Lee's headquarters wagon had not come up; he bivouacked in the rain, sheltered only by an overcoat. Dawn of September 25 found him reconnoitering the Federal lines with his glass. It now appeared that the entire army of General Rosecrans was before him. There was no movement on the flanks. He reported these developments to General Floyd by dispatch. “I suppose if we fall back the enemy will follow,” wrote Lee. “This is a strong point, if they will fight us here. The advantage is, they can get no position for their artillery, and their men I think will not advance without it. If they do not turn it, how would it do to make a stand here?”487
The risk in Lee's proposal was as much political as it was military. His suggestion that Floyd return to Sewell Mountain could be viewed as approval of Wise's insubordination. Floyd would regard it as a distinct rebuff. The two ex-governors might refuse to fight side by side. The war was young, the politicians powerful, and Lee unsure. He had been sent to these mountains for diplomacy. How would Floyd respond? A campaign hung in the balance.488
Lee's thoughts were interrupted by gunfire on the skirmish lines. General Wise spurred his mount into the action. Bullets sizzled through the trees as a blue-clad line drove Confederate skirmishers into Camp Defiance. Things began to look serious as Wise galloped back to a young artillery officer and ordered him to open fire. The cannoneer protested; a dense forest hid the enemy—his guns could “do no execution.”
“D__n the execution, sir,” Wise bellowed. “It's the noise that we want.”489
Even as Wise gallantly held the Yankees at bay, the answer to Lee's burning question arrived. It came in a dispatch, not from General Floyd, but from Richmond. Inside were orders to General Wise:
SIR: You are instructed to turn over all the troops heretofore immediately under your command to General Floyd, and report yourself in person to the Adjutant-General in this city with the least delay…By order of the President.490
Wise was mortified. Surely President Davis had not meant to order him away just as the fateful battle loomed? The order was humiliating! Wise wanted to ignore it until after the impending fight. “Dare I do so?” he asked Lee. “On the other hand, can I, in honor, leave you at this moment, though the disobedience of the order may subject me to the severest penalties?” Wise had defied General Floyd; he had defied Lee—would he now defy the President himself?
Lee urged Wise to obey. If he had not advised the president's action, he quietly concurred. The good of the service required that one of those rival generals be removed. Wise drafted a farewell to his beloved legion. “[P]rompt obedience is the first duty of military service,” he told them, with no little irony.491
Privately, Wise claimed he had relinquished command only in deference to Lee's judgment, rather than in compliance with the order. Defiant as ever, he called on President Davis upon arriving in Richmond.
“General Wise, I think I will have to shoot you,” said the president, not entirely in jest.
“Mr. President, shoot me,” Wise replied. “That is all right, but for God's sake let me see you hang that d___ rascal Floyd first.”492
CHAPTER 19
TOO TENDER OF BLOOD
“The enemy is in our presence & testing the strength of our position. What may be the result…cannot now be foreseen.”
—Robert E. Lee
As September closed, the army of Union General Rosecrans confronted that of Lee. Rosecrans had 5,300 troops at Sewell Mountain, and a total force of 8,500 upon linking up with General Cox. The arrival of General Loring's division swelled Lee's own force to nearly 9,000 men. The armies scowled at each other across a deep canyon as they fortified opposite spurs of Sewell Mountain. “If they would attack us,” wrote a Confederate correspondent, “we could whip them without, perhaps, the loss of a man; but, if we have to attack them, the thing will be different.”493
The commanding generals agreed. “We have been threatened with an attack every day, but it has yet been suspended,” wrote Lee. By September 30, he acknowledged, “I begin to fear the enemy will not attack us. We shall therefore have to attack him.”
But the army could not move forward. A fierce storm had rendered the James River and Kanawha Turnpike nearly impassible—General Floyd now declared it “the worst road in Virginia.” The Confederates were seventy mountainous miles west of Shenandoah Valley railroads. Staggering teams labored to bring up supplies. “ We can only get up provisions from day to day, which paralyses our operations,” Lee admitted. Unable to sustain an advance, the Confederates were resigned to wait.494
While they waited, rain and bitter winds whipped across the peaks of Sewell Mountain. “One very cold night,” recalled aide Walter Taylor, “as we drew close to our camp fire, General Lee suggested that it was advisable to make one bed, put our blankets together in order to have sufficient covering to make us comfortable, and so it happened that it was vouchsafed for me to occupy very close relations with my old commander, and to be able to testify to his self-denial.”495
Lee watched the Federals as the first days of October slipped by. On October 5, renewed activity could be seen in the enemy camps. An assault seemed imminent. Lee's decision to await Rosecrans was about to be rewarded. Throughout the night, Confederate pickets heard the rumble of wheels and concluded that the enemy was moving up guns in preparation for an attack.
The predawn hours of October 6 found General Lee expectant. Atonement was at hand. His troops were to give battle at last. Rosecrans would assail Lee's strong defenses and be repulsed with fearful loss. But dawn revealed only silence. No movement could be seen across the great chasm on Sewell Mountain. Not a single Federal soldier remained in the trenches. Rosecrans had vanished!
