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

by W Hunter Lesser

  Federal scouts rushed to the fallen Washington. He muttered for water, but died before it reached his lips. Fashioning a litter of guns and accoutrements, the scouts carried him to a nearby outpost. The strong features, fine dress, and accoutrements sparked curiosity. Initials found on gauntlet cuffs and a napkin in his haversack suggested they had killed “the veritable John A. Washington of Mt. Vernon.” An acquaintance, Captain Loomis of the Michigan artillery, soon confirmed the deed.

  Washington's demise drew macabre attention. The Federals treated his remains with dignity, but doled out his military effects as spoils of war. General Reynolds claimed Washington's field glass. A revolver was forwarded to Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who dictated that Sergeant Weiler retain its twin. The gauntlets, a large knife, spurs, and powder flask went to soldiers of the Seventeenth Indiana. A member of General Reynolds's staff kept several letters, one pierced by a fatal bullet. There seemed to be general regret that Washington's sword escaped with his horse.461

  This scion of the Washington clan was viewed as a traitor. Soldiers rough in speech were taken by the irony of his name. “The boys wonder what George said to John when he ‘went up,'” wrote one Federal. “I don't think John went up.” Upon a smooth-barked beech on Elkwater Fork, they carved his memorial: “Under this tree, on the 13th of Sept., 1861, fell Col. John A. Washington, the degenerate descendant of the Father of his Country.”

  The body was handed over to Confederate forces the next day. Chaplain Quintard met General Lee just as he received confirmation of Washington's death. “He was standing with his right arm, thrown over the neck of his horse,” recalled Quintard of Lee, “and I was impressed first of all by the man's splendid physique, and then by the look of extreme sadness that pervaded his countenance. He felt the death of his relative very keenly…”462

  “I am much grieved,” Lee wrote Mary of the loss. “He was always anxious to go on these expeditions. This was the first day I assented…. May God have mercy on us all!” Lee forwarded Washington's belongings to the colonel's eldest daughter with a letter of condolence. “My Dear Miss Louisa,” he began, “with a heart filled with grief, I have to communicate the saddest tidings which you have ever heard.” The deaths of General Garnett and Lt. Colonel Washington in Western Virginia had claimed half of Lee's original staff.463

  On September 14, Lee ordered the Confederates back to their camps. Colonel Albert Rust finally returned from the wilderness. His inaction was summarized in a terse sentence: “The expedition against Cheat Mountain failed.” Perhaps to lessen its demoralizing effect, Lee called the effort a “forced reconnaissance” rather than a battle unfought. He praised the troops for “cheerfulness and alacrity,” traits certain to bring victory at the next “fit opportunity.”464

  General Loring cursed the order, as stubborn in retreat as he had been in advance. He wore a black corduroy suit and a broad-brimmed hat topped with a cockade plume for the occasion. As Donelson's brigade passed headquarters, Loring popped up on a stump, “erect as a cock partridge in August,” to give the soldiers a military review. “Our men had been instructed to salute the General as they passed,” recalled a Tennessean, “but if a single man in the ranks did any such thing we did not see or hear of it…Not a voice was raised nor an old cap or hat lifted as we sullenly passed by.” The admiration of the troops for Loring fell short of that won by Lee.465

  The Confederates had suffered awfully. Many were barefoot from the trials, their feet swollen and bloodied. “We have had the hardest time that ever any soldiers in the world had,” wrote a member of Anderson's brigade upon returning to Valley Mountain. Weakened by exposure, large numbers fell victim to disease. A veteran would later remark that he never understood the word “Hell” until the Cheat Mountain affair.466

  Meanwhile, the Federals reveled in victory. “It is glorious to meet the bloodthirsty enemies of our country and crush them!” exulted a defender of Cheat Fort. “General, I think my men have done wonders,” a proud Colonel Kimball wrote General Reynolds. “How it happened that with less than 250 men we dispersed 5,800 of the rebels I can't say but such is the fact, incredible as it may seem.”

