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

by W Hunter Lesser

  To many citizens, the May 23 referendum was mere formality, a vote to legalize acts previously consummated in Richmond. Virginia had already formed an alliance with the Confederacy. But John Carlile, Frank Pierpont, George Latham, and other members of the Wheeling Central Committee encouraged Unionists to resist at the polls—to take a “firm, stern and decided stand” against the ordinance.

  The election came off in relative calm, although it was influenced by soldiers' bayonets. Balloting was done by voice, a fact that likely kept many from expressing their true feelings. To no one's surprise, eastern Virginia counties overwhelmingly approved the Ordinance of Secession, while many western counties voted strongly against it. Governor Letcher gave the results as 125,950 to 20,373 in favor of secession, but admitted that returns from numerous western counties had not been received. The western vote was never fully ascertained. It was clearly divided; majorities for secession were later reported in the eleven western counties of Barbour, Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Gilmer, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Randolph, Roane, Tucker, and Webster.134

  In the wee hours after the referendum, Captain George Latham and his “Grafton Guards” flagged a train bound for Wheeling. On May 25, they were mustered into service as Company B, Second (U.S.) Virginia Volunteer Infantry—the first Union company recruited from Virginia's interior. Porterfield's Confederates occupied Grafton that same day.135

  Confederate soldiers closed in on the Fairmont home of Frank Pierpont as he, too, hopped a train for Wheeling. There, members of the Central Committee chided him for missing the vote. “The time for voting is past,” snapped Pierpont. “I move that Mr. Carlile be sent, at once, to Washington, to demand troops to drive the Rebels out of Western Virginia.”

  Carlile did just that, taking a train through Pennsylvania and Maryland to avoid trouble. He arrived at the White House late on May 24, left his card, and was soon called in to see the president.

  “Well,” Lincoln said, “Mr. Carlile, what is the best news in Western Virginia?”

  “Sir, we want to fight. We have one regiment ready, and if the Federal Government is going to assist us we want it at once.”

  Lincoln replied softly, “You shall have assistance.”136

  Winfield Scott cabled General McClellan on May 24: “We have certain intelligence that at least two companies of Virginia troops have reached Grafton, evidently with the purpose of overawing the friends of the Union in Western Virginia. Can you counteract the influence of that detachment?” From a military conference in Indiana, McClellan replied, “Will do what you want. Make it a clean sweep if you say so.”137

  Federal troops were loaded aboard railcars and dispatched to points on the Ohio River opposite Wheeling and Parkersburg. Spies kept the Confederates well informed of McClellan's movements. To contest the advance, Colonel Porterfield burned some railroad bridges. Under his orders, a squad of Confederates moved by rail on the night of May 25 to fire two wooden spans on the B&O Railroad between Mannington and Farmington, about thirty-five miles northwest of Grafton. Colonel William J. Willey led the bridge-burners. Confederate Colonel Willey's surname was no coincidence—he was the half-brother of staunch Unionist Waitman Willey.138

  General McClellan was “maturing plans” at Camp Dennison on May 26 when he learned of the bridge burnings. Destruction of the railroad was an overt act of war. The vandals must be stopped, and loyal Unionists rescued from tyranny. McClellan's duty was clear—his army would invade Virginia.

  Loyal Virginia regiments led the invasion. McClellan wired orders for Colonel Ben Kelley's First Virginia Infantry and Company A of the Second Virginia Infantry at Wheeling to move on Grafton. Kelley's objective was to restore damaged bridges and prevent further destruction of the railroad. He was to await reinforcements if substantial resistance was met. McClellan cautioned him to “run no unnecessary risk, for it is absolutely necessary that we should not meet even with a partial check at the onset.” The Sixteenth Ohio Infantry, Colonel James Irvine commanding at Bellaire, Ohio, crossed the river as Kelley's support.

