDAH; Hall, Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 46, 48–49; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 126, 153–54; Parker, “Sufferings of the Twelfth Georgia Reg't,…” WVSA.

  632. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, 150–51, 154, 162; Sears, George B. McClellan, 131, 135; Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, 34–35; Nicolay and Hay, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 4, 469n.

  633. Sears, George B. McClellan, 136, 140–41, 143–45, 147, 154; McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, 195–96.

  634. McClellan, Report on the Organization, 109, 118; Sears, George B. McClellan, 149–50, 154; 163–64, 167–68; O. R. vol. 5, 54; Ward, Burns and Burns, The Civil War, 92; Sears, Civil War Papers of George McClellan, 211.

  635. Special Orders, No. 206, November 5, 1861, Dowdey, Wartime Papers, 84; Freeman, Lee, vol. 1, 606, 609–10; Chesnut, A Diary From Dixie, 164.

  636. R.E. Lee to his wife, February 23, 1862 and March 14, 1862, Dowdey, Wartime Papers, 118, 127–28; Thomas, Robert E. Lee, 214; Hawkins, “Early Coast Operations,” 645; Freeman, Lee, vol. 2, 6. Fort Donelson was named for Confederate General Samuel Donelson, who served under Lee in Western Virginia.

  637. O. R. vol. 5, 922–33; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 158; Freeman, Lee, vol. 2, 17.

  Chapter 24. All's Fair in Love and War

  638. “The War in Western Virginia,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, October 2, 1861.

  639. Rutherford B. Hayes to his mother, November 25, 1861 in Williams, The Life of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, vol. 1, 154.

  640. Worsham, One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry, 23–24; Price, History of Pocahontas County, 445, 449–51; “War Recollections,” Evelyn Yeager Beard, The Pocahontas Times, November 25, 1926.

  641. Ben May to his brother, July 17, 1861, PC; Samuel V. Fulkerson to his sister, August 22, 1861, PC.

  642. Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 539–41.

  643. Beatty, The Citizen-Soldier, 16–17.

  644. Siviter, Recollections of War and Peace, 78–80. Another version of this story can be found in Ambler, Francis H. Pierpont, 90–91.

  645. “Rebel Ladies,” Cincinnati Daily Commercial, July 19, 1861.

  646. Hamilton, Recollections of a Cavalryman, 30; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 136; Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 100–01n.

  647. “Mother To the First Tennessee Regiment,” 290; Quintard, Doctor Quintard, 18. Dr. Quintard recal
led how Mrs. Sullivan took off her shoes and gave them to a barefoot soldier during the campaign in Western Virginia.

  648. A Member of the Bar, Cheat Mountain, 46; Cincinnati Daily Gazette, November 26, 1862 in Christen, “Mrs. Van Pelt,” 23–24; “Sent Up,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, September 17, 1861.

  649. Womack, Civil War Diary, July, 24, 1861; “Another Runaway,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, July 19, 1861.

  650. “No Women,” Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, October 31, 1861; “Letter from Alf. Burnett,” Cincinnati Daily Commercial, November 28, 1861; Dewitt C. Howard to P.S. Bishop, August 2, 1861, PC.

  651. Matthew C. Dawson to his brother, January 28, 1862, James Dawson Papers, OHS; Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 83–84.

  652. Smith, A View From the Ranks, 24.