Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided
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124. Ben May to Brother Will, June 10, 1861, PC; Baxter, Gallant Fourteenth, 41; Worsham, One of Jackson's Foot Cavalry, 5; Rice, The Letters of John Barret Pendleton, 12.
125. Wiley, Billy Yank, 22; Cox, Military Reminiscences, 13; Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 39; Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 26.
126. Skidmore, The Alford Brothers, 23; Kepler, Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 28; Indianapolis Daily Journal, July 5, 1861 in Baxter, Hoosier Farm Boy in Lincoln's Army, 16.
127. Sears, George B. McClellan, 71; Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 25.
Chapter 5. McClellan Eyes Virginia
128. Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Volunteers, 18–22; Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 234–35, 320.
129. Frothingham, Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. B.F. Kelley, 3–4, 6–8; Strother, Personal Reminiscences, 347; Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 320, 323.
130. Poe, Personal Reminiscences of the Civil War, 3 ; O.R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 109; Callahan, Semi-Centennial History, 120; Diary of Charles L. Campbell in Price, On To Grafton, 50.
131. Cammack, Personal Recollections, 19; Price, On To Grafton, 11; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 27–28.
132. O. R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 109; Powell, “Beginning of the Civil War in West Virginia,” 201; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 29, 49–50; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 18–19; Brinkman, “The War Diary of Fabricus A. Cather,” 94.
133. Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 50; Powell, “Beginning of the Civil War in West Virginia,” 200; Murray, “First Soldier Killed in the War,” 494; J. Slidell Brown, “Bailey Brown: The First Victim of the Great Rebellion,” The West Virginia Argus, vol. 33 (May 5, 1904): 1–6, typescript, Stutler Collection, WVSA; Poe, Personal Reminiscences of the Civil War, 4 ; Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 211. Bailey Brown was enrolled as a member of the Grafton Guards by May 20, 1861; his comrades were mustered into U.S. service at Wheeling on May 25 as Company B, Second (U.S.) Virginia Infantry. Unlike the Federal troops killed on April 19 by a Baltimore mob, Brown was killed by an officially mustered Confederate—Daniel W.S. Knight of Company A, Twenty-fifth Virginia Infantry. Bailey Brown was buried near Flemington, exhumed in 1903, and reburied at Grafton National Cemetery.
134. Moore, A Banner in the Hills, 63; Bird, Narrative of Two Perilous Adventures, 9–11; Curry, A House Divided, 48, 141–43, 163n. Consensus placed results of the Ordinance of Secession in Western Virginia at 44,000 against to 4,000 in favor. However, scholar Richard Curry has documented that the vote in Western Virginia counties was no greater than 34,000-19,000 against secession. By his tally, some 40 percent of the voters and fully half of the counties later encompassed by the state of West Virginia had supported the Confederacy in 1861.
135. Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 29, 50; O. R. vol. 51, pt. 2, 109. The Confederates occupied Grafton on May 25, 1861, not on May 26 as reported by Lt. Colonel Jonathan Heck in O. R. vol. 2, 254. See also O . R . vol. 51, pt. 2, 109, and Price, On To Grafton, 37.
136. Ambler, Francis H. Pierpont, 410–12; Siviter, Recollections of War and Peace, 52–53; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 13–14.
137. O. R. vol. 2, 648; Sears, The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, 24. In his memoirs, General McClellan insisted: “My movements in West Virginia were, from first to last, undertaken upon my own authority and of my own volition, and without any advice, orders, or instructions from Washington or elsewhere.” Delay in his receipt of orders from the War Department may have prompted that assessment. See also McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, 50, and Sears, The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan, 19.
138. Reid, Ohio in the War, vol. 1, 49; O. R. vol. 2, 51–52; Richmond Daily Examiner, June 11, 1861 in Summers, The Baltimore and Ohio, 242.
139. O. R. vol. 2, 44–47; McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns, 14–15.
140. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, 50; Cox, “McClellan in West Virginia,” 135.
141. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns, 16–17.