  The Federals lost only ten killed, fourteen wounded, and sixty-four prisoners. Confederate losses were never officially reported, but Reynolds and Kimball inflated them to “near 100” killed with a score of prisoners. “Their bodies can be seen laying at the roadsides by anyone passing by,” boasted a Hoosier on the summit. Some crawled away to die in the laurel thickets, marked only by the stench and hovering of vultures and crows.467

  General Lee was humiliated by the debacle at Cheat Mountain. Seldom in military annals had a strategic design, so well conceived and boldly carried to the point of attack, failed so miserably. “I cannot tell you my regret & mortification at the untoward events that caused the failure of the plan,” Lee wrote Mary from Valley Mountain on September 17. “I had taken every precaution to ensure success & counted on it. But the Ruler of the Universe willed otherwise…” To Governor Letcher he expressed “grievous disappointment…. But for the rain-storm, I have no doubt it would have succeeded. This, Governor, is for your own eye. Please do not speak of it; we must try again.”468

  Lee was “Cheated” out of victory on that mountain—by rain, mud, and temerity. Yet he refused to point a finger of blame at Albert Rust, the gargantuan colonel who had awed nearly everyone but the Yankees. Jefferson Davis spoke of Lee after the failure: “[W]ith a magnanimity rarely equaled, he stood in silence…unwilling to offend any one who was wearing a sword and striking blows for the Confederacy.” Lee never filed an official report. Privately, he dubbed the affair a “forlorn hope expedition.”469

  Critics styled Lee overcautious and too much a theorist—his plan of attack too complicated for the tools at hand. Southern editors chided that “in mountain warfare, the learning of the books and of the strategists is of little value.” While pundits prattled, matters grew ominous in the Kanawha Valley. The feuding of Confederate Generals Wise and Floyd in that region portended disaster. Leaving a sufficient force behind to watch Reynolds, Lee reined his tiny escort south to try again.470

  CHAPTER 18

  MIXING OIL AND WATER

  “As well might peace and harmony and concert of action have been expected if you threw a game cock into another game cock's yard.”

  —Henry Heth, C.S.A.

  Robert E. Lee rode seventy-five miles south of Valley Mountain to the Kanawha theater of operations. He was anxious to “restore harmony” between Generals Wise and Floyd. It was an urgent mission, for the bickering ex-governors were threatened with annihilation.

  During the first week of September 1861, Union General William Rosecrans led three brigades south from Clarksburg toward those feuding Confederates. Rosecrans's march covered one hundred and twenty miles, by way of Weston, Bulltown, and Sutton on the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike. His plan was to join forces with General Jacob Cox near the terminus of that road, driving the Confederates under Wise and Floyd out of Western Virginia for good.471

  General Lee had learned of Rosecrans's advance. Lee urged General Floyd to withdraw from his entrenched position at Carnifex Ferry on the Gauley River, between the Federal commands. But Floyd chose to remain in the formidable works of Camp Gauley, with the river at his back. There he dug in furiously, threatening to defy “the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Floyd's arch rival Henry Wise presumably fell into the last category.

  Confederate General Wise held the James River and Kanawha Turnpike on the New River at Hawks Nest, six miles east of Federals under General Cox. Wise was positioned there ostensibly to protect Floyd's left flank. On September 9, Floyd called on his nemesis for reinforcements. Wise refused. The feuding generals began another “sulphurous exchange.” Wise claimed he had already been “twice fooled” into marching to Floyd's aid, only to receive contrary orders. “Under these circumstances,” asserted Wise, “I shall, upon my legitimate responsibility, exercise a strong discretion whethe
r to obey your very preemptory orders of to-day or not.”472

  In hindsight, Union General Cox marveled at Wise's talent for keeping a command in hot water. “If he had been half as troublesome to me as he was to Floyd,” Cox wrote, “I should, indeed, have had a hot time of it. But he did me royal service by preventing anything approaching unity of action between the principal Confederate columns.”473

  Before Floyd could address Wise's latest act of insubordination, Rosecrans struck him on the afternoon of September 10 at Carnifex Ferry. The action began as a reconnaissance, but newly minted Brigadier General Henry Benham (the eager engineer who had chased down General Garnett) led Federal troops straight into the teeth of Floyd's defenses. The afternoon reconnaissance turned into a bloody assault.