Lee was bitterly disappointed. The rumble of wheels by night had not been those of advancing artillery, but of departing wagons. Rosecrans had arrived at the same conclusion as Lee—it was far better to receive an assault in that rugged terrain than to deliver one. Failing to draw Lee out, Rosecrans had ordered his brigades back to the navigable Kanawha River near Gauley Bridge, prudently shortening his supply line for the approaching winter.496
It was Cheat Mountain all over again. After great toil and expectation, Lee had failed to fight. Rosecrans escaped without the loss of a man. The Southern press was not reticent in pointing out that a “more adventurous policy” was needed in Western Virginia. Lee was painfully aware of the criticism. “I am sorry, as you say, that the movements of the armies cannot keep pace with the expectations of the editors of papers,” he wrote Mary after the failure. “I know they can regulate matters satisfactorily to themselves on paper. I wish they could do so in the field. No one wishes them more success than I do & would be happy to see them have full swing.”497
Lee pondered an offensive, but it was little more than a pipe dream. The turnpike remained in miserable shape. The hospitals in the rear were overflowing with sick soldiers. Adding insult, Richmond newspapers were printing details of what Lee had intended as a secret move!498
The Confederates withdrew from Sewell Mountain. General Loring's division returned to the Huntersville line. Lee's effort to reclaim Western Virginia was over.
Lee announced his impending departure and directed that future operations be governed by General Floyd's own “good judgment.” But Floyd's judgment was clouded by politics. Hoping to bolster his reputation, Floyd marched on the Federals at Gauley Bridge with about four thousand men. By the first of November, he had placed light artillery on an eminence known as Cotton Hill and began annoying Rosecrans's camps below. The demonstration proved far “more noisy than dangerous.” Learning that Rosecrans had sent detachments to entrap him, Floyd decamped on November 12 and fled back across the Alleghenies.499
General Robert E. Lee left the mountains on October 30, 1861. His failure was complete; six days prior, the people of Western Virginia had approved an ordinance to form a new state, one loyal to the Union. Accompanying Lee on the ride east was Walter Taylor, his lone surviving aide. A new beard framed Lee's tired f
ace. The arduous days of reconnaissance and nights away from headquarters had caused him to give up shaving. Appropriately, his beard came out Confederate gray. To the youthful troops, it gave Lee the look of a patriarch. He would retain it for life, a memento of opportunity lost.500
Lee's musings on that lonely ride must have turned to a new warhorse. Neither of the mounts he rode in Western Virginia, “Richmond,” a bay stallion, nor another called the “Brown Roan,” suited him completely. But on Sewell Mountain, a striking four-year-old thoroughbred had caught Lee's eye. The general, a lover of horses, marveled at its proportions. Sixteen hands high, it was iron gray in color with a black mane and tail. Strong, spirited, and bold of carriage, this horse required neither whip nor spur to maintain a rapid “buck-trot.” Lee was instantly taken in. “Such a picture would inspire a poet,” he trilled.
The horse, originally named “Jeff Davis,” came from a farm near Blue Sulphur Springs and had garnered two first prizes at the Greenbrier County fair. Major Thomas Broun of the Wise Legion had purchased him in the fall of 1861. General Lee encountered Broun's brother Joseph on the horse at Sewell Mountain, often stopping to admire the animal. Lee began to call him “my colt,” hinting that he would be needed before the war was over. Four months later, near Pocataligo, South Carolina, he secured Broun's horse for $200. Impressed by the handsome thoroughbred's ability to cover long distances, Lee gave him the name “Traveller.”501
Lee left Western Virginia under a shadow of disgrace, his military reputation badly tarnished. Critics pronounced him outwitted and outgeneraled. They failed to understand the difficulties, the measles and mud, or the recalcitrant commanders. Learned men shook their heads and said that Lee had been overrated as a soldier, that he relied on a showy presence and an historic name, that he was “too tender of blood.” Lee erred on the “engineer side of a military question,” they feared, “preferring rather to dig entrenchments than to fight.”502
“Poor Lee!” railed a columnist in the Charleston Mercury. “Rosecrans has fooled him again…. The people are getting mighty sick of this dilly-dally, dirt digging, scientific warfare; so much so that they will demand that the Great Entrencher be brought back and permitted to pay court to the ladies.” They called him “Granny Lee.”503
Lee did not respond to the critics. Upon his return to Richmond, President Davis received him warmly, one of the few who retained full confidence in his ability. “He came back,” Davis recalled, “carrying the heavy weight of defeat, and unappreciated by the people whom he served, for they could not know, as I knew, that, if his plans and orders had been carried out, the result would have been victory rather than defeat.”504
Before the general could reunite with Mary and the girls, he received a new assignment. A fleet of Federal warships threatened the southeastern states; Lee was to supervise coastal defenses in South Carolina, Georgia, and east Florida. His reputation had suffered so that President Davis was forced to send a letter to the governor of South Carolina on Lee's departure, informing him “what manner of man he was.”505
Nature bathed the Allegheny Mountains in a spectacular display of autumn hues in 1861. “The beech and maples…touched by the heavy frosts shone with their gold and scarlet, rendering the landscape a scene of most perfect beauty,” wrote a member of the Fourteenth Indiana during the month of October. Another spellbound soldier declared, “The surrounding mountains, always a grand and imposing sight, are now picturesque in the extreme.”506
That panoply of colors proved bittersweet for the Union spies Fletcher and Clark. The two had offered scant information to their Confederate captors. Imprisoned in a tent at Huntersville, they received little food or water, and no blankets or straw for bedding. Each night they were tied snugly to prevent escape. Both suffered miserably from “camp diarrhea.”
