Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (31 page)

On September 13, Generals Lee and Loring conferred in front of Camp Elkwater. Loring wished to storm the works, but Lee ruled out a frontal assault as too costly. Now that the enemy was fully aroused, Lee would probe his right flank—hoping to coax Reynolds out of his trenches.
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The mounted general cut a prominent figure at the head of his troops. Aides urged him to withdraw as Federal artillery opened fire. A shell howled across the contested valley and struck the ground nearly at his feet. Miraculously, it did not explode. Was the lucky horseman Lee? Federal gunners claimed so. Regardless, it
was a strange twist on a day known for misfortune—Friday the thirteenth.
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Fate would not be so kind to Lee's
aide-de-camp
, Lt. Colonel John Augustine Washington. Forty years of age, trim and courtly, he was the great-grandnephew of America's first president. Washington had inherited Mt. Vernon, the ancestral estate. Yet he lacked financial means for its upkeep or to entertain the influx of visitors and curiosity seekers. Facing bankruptcy, he had sold out to the Mt. Vernon Ladies Association of the Union in 1859 and moved to Waveland in Fauquier County, Virginia. Washington's wife died not long after, leaving seven young children.

Critics decried the sale of Mt. Vernon and blasted Washington as a vile speculator in his ancestor's legacy. His decision to take up arms for Virginia proved equally unpopular. The chestnut-haired Washington became “Chief of Staff” to his kinsman, Robert E. Lee. Morning and evening found him at prayer in the tent shared with Lee and Walter Taylor at Valley Mountain. He read the Bible in spare moments or used it to press wildflowers for his beloved daughters.
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On that Friday the thirteenth of September 1861, Colonel Washington joined Rooney Lee's cavalry battalion on a reconnaissance. From a tall hill overlooking the enemy right flank, they spied a vidette, or mounted rifleman, near the mouth of Elkwater Fork. Rooney Lee studied the ground for some minutes before declaring the mission complete. But Colonel Washington dared him on. “Let us ride down and capture that fellow on the gray horse,” he urged. Young Lee consented. Joined by a pair of escorts, he and Washington spurred their mounts down the little valley toward their quarry.

Federal scouts were at that moment prowling a wooded hillside just above the mouth of Elkwater Fork. Led by Sergeant John Weiler of the Seventeenth Indiana Infantry, the small party heard galloping horses below, spotting the riders as they wheeled past a fallen tree. Weiler's men recognized the white badge on Colonel Washington's cap as that of the enemy, raised their guns, and fired.

Colonel Washington toppled from his bay charger, struck in the back by three balls. Rooney Lee's horse crumpled to the ground. Unscathed, young Lee sprang to his feet and raced up Elkwater Fork, using the bank as cover until he leaped onto Washington's mount and made his escape.
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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.
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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…”
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“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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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“
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.
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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 whether to obey your very preemptory orders of to-day or not.”
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