142. Ibid., 15–16.
143. Ibid., 16–17; Sears, George B. McClellan, 79–80.
144. O. R. ser. 1, vol. 2, 45; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, May 28, 1861; Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Infantry, 22–23; Carnes, The Tygarts Valley Line, 45; Leib, Nine Months in the Quartermaster's Department, 9.
145. Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, May 29, 1861 in Moore, The Rebellion Record, vol. 1, 296–298; Summers, The Baltimore and Ohio, 73; O. R. vol. 2, 45, 49; Lieb, Nine Months in the Quartermaster's Department, 10.
146. O.R. vol. 2, 49, 51–52; McClellan, Report on the Organization, 17. On the morning of May 28, 1861, members of the Second (U.S.) Virginia Infantry under Lieutenant Oliver West clashed with Confederate militia under Captain Christian Roberts at a point midway between Wheeling and Grafton known as Glovers Gap. Fellow Virginians killed Captain Roberts—reputedly the first armed Confederate officer to fall in action. However, Roberts may not have been formally enrolled. See Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 42; Leib, Nine Months in the Quartermaster's Department, 10–11; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, May 30, 1861 in Fansler, History of Tucker County, West Virginia, 141.
147. O. R. vol. 2, 47; Summers, The Baltimore and Ohio, 74–76; J.B. Steedman to F. W. Lander, Lander Papers, LC; F. W. Lander to G.B. McClellan, June 8, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC.
148. O. R. vol. 2, 50, 655–56.
Chapter 6. The Philippi Races
149. Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 19; Dayton, “The Beginning—Philippi, 1861,” 254–56; Woods, “The First Inland Battle of the Civil War,” 7. Philippi (pronounced Fill'-li-pee) was originally named “Philippa.” Due to misspellings and confusion with the ancient Macedonian city of “Philippi,” the later name has taken hold. See Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 279.
150. Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 277–78; Carnes, Centennial History of the Philippi Covered Bridge, 36–38; Dayton, “The Beginning—Philippi, 1861,” 256.
151. Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 245; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 19.
152. “Proclamation of Col. Porterfield,” Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 324–25; Hornbeck, Upshur Brothers, 9.
153. Ibid., 9; Phillips, “History of Valley Furnace,” IV, V; Poe, Personal Reminiscences, 3; Stewart, “First Infantry Fight of the War,” 500; O. R. 1, vol. 2, 52.
154. Poe, Personal Reminiscences, 4–5; O. R. vol. 2, 72.
155. Statement of Colonel Porterfield, Haselberger, Yanks From the South!, 291; Statement of J.B. Moomau, Ibid., 280; Phillips, “History of Valley Furnace,” IV, V.
156. Ibid.; Price, On To Grafton, 9; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 20.
157. O. R. vol. 2, 66; Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 28; Boatner, Civil War Dictionary, 569; Obituary of Thomas Morris, Indianapolis News, March 24, 1904, Stutler Collection, WVSA.
158. O. R. vol. 2, 66; Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Infantry, 24.
159. Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 25; Beatty, The Citizen-Soldier, 90; O. R. vol. 2, 66–67; Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Infantry, 24. Rawling lists the Federal marching distances as twenty-two miles for Col. Kelley, twelve for Col. Dumont.
160. Thomson, Narrative of the Service of the Seventh Indiana Infantry, 20–21; Grayson, History of the Sixth Indiana Regiment, 22; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 16; F. W. Lander to GBM, June 8, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC.
161. Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, July 19, 1861; Statement of Jonathan H. Haymond, Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 290–91; J.E. Hanger, Record of Services, Stutler Collection, WVSA.
162. Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 268, 275, 279, 287, 291; O. R. vol. 2, 72–74.
163. G.A. Porterfield to Hu Maxwell, August 12, 1899 in Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 250; Price, On To Grafton, 22; Carnes, The Tygarts Valley Line, 42.
164. O. R. vol. 2, 67; F. W. Lander to GBM, June 8, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC; Ecelbarger, Frederick W. Lander, 1–2, 19–21, 33, 60; Warner, Generals In Blue, 274–275; Headley, Massachusetts in the Rebellion, 619–620, 629.
165. Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, 45; Carnes, The Tygarts Valley Line, 45; Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 71–72; Dayton, “The Beginning—Philippi, 1861,” 260.
166. Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 334; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, June 6, 1861.
167. Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 255–56n; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 16–17; J.E. Hanger, Record of Services, Stutler Collection, WVSA; F. W. Lander to GBM, June 8, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC. Some accounts claim that Mrs. Humphreys fired at Colonel Lander himself, see Stevenson, Indiana's Roll of Honor, vol. 1, 44 and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 22, 1861.
168. Statement of Lewis Fahrion, May 17, 1928, PC; Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 334–35; Merrill, The Soldier of Indiana, 31; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 17.
169. Hall, The Diary of a Confederate Soldier, 13; Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 256n.
170. G.A. Porterfield to Hu Maxwell, August 12, 1899 in Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 251; Statement of Daniel A. Stofer in Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 276; “Active Service; or, Campaigning in Western Virginia,” 334; Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 38.
171. Kemper, “The Battle of Philippi,” 5; Skidmore, The Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 38; Leib, Nine Months in the Quartermaster's Department, 15–16; Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 334; Price, On To Grafton, 21.
172. Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, August 10, 1906 in Hall, Lee's Invasion of Northwestern Virginia, 54; Statement of W. D. Hogshead in Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 286.
173. Kemper, “The Seventh Regiment,” 123–24; Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 2, Rumors and Incidents, 82; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 29, 1861, 102–03.
174. O. R. vol. 2, 67–68; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, June 6, 1861; F. W. Lander to GBM, June 8, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC; Hall, Lee's Invasion of Northwestern Virginia, 56; Stewart, “Battle of Philippi Recounted,” 117–18. See also Haselberger, Yanks From the South!, 72–73 and Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 257n for discussion on the circumstances of Colonel Kelley's wounding.
175. O. R. vol. 2, 66–67; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 21.
176. Ibid., 21; Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 251; Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 2, Rumors and Incidents, 82; Statement of Daniel A. Stofer in Haselberger, Yanks From The South!, 278; Stewart, “Battle of Philippi Recounted,” 118.
177. Kemper, “Seventh Regiment,” 124; Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents 334; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 19; Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 2, Rumors and Incidents, 82. The term “skedaddle” was soon in common use by Indiana troops at Laurel Hill, see Hannaford, The Story of a Regiment, 547.
178. Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents 334; Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 256; Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Infantry, 27; Carnes, The Tygarts Valley Line, 55. Private Charles Degner, Company I, Seventh Indiana Volunteers, never reached the battlefield. While crossing a foot-log over a small stream during the night march, Degner lost his balance and accidentally shot himself in the thigh, reportedly dying two days later. See also Fansler, History of Tucker County, 147n and Skidmore, Civil War Journal of Billy Davis, 37. Thomson, Seventh Indiana Infantry, 37, reports that Degner was killed on June 15, “while scouting.”
179. O. R. vol. 2, 67–68; Price, On To Grafton, 23; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, June 6, 1861; Rawling, History of the First Regiment Virginia Infantry, 234–35, 237–38. The wounded Federals were all members of the First (U.S.) Virginia Infantry.
180. Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 335; San Francisco Examiner, July 19, 1891 in Morris, Ambrose Bierce, 26; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer June 6, 1861; Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 321; The New York Herald, June 4, 1861; O. R. vol. 2, 65.
181. J.E. Hanger, Record of Services, Stutler Collection, WVSA; Carnes, J.E. Hanger; Letter of D.H. Mugridge, November 2, 1960, Stutler Collection, WVSA.
182. Irons, “History of a Noted Physician,” 28–29; Carnes, J.E. Hanger.
183. Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, June 6, 1861; Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 2, Rumors and Incidents, 82; Dayton, “The Beginning—Philippi, 1861,” 265; Carnes, The Tygarts Valley Line, 50–51.
184. Maxwell, History of Barbour County, 259n; Colonel Ebenezer Dumont, Official Report, June 4, 1861 in Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. 1, Documents, 335; O. R. vol. 2, 71.