  Floyd's defenses were strong, hidden in dense forest with unscalable cliffs on the flanks, but his back was to the Gauley River in a deep canyon below, crossable only at the tenuous Carnifex Ferry. Although outnumbered nearly three to one, his eighteen hundred Confederates put up a spirited defense. They drove back successive Federal thrusts until darkness overtook the battlefield.474

  By daybreak, Floyd's little Army of the Kanawha had vanished across the Gauley, sinking a footbridge and the ferryboats, leaving Rosecrans mystified but holding the field. Floyd claimed victory nonetheless. He had been shot in the right forearm, however. It was a minor wound with major consequences—Floyd could no longer hold a pen in his war of words with General Wise.

  Later that day, Wise found his antagonist prostrate on the roadside east of Hawks Nest. Floyd's wound had left him stunned and bewildered. Wise demanded orders. A dazed Floyd replied that “he did not know what orders to give.” Jumping at the opportunity, Wise fired off a scathing letter to General Lee. “Disasters have come, and disasters are coming,” he warned, “which you alone, I fear, can repair and prevent…. I solemnly protest that my force is not safe under [Floyd's] command, and I ask to be allowed to cooperate with some other superior.”475

  On September 13, the warring generals retreated seventeen miles east on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike to Big Sewell Mountain. As usual, they camped more than a mile apart. Three days later, Floyd amicably sought Wise's council. The Yankees were reportedly approaching in two columns; General Cox from the west on the James River and Kanawha pike, and Rosecrans from the north as he shuttled troops across the river at Carnifex Ferry. General Wise argued that Floyd's camp on Big Sewell Mountain was “indefensible,” and urged that his own formidable post, one and one half miles east, should be occupied by the entire army. Wise proposed a counteroffensive. Floyd reportedly “liked the idea” and agreed to examine Wise's position the next morning. At that, General Wise returned to camp, satisfied that he had won the day.

  But Wise had barely reached headquarters when General Floyd's wagon train began rolling through his camp—the Army of the Kanawha was in retreat! A dispatch from Floyd announced that he was falling back. Wise was instructed to hold himself in readiness to “bring up the rear.” This was too much for the hotheaded Wise. Incensed at Floyd's deception, he snapped at the messenger, “Tell General Floyd I will do no such thing; I propose to stay here and fight until doomsday.”476

  As Floyd's little army filed past, a red-faced General Wise rode among his own troops. Still burning over Floyd's criticism of his Kanawha retreat, he rose in the stirrups and called out in a stentorian voice, “Who is retreating now? Who is retreating now?” Wise repeated the query to another group of soldiers. Presently his entire command had assembled. Wise cried out again, “Men, who is retreating now? John B. Floyd, G__d___ him, the bullet-hit son of a b____, he is retreating now.”

  True to his word, General Wise did not budge. For nearly a week, he traded barbed missives over his failure to join Floyd at Meadow Bluff, some twelve miles east. “I have not yet been able to discover how you could bring up the rear of a moving column by remaining stationary after this column had passed,” scolded Floyd. “Disastrous consequences…may ensue from a divided force,” he cautioned Wise on September 19. “If you still have time…to join my force and make a stand against the enemy at this point, I hope you will see the necessity of doing so at once.”477

  The Federals under General Cox reached Floyd's abandoned camp on Big Sewell Mountain the next day. Cox had orders to probe Wise's defenses, postponing a general assault until Rosecrans's troops crossed the Gauley River to join him. Wise and his 2,200-man legion faced the prospect of holding back at least 5,300 Federals, with more on the way. Isolated from Floyd by twelve miles of muddy turnpike, he was in danger of being cut to pieces. But Wise refused to retreat. Fittingly, he named his post “Camp Defiance.”478

  On September 15, Floyd wrote to President Jefferson Davis, “The petty jealousy of General Wise; his utter ignorance of all military rule and discipline; the peculiar contrariness of his character and disposition, are beginning to produce rapidly a disorganization which will prove fatal to the interests of the army if not arrested at once.” The cantankerous Wise, he grumbled, “obeys no orders without cavil, and does not hesitate to disregard a positive and peremptory order, upon the most frivolous pretext.”