One day, a Confederate chaplain appeared at the tent to inquire on the prisoners' spiritual state. He asked if they were “prepared to die.” Fletcher was then led away and grilled by Squire Skeen, a local prosecutor. Two men wrote down his answers. Most of the questions concerned Clark, a native Virginian whom it was feared could do great harm to the Confederate cause.
Night came on before Fletcher returned to the tent. Clark listened anxiously to his description of the examination. The two men stared out as a full moon rolled over the mountains, bathing the valley in a mournful glow.
“They are going to kill us, Fletcher—me, at any rate.”
“Oh, no! Don't get gloomy; they will not dare kill us.”
While they talked, Confederate General Donelson and staff rode to the tent. The two prisoners were brought out and led to a large field beyond the camp. A crowd of men followed them until restrained by the guards.
Clark and Fletcher were halted in the field. The officers stood fifty paces off, apparently deep in consultation. The tread of boots was heard; a squad of riflemen filed into place, their bayonets glittering in the moonlight.
Fletcher paled. Every sound was so cold and cheerless.
“Prisoners,” interrupted a Confederate colonel, “if you have anything to say, you must say it now, as you will never have another opportunity. You must hold all conversation in the presence of these officers.”
Fletcher swallowed hard and turned to his friend. “Well, Clark, I am sorry to part with one who became a prisoner to save my life. Your life as a prisoner, under all your trials and fortunes, has shown you to be ever the same brave, unwavering, honorable man. Whatever may be our future, I respect and love you. We shall meet again, but until then good-bye.”
Clark responded: “Fletcher, I am not sorry that I gave myself up to save you. I feel that you are a true man. If you ever get home, see my wife and children; tell her to do for them as I intended to do. I am not afraid to die for my country. This is all I wish to say.”
Interminable silence followed. The seconds ticked by like hours. The spies stood alone in the darkness. The squad of riflemen were poised for their orders.
“Return these men to separate quarters,” rasped General Donelson, “and do not permit them to speak to each other.” Fletcher concluded that the whole stunt was “foolery,” aimed to get each man to condemn the other.
In the morning, Clark was bound to a horse and led away. A feeling of grim resolve rose within Fletcher's breast. With Clark gone, there was nothing to keep him a prisoner but the guns. Fletcher made up his mind to escape.507
One stormy night, Fletcher slipped out of his irons, crawled out of the back of his tent, and struck into the hills. His destination was the Union fortress on Cheat Mountain, and he had saved enough fat pork for a journey of four days. The intense darkness, steep ledges, and tangled laurel brakes hampered his escape.
Signal shots echoed from the distant camp; Fletcher's absence had been discovered. No pains would be spared to retake him. There could be no turning back. He had been warned that a speedy hanging would follow any escape attempt. Losing his way in the darkness time and again, Fletcher scrambled up the mountain as if in a “horrid nightmare.” When dawn broke, he crawled into a laurel thicket for sanctuary. Far below could be seen the Confederate camp, where mounted scouts dashed in every direction, some toward the very ridge upon which he hid.
At nightfall, Fletcher began anew. Cresting the ridge top, he descended to a brawling stream and followed its bed for perhaps two miles. “Halt, halt!” rang out from above, followed by two or three shots. Fletcher dashed up the stream like a madman. “Halt!” cried out a strong voice. “Halt!” A sentinel fired—so near that Fletcher could have touched the barrel of his gun. Climbing the rocky streambed like a staircase, Fletcher raced for his life, with the sentinel at his heels. In desperation, he turned and pounced, receiving the point of the sentinel's bayonet in his left hip. Falling to the water in agony, Fletcher was again a prisoner of war.508
This time he was taken to the county jail at Huntersville. “Well, you got de Yankee, did you?” exclaimed the wrinkled old jailer as Fletcher was carried into the two-sto
ry brick bastion. The jailer inserted his key into a padlock and opened a huge oak door covered with spikes. A second door, forged of iron crossbars, was revealed. “I hardly ever unlock this door, and it's mighty rusty,” he added while fumbling with the second lock. The iron door finally swung open, shrieking on its corroded hinges. Fletcher was shoved inside as it slammed shut.
His eyes gradually adjusted to a dank cell about fourteen feet long and twelve feet wide. Two small, double-grated windows allowed sparse light. The air was so foul that Fletcher laid upon the floor at night, his face pushed against a small crack at the bottom of the door.
Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided Page 22
