Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (27 page)

“
Old Governor Wise, with his goggle eyes.”

—A popular Federal tune

His face was deeply chiseled. His hair was long, thick, and nearly white. His eyes bulged with fierce intensity. His form was trim and active. His style was charismatic, rash, and independent. His name was Henry Alexander Wise.

Wise was born a Virginian in 1806, native of Accomac County. He could swagger; he could bully; he was not averse to a duel. He had been a lawyer, Congressman, foreign minister and governor of Virginia (1856–60). He was a champion of Southern rights—he had sent John Brown to the gallows and been the linchpin of Virginia secession.

Governor Henry Wise had earned the respect of Virginia's western counties, and President Davis commissioned him a brigadier general in the hope that his influence could rally wavering secessionists in the Kanawha Valley. During June–July 1861, he patched together an independent body of Confederate infantry, cavalry, and artillery known as the “Wise Legion.” His force, coupled with local militia, totaled about 3,500 men.

With a few notable exceptions, the Wise Legion was poorly armed and equipped. The ex-governor, however, was not troubled in the least. A recruiting advertisement in the
Richmond Enquirer
boasted that no long-range arms (rifles) would be needed, as “Gov. Wise is not the man to stand at longrange.”
³⁹⁸

On July 17, General Wise backed up his bluster at Scary Creek with a victory of sorts. But he was soon overwhelmed by Federal troops under General Jacob Cox and fled the Kanawha Valley by the end of the month. The ex-governor justified his move in a letter to General Lee: “The Kanawha Valley is wholly disaffected and traitorous. It was gone from Charleston down to Point Pleasant before I got there.…I have fallen back not a minute too soon.” It was not a retreat, Wise informed his troops, only a “retrograde movement.”
³⁹⁹

Wise and his legion regrouped at White Sulphur Springs on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, more than sixty miles east of the enemy at Gauley Bridge—minus several hundred volunteers who had disappeared along the way. There he awaited the arrival of a rifle brigade from Covington led by John B. Floyd. Generals Wise and Floyd had orders to “cordially co-operate” in an effort to check Union General Cox's advance up the Kanawha River. Unfortunately for the Confederates, their union would be anything but cordial.
⁴⁰⁰

Wise and Floyd seemed to have much in common. John Buchanan Floyd was, like Henry Wise, in his fifty-fifth year of life. He too was a lawyer, former legislator, and Virginia governor (1849–1852). President James Buchanan had appointed him secretary of war in 1857, but Floyd resigned his post in December 1860 upon Buchanan's refusal to withdraw Federal troops from Fort Sumter. Floyd had been accused of stockpiling weapons in southern arsenals before his resignation. He was further sullied in a government bond scandal. As a result, he became known in the north as “Thieving Floyd.”

General Floyd hoped to extract a measure of revenge for the Northern charges, and carried no fewer than three newspaper
reporters on his staff. Like General Wise, he had been awarded a brigadier's star by President Davis for political, rather than military, prowess. Despite his former role as secretary of war, Floyd knew little of the art. His own inspector-general, the West Point–trained Henry Heth, claimed that Floyd “was as incapacitated for the work he had undertaken as I would have been to lead an Italian opera.”

General Floyd was headstrong and impetuous, much like General Wise. Worst of all, the two were ancient political rivals. Floyd, a native of southwestern Virginia, was said to be furious when he learned of Wise's mission. He began to curse his old nemesis: “G__d___ him, why does he come to
my country
? Why does he not stay in the east and defend
his own country
, Accomac and Southampton; there is where he belongs. I don't want the d____ rascal here, I will not stand it.”
⁴⁰¹

The two iron-willed ex-governors met at White Sulphur Springs on August 6 in a council of war. A few polite formalities were observed. And then General Wise grasped the back of a chair and began one of his famous “windbag” speeches. Wise reviewed the history of the country from its discovery, spanning the Revolution, the Mexican War, the cause of the present conflict, his march down the Kanawha, the affair at Scary Creek, and his so-called retrograde movement. The valedictory went on for nearly two hours.

General Floyd sat patiently, not uttering a word.

General Wise finally took a seat, and asked Floyd of his destination.

“Down that road,” Floyd replied, pointing to the route upon which Wise had retreated.

“What are you going to do, Floyd?”

“Fight,” snapped Floyd, intimating that Wise had failed to do just that.

General Wise began to quake with anger. “If a look could kill,” recalled Henry Heth, “Floyd would have been annihilated.”

Floyd's commission predated that of Wise by only a few days, yet as the senior officer he was dead set on asserting his authority.
But Wise was just as determined to retain the independent command given him by President Davis. A bitter feud was brewing in those mountains.
⁴⁰²

The relationship between these old rivals grew worse by the day. Even their military strategies clashed. Despite limited resources, Floyd sought to carry the war down the Kanawha Valley and into Ohio. Wise, in contrast, hoped to lure the Federals east, away from their supply line and into a trap deep within the Alleghenies.

On August 11, Floyd assumed command of the Confederate Army of Kanawha and prepared to move on General Cox's position at Gauley Bridge without delay. Wise, however, needed time to refit his worn-out legion. Sparks flew as the hotheaded generals parted without agreement. Wise petitioned General Lee to detach his command from Floyd's. Lee rejected the appeal, hoping to unite their forces for an offensive. Although rebuffed, Wise looked to Lee as his defender. Floyd, in turn, sought out President Davis for his own counsel. By the time Lee reached Western Virginia as a “coordinator,” his two generals had already drawn a line in the sand.

