Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (20 page)

Headlines in the July 13
New York Herald
screamed, HIGHLY IMPORTANT NEWS FROMWESTERNVIRGINIA. DECISIVE BATTLE OF RICH MOUNTAIN. BRILLIANT UNION TRIUMPHS…MAJOR GENERAL MCCLELLAN HAS MADE EVERY HEART LEAP WITH JOY.

10,000 REBELS DEFEATED. THEY LOSE EVERYTHING. DEATH OF GENERAL GARNETT. THE REBELS ANNIHILATED, echoed the
New York Tribune.

The
Louisville Journal
called McClellan's campaign “a piece of finished military workmanship by a master hand.” The Rebels in Western Virginia hadn't a chance—they had been “McClellanized.”

“We like the works and ways of Gen. McClellan,” wrote Horace Greeley. “May his shadow never be less!” “Glorious isn't it!” exalted the
New York Times; “
We feel very proud of our wise and brave young Major-General. There is a future before him, if his life be spared, which he will make illustrious.” Banner columns hailed “Gen. McClellan, the Napoleon of the Present War.”

News of McClellan's deeds sparked “the wildest enthusiasm” in army camps around Washington. Congress passed a joint resolution praising the young major general for his “brilliant” victories. “You have the applause of all who are high in authority here,” confirmed Winfield Scott. Almost overnight, George McClellan became the North's first battlefield hero.
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Taking the home of a Beverly secessionist as headquarters, the “Young Napoleon” surveyed his domain. “Beverly is a quiet, old fashioned town in a lovely valley,” he informed Nelly, “a beautiful stream running by it. A perfectly pastoral scene such as the old painters dreamed of, but never realized. I half think I should be King of it.”
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A congratulatory address was published for the troops. It was vintage McClellan, straight from the master's gilded pen:

Soldiers of the Army of the West! I am more than satisfied with you. You have annihilated two armies, commanded by educated and experienced soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastness fortified at their leisure. You have taken five guns,
twelve colors, fifteen hundred stand of arms, one thousand prisoners, including more than forty officers—one of the two commanders of the rebels is a prisoner, the other lost his life on the field of battle.…You have proved that Union men, fighting for the preservation of our Government, are more than a match for our misguided and erring brethren; more than this, you have shown mercy to the vanquished.…

Soldiers! I have confidence in you, and I trust you have learned to confide in me…. I am proud to say that you have gained the highest reward that American troops can receive—the thanks of Congress and the applause of your fellow citizens.
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The troops were jubilant. “[W]e felt ready to meet all Secessia,” boasted an Ohio infantryman. “We have met the enemy and they are ours, except those that ran.” But the ninety-day volunteers, nearing the end of their enlistments, were determined to go home. Instructed to fill in Garnett's Laurel Hill earthworks before marching for the railroad, they leveled them like molehills. McClellan could not hide his disappointment. “I lose about 14 rgts now whose term of service is about expiring,” he wrote Nelly. The young general assured his wife that he was out of danger. “No possible chance of further fighting here at present,” he told her, “no one left to fight with.”
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The only action left in McClellan's department was on the Kanawha Valley front, more than 150 miles southwest. There, on July 11, Union General Jacob Cox had crossed the Ohio River at Point Pleasant and launched an invasion with three thousand troops. Stern-wheel steamers ferried much of Cox's army up the Kanawha River toward Charleston, sixty miles southeast. Bands struck up patriotic tunes as the paddle boats chugged upstream. Each new bend of the river opened a picturesque vista. Cox,
perched atop the pilothouse of his lead boat, called it “the very romance of campaigning.”

But the romance was short-lived. On July 17, outgunned Confederates under ex-Virginia governor Henry Wise battled Cox to a standoff at the mouth of Scary Creek. In the confusion, four high-ranking Federal officers fell into enemy hands. McClellan was infuriated at the news. “Cox checked on the Kanawha,” he wired the general-in-chief on July 19. “Has fought something between a victory & a defeat…. In heaven's name give me some General Officers who understand their profession…. Unless I command every picket & lead every column I cannot be sure of success.”
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“Cox lost more men in getting a detachment thrashed than I did in routing two armies,” McClellan informed Nelly. “The consequence is I shall move down with a heavy column to take Mr. Wise in rear & hope either to drive him out without a battle or to catch him with his whole force. It is absolutely necessary for me to go in person…. I don't feel sure that the men will fight very well under anyone but myself.”
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But developments back east intervened. A large Confederate army under General P.G.T. Beauregard had gathered at Manassas Junction, Virginia, just twenty-five miles southwest of Washington. That army now taunted the capital itself.