  In concert with Kelley's advance from Wheeling, Colonel James Steedman's Fourteenth Ohio Infantry crossed the Ohio River at Parkersburg and boarded the Northwestern Virginia Railroad, bound east for Grafton. The Eighteenth Ohio Infantry and two guns of the First Ohio Light Artillery followed.139

  To clarify the purpose of his invasion, General McClellan crafted an address to the troops. From the dining-room table of his Cincinnati home, with ladies chatting in the background, McClellan assumed the bombastic style of Napoleon:140

  Soldiers!—You are ordered to cross the frontier and enter upon the soil of Virginia. Your mission is to restore peace and confidence, to protect the majesty of the law, and to rescue our brethren from the grasp of armed traitors. You are to act in concert with Virginia troops and to support their advance. I place under the safeguard of your honor, the persons and property of the Virginians…. If you are called upon to overcome armed opposition, I know that your courage is equal to the task;—but remember that your only foes are the armed traitors…. When, under your protection, the loyal men of Western Virginia have been enabled to organize and arm, they can protect themselves, and you can then return to your homes with the proud satisfaction of having saved a gallant people from destruction.141

  He also issued a proclamation to the people of Western Virginia:

  Virginians!—The General Government has long enough endured the machinations of a few factious rebels in your midst. Armed traitors have in vain endeavored to deter you from expressing your loyalty at the polls…they now seek to inaugurate a rein of terror, and thus force you to yield to their schemes, and submit to the yoke of the traitorous conspiracy, dignified by the name of the Southern Confederacy. They are destroying the property of citizens of your State and ruining your magnificent railways…. The General Government cannot close its ears to the demand you have made for assistance. I have ordered troops to cross the Ohio River. They come as your friends and brothers,—as enemies only to the armed rebels who are preying upon you…. Now, that we are in your midst, I call upon you to fly to arms and support the general government. Sever the connection that binds you to traitors; proclaim to the world that the faith and loyalty as long boasted by the Old Dominion, are still preserved in Western Virginia, and that you remain true to the stars and stripes.142

  In his proclamation, McClellan assured slaveholders that any insurrection by their slaves would be crushed “with an iron hand.” By those words, he publicly committed a Union army to protect slavery. No comment was forthcoming from Lincoln or his administration.143

  The departure of Colonel Kelley's First (U.S.) Virginia Infantry in the early morning hours of May 27 brought out hundreds of Wheeling residents. The soldiers wore blue jeans and work clothes—Kelley's coat may have been the only piece of military garb in the regiment. In lieu of cartridge boxes, ammunition was stuffed into pockets. When the colonel ordered an inspection of arms, he was dismayed to learn that many had loaded their pieces backwards—placing the ball in the muzzle and ramming it down with the powder charge on top! The charges were carefully withdrawn, and the men instructed in the proper way to load and fire.144

  Kelley commandeered the railroad telegraph office to preserve secrecy, but crowds of waving Virginians along the tracks proved there was little deception. Pressing on to the burned bridges over Buffalo Creek, Kelley's Federals were greeted by armed citizens who exposed a number of secessionists for arrest. The vandalized bridges proved to be of iron; flames had destroyed only the wooden sills and crossties. Repair crews set to work with a vengeance. Within forty-eight hours of departure, Kelley's men had secured the tracks to Fairmont.145

  The Confederates at Grafton were thrown into a dither—the enemy was collecting in force on the railroad not twenty miles away. On May 28, with no hope of reinforcement, Colonel Porterfield ordered his 550 men to withdraw. News of the evacuation spurred Colonel Kelley forward. With a full brigade behind him, Kelley steamed into Grafto
n on the afternoon of May 30 without firing a shot.146

  The advance from Parkersburg did not match Kelley's pace. Colonel Steedman's Fourteenth Ohio Infantry moved with all the caution McClellan had ordered. The Northwestern Virginia Railroad led them through a maze of wooded hills, deep cuts, and tunnels by the score—every turn a likely point of ambush. Vandalized bridges caused further delay. Steedman's force took four days to make the eighty-mile trip by rail, not reaching Clarksburg until the afternoon of May 30. The advance would have taken longer had not a dashing volunteer aide-de-camp named Frederick Lander intervened. When an Indiana colonel at Parkersburg refused to move his regiment for fear of a collision, Lander boarded the engine himself and reached Grafton on June 2 without incident.147