185. Ibid., 65; Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 321; The New York Herald, June 4, 1861; W.S. Rosecrans to GBM, June 5, 1861, McClellan Papers, LC.
186. Lang, Loyal West Virginia, 142–43.
187. Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 18–20; Kemper, “The Battle of Philippi,” 6, 13.
Chapter 7. Let This Line be Drawn Between Us
188. McClellan, Report on the Organization, 18–19; O . R. vol. 2, 673–74; O . R. ser. 1 vol. 51, pt. 1, 393–94; Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 22–23.
189. Dewitt C. Howard to P.S. Bishop, August 2, 1861, PC; Monfort, “From Grafton to McDowell Through Tygart's Valley,” 3.
190. Neal, Life of Ambrose Bierce, 33, 35, 37, 53–55; Bierce, Ambrose Bierce's Civil War , 4.
191. Brigham, “The Civil War Journal of William B. Fletcher,” 51–52, 64. Neatly written in one corner of the apron received by Dr. Fletcher was “Abbie Fleming, Flemington, Taylor, Co. Va.”
192. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 77, 79–80, 93, 155. It is interesting to note that eighteen counties embracing more than one third of present-day West Virginia were not represented at this convention; see also Ambler, Francis H. Pierpont, 96.
193. Reid, “Agate” Dispatches, 13.
194. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 81–82, 155; Ambler, Waitman Thomas Willey, 49, 56n. Waitman Willey's stepmother died on June 17, 1861, and his father passed just five days later at the home of Col. William J. “Bridge-burner” Willey in Farmington.
195. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 84, 159–70; McGregor, Disruption, 209; Hall, The Rending of Virginia, 351.
196. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 85, 92–93, 171–73.
197. Ibid., 106–10, 125.
198. Ibid., 115, 159–70.
199. Ibid., 134–35, 138; Hall, The Rending of Virginia, 331.
200. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 139n; Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 17; O. R. ser. 1, vol. 2, 713.
201. Reader, History of the Fifth West Virginia Cavalry, 17–18; Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, July 3, 1861; Hall, The Rending of Virginia, 343; Lewis, Second Biennial Report, 190; Moore, A Banner in the Hills, 85. An additional sum of $200,000 for Pierpont's government was appropriated by the Lincoln administration; see also Curry, A House Divided, 166.
202. Hall, The Rending of Virginia, 335; Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made, 183.
203. O. R. vol. 2, 723–24.
Chapter 8. A Dreary-Hearted General
204. O. R. vol. 2, 69–70; Arnold, “Battle of Rich Mountain,” 46; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 21.
205. O. R. vol. 2, 72–74. A transcript of Colonel Porterfield's Court of Inquiry is published in Haselberger, Yanks From the South!, 267–94.
206. Ibid., 911–12; Taylor, Four Years, 13, 15; Freeman, R.E. Lee, vol. 1, 518.
207. Moore, Rebellion Record, Documents, 290, 295.
208. Guie, Bugles in the Valley, 124–25, 149–54; Cullum, Biographical Register, 93; Special Orders No. 132. Adjutant General's Office, September 3, 1852, MC; Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie,
126.
209. Taylor, Four Years, 13; Alexander, Military Memoirs, 14; Guie, Bugles in the Valley, 126; O. R. ser. 1, vol. 2, 72, 915; Chesnut, Diary from Dixie, 126.
210. O. R. vol. 2, 236;Warner, Generals In Gray, 153; Armstrong, 25 Virginia Infantry, 7. Colonel William L. Jackson was a second cousin of “Stonewall” Jackson.
211. O. R. vol. 2, 237–39, 255, 930–31; J.M. Heck to M.G. Harman, July 2, 1861 in The Staunton Spectator, July 1861. Captain James Corley, Garnett's West Point-trained adjutant, and later chief quartermaster for Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, selected the position for Camp Garnett.
212. O. R. vol. 2, 238; Cammack, Personal Recollections, 23–24; Ashcraft, 31 Virginia Infantry, 121.
213. Rice, “The Letters of John Barret Pendleton,” 16; Taliaferro, “Annals of the War,” 7 ; O. R. vol. 2, 239–42.