  Loath to arrest Wise and demoralize the entire legion, Floyd urged the president to transfer his combative opponent. “It is impossible for me to conduct a campaign with General Wise attached to my command,” Floyd informed Davis. “His presence with my force is almost as injurious as if he were in the camp of the enemy with his whole command.”479

  By now, the quarrel between Generals Wise and Floyd had become a public scandal. From Lewisburg, a member of the Richmond legislature warned President Davis of the dangers brought on by their feud. “They are inimical to each other as men can be,” he wrote on September 19, “and from their course and actions I am fully satisfied that each of them would be highly gratified to see the other annihilated…. It would be just as easy to combine oil and water as to expect a union of action between these gentlemen.”480

  Into this hornet's nest of controversy rode the genteel Lee. As he drew rein at Floyd's Meadow Bluff headquarters on September 21, Lee's role as a “facilitator” was to be sorely tested. He was horrified to find Wise and Floyd separated in the face of the enemy. Lee fired off a dispatch to Wise, pleading for cooperation. “I know nothing of the relative advantages of the points occupied by yourself and General Floyd,” he wrote, “but as far as I can judge our united forces are not more than one-half of the strength of the enemy. Together they may not be able to stand his assault. It would be the height of imprudence to submit them separately to his attack…. I beg therefore, if not too late, that the troops be united, and that we conquer or die together.”481

  That letter angered Wise. His reply must have stunned Lee. “I consider my force united with that of General Floyd as much as it ever has been,” Wise retorted. “The two positions had perhaps better be examined, I respectfully submit, before my judgment is condemned.…Just say, then, where we are to unite and ‘conquer or die together'…no man consults more the interest of the cause, according to his best ability and means, than I do.…Any imputation upon my motives or intentions in that respect by my superior would make me, perhaps, no longer a military subordinate of any man who breathes.”482

  With disaster looming, Lee rode forward on September 22 to examine Big Sewell Mountain. He found the rebellious Wise ensconced on the crest of the mountain at “Camp Defiance.” It was a very strong natural position—much stronger, in fact, than Floyd's post at Meadow Bluff. From Camp Defiance, Federal troops could be seen on the heights a little more than one mile west. Between the two armies stood a deep gorge, passable only by the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, which led directly through Wise's camp.

  If the Federals launched a frontal assault, General Wise's position was superior to that of Floyd. But there was a threat of attack from the flanks. Rough traces led around Sewell Mountain from the north and south. Union General Rosecrans had already pulled a flank march at Rich Mountain; if he worked that
strategy again, General Floyd was best positioned. But no flank movement had been detected. Lee returned to Meadow Bluff without ordering Wise to follow.483

  General Wise came under heavy fire the next morning. The enemy appeared to be massing on Big Sewell in force. “I am compelled to stand here and fight as long as I can endure,” Wise told Lee. “All is at stake with my command, and it shall be sold dearly.”

  Lee was in a quandary. The demonstration against Wise might be a feint—designed to hold the defiant general in place while Federal troops moved by side roads to surprise Floyd at Meadow Bluff. If Wise was flanked, both commands could be destroyed. Lee did not know whether General Rosecrans had linked up with Cox—the reports from Wise were contradictory. “If you cannot resist [the enemy],” Lee urged his recalcitrant general, “and are able to withdraw your command, you had best do so.”484

  Wise would not retreat. “I tell you emphatically, sir, that the enemy are advancing in strong force on this turnpike,” he wrote on the morning of September 24. Lee wearily asked if Wise had sufficient ammunition. If the Confederate forces must remain divided, thought Lee, they could at least be equalized. Taking four of General Floyd's regiments, he rushed to the aid of Wise.485

  Understandably, Lee arrived at Sewell Mountain in an ill humor. He found Wise's command in wretched condition—the officers nearly as bitter toward Floyd as their general was. Clad in a wide-brimmed black hat, Lee stood by a campfire in the rain, hands clasped behind his back as though in deep thought. A young lieutenant approached, inquiring about ammunition. Lee eyed the intruder with a steely glare. “I think it very strange, Lieutenant,” he snapped, “that an officer of this command, which has been here a week, should come to me, who am just arrived, to ask who his ordnance officer is and where to find his ammunition. This is in keeping with everything else I find here—no order, no organization; nobody knows where anything is, no one understands his duty; officers and men alike are equally ignorant. This will not do.”486