They refused to occupy the same camp. Wise and his tattered command remained at White Sulphur Springs, while Floyd marched fourteen miles west to Lewisburg. Their combined force was reportedly 5,500 men, but Floyd couldn't be sure of that—Wise refused to forward returns of his effective strength.
⁴⁰³

The two generals squared off like old gamecocks. When Floyd called for artillery, Wise sent a squad of demoralized gunners. Floyd retaliated by informing President Davis of the “great disorganization” in Wise's command. General Lee, preoccupied with the enemy seventy-five miles north at Valley Mountain, could only grit his teeth.

As Wise and Floyd quarreled, Federal troops began to move against them. Under orders from General Rosecrans, Colonel Erastus B. Tyler's Seventh Ohio Infantry marched south on the Weston-Gauley Bridge Turnpike to open a line of communication
with General Cox's Kanawha Brigade, then fortifying at Gauley Bridge. By August 15, Tyler reached a point near Summersville named (Kesslers) Cross Lanes, twenty miles northeast of Cox's position. The Weston-Gauley Bridge Turnpike intersected a road leading to the James River and Kanawha Turnpike at Cross Lanes, near an important Gauley River passage known as Carnifex Ferry.
⁴⁰⁴

Floyd's army was threatened by that move. Again he called on Wise for artillery. Wise dismissed the alarm. Floyd countered by ordering a regiment to join him at Meadow Bluff on the James River and Kanawha pike, but Wise argued the regiment could not move—had not Floyd himself criticized its state of “great dilapidation and destitution(!)”? In a third letter to his antagonist on August 13, Floyd instructed Wise to bring up his entire legion. Time was of the essence—the enemy was said to be only eighteen miles ahead. “I hope to see you early,” Floyd added in a bit of wishful thinking.

Instead, Wise took his case to General Lee, arguing that Floyd had no grounds to interfere. Lee made clear that Floyd was in command, but he also reminded Floyd of President Davis's intention that the Wise Legion be independent. The divided Confederate command structure in Western Virginia was becoming a nightmare.
⁴⁰⁵

General Wise ignored another direct order to come to Floyd's aid. Grudgingly, Wise forwarded a troop of cavalry. General Floyd's temper must have reached the boiling point when he discovered that the horsemen sent by his rival lacked one important detail: Wise had neglected to issue any ammunition.
⁴⁰⁶

Despite Lee's best long-distance effort, this spat was beyond mending. Wise groused to the secretary of war that Floyd was out to “destroy” his command. He refused to stand by and watch the Wise Legion being “torn to pieces by maladministration.” He alleged that Floyd plotted to sink him—the second in command—“even below his majors and captains.”
⁴⁰⁷

On August 15, General Wise ended his filibuster and marched west toward General Floyd's camp on Big Sewell Mountain. But
the petty bickering continued. Wise accused Floyd of meddling with his command; Floyd responded with less than the tact Lee had begged of him. In a scathing letter to President Davis, Floyd charged that Wise's “unwillingness to co-operate…is so great that it amounts…almost to open opposition.” Yet he admitted to no problem in handling his irascible second in command. “I know perfectly well how to enforce obedience,” Floyd avowed to the president, “and will, without the least hesitation, do it.”
⁴⁰⁸

Wise now began to harass the “other” foe. On August 20, his scouts dueled with Federal troops along the James River and Kanawha pike near Hawk's Nest. The commands of Wise and Floyd were “united,” more or less, at Dogwood Gap, just ten miles east of General Cox's position near Gauley Bridge. Yet even in the shadow of the enemy, those two rivals kept separate camps.

Learning of the retreat of Colonel Tyler from Cross Lanes, Floyd crossed the Gauley River at Carnifex Ferry on the night of August 21, seized high bluffs north of the stream, and began to fortify Camp Gauley. By occupying that strategic point, about eight miles below Summersville, he threatened either General Cox or Colonel Tyler on the Weston and Gauley Bridge road. Floyd began to smell blood, but could accomplish little without help from General Wise. Frustrated beyond measure at his rival's obstinacy, Floyd wrote to the Confederate secretary of war, offering to trade the Wise Legion for any “three good regiments.”
⁴⁰⁹

Wise complained to Lee of vacillating orders from Floyd, asserting that his nemesis was in danger of being trapped. “I am willing, anxious, to do and suffer anything for the cause I serve,” Wise pleaded, “but…I have not been treated with respect by General Floyd, and cooperation with him will be difficult and disagreeable, if not impossible.”

By this time, even Lee's proverbial patience must have neared the breaking point. “The Army of Kanawha is too small…to be divided,” he replied on August 27. “I beg, therefore, for the sake of the cause you have so much at heart, you will permit no division of sentiment or action to disturb its harmony or arrest its efficiency.”
⁴¹⁰

General Floyd, entrenched at Camp Gauley, was distracted by the Federals. Colonel Tyler's Seventh Ohio Infantry had reappeared at Cross Lanes, only three miles in Floyd's front. Tyler, an old Virginia fur trader who had earlier seized the gold from Weston's Exchange Bank, announced he was back to deal in “rebel skins.” He nearly lost his own hide, instead.

As the sun rose on August 26, Floyd surprised Tyler's men at breakfast. Driving the Buckeyes from hot meals, he routed them, killing or wounding about thirty and capturing more than one hundred. Floyd jubilantly notified Lee of his success. The envious General Wise informed the secretary of war that Floyd was recklessly exposed. Wise cautioned that his fellow general was too “elated” by victory to see the danger. He blamed it on Floyd's little success—that “battle of knives and forks at Cross Lanes.”
⁴¹¹

Wise could suffer his rival no longer. If forced to remain with Floyd's brigade, he warned Lee in dark tones, “we will unite in more wars than one.”
⁴¹²