  Cheered by the news, General McClellan cabled the War Department from his Cincinnati headquarters: “It is a source of very great satisfaction to me that we have occupied Grafton without the sacrifice of a single life.” Next was to drive Rebel forces across the Alleghenies, freeing Western Virginia of their influence. McClellan fixed his gaze on Colonel Porterfield's Confederates, at a place called Philippi.148

  PART II

  FIRST CLASH

  OF ARMIES

  CHAPTER 6

  THE PHILIPPI RACES

  “And boom went the cannon balls, crashing through the huts and stirring out the rebels like a stick thrust into a hornet's nest.”

  —Whitelaw Reid, Cincinnati Daily Gazette

  Philippi was a town with passionate ties to the Confederacy. It was located just fifteen miles south of the railroad at Grafton, on the Beverly-Fairmont Road, leading toward the heart of Virginia. Philippi was the Barbour County seat. Nestled in a romantic little valley, it was ordinarily a quiet place. But Colonel Porterfield's beleaguered Confederates made the town their headquarters, and General McClellan's army had come to drive them out. If Federal troops were to reclaim Western Virginia and rally her loyal Unionists, the Rebels at Philippi must go. By fate, Philippi was about to host the first land battle of the Civil War.149

  A tedious ferry crossed the Tygart Valley River at Philippi until 1852, with construction of the Monarch of the River. The Monarch was a huge covered bridge. It was more than three hundred feet long, double-spanned, and fashioned almost entirely of wood—framed by massive, rough-hewn logs fitted and pegged in a sturdy arch pattern. A Beverly carpenter named Lemuel Chenoweth had erected the Monarch. He was a man with little formal education, but a natural genius in architecture. Chenoweth reportedly won his first bridge-building contract in a novel way. When the Virginia Board of Public Works invited engineers to submit plans for bridges on the Beverly-Fairmont Road, he journeyed nearly two hundred miles on horseback to Richmond. Packed in his saddlebags was a scale-model bridge of hickory wood.

  At Richmond, Chenoweth watched elegant presentations by experts of the day, with sophisticated bridge models of cables and cantilevers. When finally called, the long-haired country carpenter rose and assembled his plain wooden model. He placed the completed little span between two chairs, stood on top, and walked its length. “Gentlemen, this is all I have to say,” Chenoweth declared. It was enough to win the contract.

  The Philippi covered bridge was a boon to transportation and a community landmark. Astonished youngsters who watched it take form later played around the veiled interior. Spying herds of cattle driven along the road to market, they would race inside the span, clamber up the broad wooden arches, and perch triumphantly while bawling animals crowded through below.150

  But in the spring of 1861, there was a feeling of greater excitement. Young men who had once frolicked inside the Monarch now joined Confederate soldiers gathering in its shadow at Philippi. A “Palmetto” flag, raised in sympathy to South Carolina's departure from the Union, had flown over the courthouse since January. Philippi was proud of its reputation as “the strongest secession town in Western Virginia.”151

  Taking Philippi as his headquarters, Colonel George Porterfield appealed for Confederate recruits. His broadsides pledged to shield the people from “invasion by foreign forces,” called on them to “Strike for your State! Strike for your liberties! Rally! Rally at once in defense of your mother!” But the colonel's pleas drew limited numbers—a ragtag gaggle of volunteers. Many of the recruits were mere boys. One company, the “Upshur Grays,” had just four members older than twenty-three years of age; their captain, John Higginbotham, was only eighteen.152

  These young Confederates sorely lacked the tools of war. Most carried old flintlock or converted muskets; a few had no weapons at all. There was little ammunition, about five cartridges per man. Unable to equip two volunteer horse companies, Colonel Porterfield reluctantly sent them home. “The exaggerated idea went forth that an army was in our midst,” declared one Confederate at Philippi.153