Northern politicians clamored for action, and the dramatic news from Western Virginia only increased their fervor. The daily masthead of Horace Greeley's influential
New York Tribune
screamed, FORWARD TO RICHMOND! FORWARD TO RICHMOND!

Facing pressure from President Lincoln and his own deadline of ninety-day enlistments, General Irvin McDowell led thirty-five thousand Federal troops toward the plains of Manassas. A throng of politicians and prominent citizens followed in carriages, loaded for a monster picnic. Everyone anticipated a grand spectacle—the battle to end the war.

McDowell's snail-like pace allowed General Joseph Johnston to rush nine thousand Confederate reinforcements from the Shenandoah Valley, swelling the Southern ranks to more than thirty
thousand. McDowell finally struck on July 21, and the two great armies dueled along a torpid little stream known as Bull Run. Just when Union victory appeared certain, a gallant stand on Henry Hill by McClellan's old classmate Tom Jackson turned the tide of battle. The Confederates won a great victory, and Jackson earned a nickname—“Stonewall.” By nightfall, panic-stricken Federal troops and picnickers scurried to the rear. Washington was in an uproar.
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The events at Manassas dashed expectations of a short, bloodless conflict. President Lincoln spent a nervous night at the White House listening to accounts of the disaster. At 1 A.M. on July 22, General-in-Chief Scott wired McClellan that McDowell's army was in full retreat. “A most unaccountable transformation into a mob of a finely-appointed and admirably-led army,” the elderly general reported grimly.

Washington seemed to be in peril. President Lincoln and his Cabinet members sought a new commander. At once, their heads cast to the Alleghenies and that “very God of war,” George Brinton McClellan. Who else could save the country now?

It was he who had rescued Western Virginia—bursting over the mountains like a comet, dazzling all with his brilliance. George McClellan had won the first Union victories of the war! True, those victories were small affairs, but embraced by the fates and McClellan's magic telegraph key, they would prove momentous. It was McClellan's destiny, after all—great deeds were expected of him.

On July 22, a message from Washington tapped over the telegraph receiver at McClellan's Beverly headquarters: “Circumstances make your presence here necessary. Charge Rosecrans or some other general with your present department and come hither without delay.”
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George McClellan was called to save the Union.

PART III

TEMPEST
ON THE
MOUNTAINTOPS

“
Fine place for an observatory, this Cheat Mountain summit.”

—“Prock,” Fourteenth Indiana Infantry

General McClellan's train to Washington became the chariot of a conquering hero. At Wheeling, he was reunited with Nelly and fêted by the Restored Government. A huge crowd serenaded him and cheered his every word. More than twenty thousand admirers hailed McClellan at Pittsburgh in “one of the grandest receptions ever given in the city.” Stops at Philadelphia and Baltimore brought more of the same—too much for the pregnant Nelly, who returned to Cincinnati.

On July 27, President Lincoln cheerfully received McClellan in Washington. “I find myself in a new & strange position here,” McClellan wrote Nelly that evening, “Presdt, Cabinet, Genl Scott & all deferring to me—by some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.” Noted Whitelaw Reid of all the fuss: “Never was a General more completely master of the situation.”
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McClellan left General William Rosecrans in charge of Western Virginia, with headquarters on the railroad at Clarksburg. Rosecrans had no easy task. The three-month volunteers were on their way home. Most of the veteran staff officers had followed their victorious chief to Washington. Only about half of McClellan's original force remained, some eleven thousand men.

Rumors abounded that the Rebels intended to reclaim Western Virginia. McClellan and General-in-Chief Scott cautioned Rosecrans that the threat was real. The Federals went on defense. Rosecrans was directed to fortify the turnpikes leading east.