  An ordnance officer was detailed to scavenge for gunpowder. Lead pipe was pulled up and melted into bullets. The volunteers rolled homemade cartridges and cleaned rusty muskets. As wild-flowers bloomed and spring foliage filled the hillsides, a force of about six hundred infantry and one hundred seventy-five horse soldiers gathered at Philippi.154

  The Confederates had few tents. Most lodged in the courthouse and dwellings around town. Meals were often taken with the citizens. “Philippi was a pandemonium,” recalled one soldier. “No order, our drill foolishness. The whole thing a holiday, full of disorder, uproar, speeches and intense excitement.” This sad state of affairs did not inspire confidence in Colonel Porterfield's ability to command. One soldier described him as “a polished Virginia gentleman, but as ignorant of war as a mule is of the Ten Commandments.”155

  Porterfield's officers routinely took “French leave,” coming and going as they pleased. Captain Daniel Stofer, a corpulent Pocahontas County attorney, was known for speechmaking. One fine evening, Stofer led his “Pocahontas Rescues” onto the courthouse lawn and began to regale the crowd. Nattily dressed in a black, long-tailed coat, he was plum-faced and jovial: “Many a cup of good cheer had evidently been tendered him by patriotic hands.” In a booming voice, “Count” Stofer promised to thrash any Unionists who might be foolish enough to appear. “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed, “I could take a peach tree switch and whip all of Lincoln's 75,000 Yankees if they invade Virginia.”156

  A peach tree switch was needed, for on the evening of June 1, trains bearing more than two thousand Indiana volunteers rolled into Grafton, less than a day's march from Philippi. At their head was Union General Thomas A. Morris, a stolid man, grave in countenance and demeanor. Morris was an able soldier, West Point class of 1834, modest and steady. Like McClellan, he had been a railroad president, called back as a brigadier general of Indiana volunteers. For most of his five decades, Morris had been an avid hunter. Now as the ranking officer in Western Virginia, he prepared to track down the Rebels.157

  Morris arrived to find Colonel Kelley readying an attack on Philippi. Taking Kelley into a council of war, he embellished the plan as a two-pronged movement—adding the newly arrived regiments to entrap Porterfield's command. He also added the fickle element of timing.

  On June 2, Colonel Kelley led two Federal columns against the enemy. Each consisted of about fifteen hundred men, traveling south on opposite banks of the Tygart Valley River. Kelley's column boarded an eastbound train at Grafton around 9 A.M., reportedly bound for Harpers Ferry. Just six miles out at Thornton, however, Kelley's First Virginia, the Ninth Indiana, and six companies of the Sixteenth Ohio Infantry left that train and marched for Philippi, twenty-two miles south on “a road but little traveled.”158

  Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, sallow, dyspeptic, and rather eccentric, led the second column. Dumont's piping voice gave him a whimsical air, but he was a capable former Indiana legislator and Mexican War veteran. His march on the Beverly-Fairmont Road to Philippi would be just twelve miles, under cover of night. At 8:30 that evening, Dumont's Seventh Indiana Infantry took a train six miles west, left the cars at Webster, and joined five companies of the Fourteent
h Ohio Infantry, six companies of the Sixth Indiana Infantry, and two guns of the First Ohio Light Artillery for the assault.

  Dumont's orders were to engage the Rebels at dawn—just as Kelley cut off their southern retreat on the Beverly-Fairmont Road. The two Federal columns were to arrive in Philippi at precisely 4 A.M. on June 3. If all went according to plan, Porterfield's Confederates wouldn't have a prayer.159

  The Federals began their first march of the war. Drizzling rain soon turned into a downpour. The night was pitch black. Soldiers traced their progress by the steady flashes of lightning. The raging storm turned narrow country roads into slippery quagmires. Troops slogged over hill and vale, bent against the pounding rain.

  An eerie red light glowed at the head of Colonel Dumont's column, emanating from a large ruby lantern carried by Lieutenant Benjamin Ricketts to guide the men. Ricketts had protested the order—that light would signal the enemy! He “didn't want a record in history as the first man killed.” But the Confederates in Philippi already knew that something was astir.160