Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (35 page)

The night was dank and misty. Tall spruces overhanging the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike cast intense darkness upon the line of march. The troops were ordered to be silent; only the measured tramp, tramp, tramp of boots filled the night air. Suddenly, the cry of an owl reverberated from the forest: “Hoo! Hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo!” Another feathered lookout picked up the call. Then another, and another, until the sound gradually died away in the direction of the Rebel camp. Many of the Federals were seized by terror—convinced that “cunning mountaineers” uttered those doleful notes to warn of their approach.
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It was the rumble of rolling artillery and caissons, not the hooting of owls, that alerted Confederate pickets to the enemy. Near dawn, at the bridge over West Fork Greenbrier River, they shot down two Federal soldiers before the Ninth Indiana Infantry fired a volley that put them to flight. The pickets retreated to a guard station about one mile in front of Camp Bartow and sounded the alarm.
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Here Colonel Edward Johnson of the Twelfth Georgia Infantry chose to make a stand. Virginia-born, forty-five years old, a West Point graduate, and decorated veteran of the Seminole and Mexican Wars, Ed Johnson was a man of “undoubted courage.” He was a rigid disciplinarian, irascible and profane, a real “bulldog” in combat. “His manner of fighting was like his speech,” thought one Confederate, “no circumvention, no flank movements, no maneuvering for position, no delay—in short, he seemed opposed to taking what might be considered any undue advantage of the enemy.”

Despite his brusque demeanor, this ruddy-faced bachelor was something of a ladies' man. Johnson had suffered a wound in the Mexican War that caused an incessant wink and twitch of the lip when aroused. His head was strangely cone-shaped, not unlike an old-fashioned beehive. “There are three tiers to it,” bubbled Richmond socialite Mary Chesnut. “It is like the Pope's tiara!”
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Colonel Johnson was no holy pontiff. He cursed the frightened pickets as “low grade” cowards and soon had them posted along a wooded mountain spur, part of a force of one hundred Confederates to meet the advancing foe. Around 7 A.M., the colonel began a spirited fight. Johnson stalled the attackers for nearly an hour until finally driven back—getting his horse shot out from under him in the process.
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From the parapets of Camp Bartow, Confederates cheered him as they prepared for battle. But Captain Henry Sturm's “Mountain Guards,” Thirty-first Virginia Infantry, were slow getting into the trenches—their sixty-seven-year-old captain had misplaced his boots! Finally, the missing footgear was uncovered; the veins of Captain Sturm's neck bulged as he strained to pull them on.

“Where is my gun?” hollered Sturm, a veteran of the War of 1812. One of the boys handed over an ancient, long-barreled mountain rifle.

“By hell I want my tackle,” the aged captain barked. Another soldier produced the old-fashioned powder horn and shot pouch.

Captain Sturm commenced to load in a series of jerks. With his rifle charged and primed, the captain dipped a hand into one pants pocket, then the other, patted his vest and coat in vain. A perplexed look came over his face.

“Where's my specks?”

One of his boys produced the glasses. The venerable patriarch led his tribe willy-nilly toward headquarters. “Captain Sturm, get your men in order,” yelled a scowling colonel.

“I'm no drill man,” Sturm replied, “but I know how to use this feller,” giving his old rifle a pat.
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That spirit was welcomed—the Confederates were badly outnumbered. General Jackson had only eighteen hundred men to contest the five thousand under Union General Reynolds. Deploying his regiments of Virginia, Georgia, and Arkansas infantry in the trenches, Jackson looked to batteries of Virginia artillery under Captains Pierce Anderson, William Rice, and Lindsey Shumaker to blunt the Federal assault.
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The defenders overlooked a broad meadow, framed by wooded ridges in splendid autumn foliage. Birds were singing; a welcome sun had just illuminated the horizon. One witness described the scene as reminiscent of an “immense floral wreath.” It was an unlikely setting for what followed.

Federal troops sprinted across the meadow. Behind them, the guns of Captain C.O. Loomis's First Michigan Light Artillery wheeled smartly into line. Loomis, a skilled artillerist, had been awarded six of the first rifled Parrott guns shipped to the U.S. Army. Rifling, or grooves inside the bore, imparted greater accuracy. The Parrott threw a ten-pound projectile—with those new guns Captain Loomis bragged his crews could “hit a hogshead” at more than a mile.
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Captain Albion Howe's battery of the Fourth U.S. Artillery and one gun of Captain Philip Daum's First (U.S.) Virginia Light Artillery dashed forward and unlimbered their guns within eight hundred yards of the enemy camp. Captain Loomis placed his long-range guns between them, behind an orchard, and opened fire. One of Captain Shumaker's cannons promptly answered with a roar. A ball whistled over the Federal guns, striking the ground within ten feet of General Reynolds.

By 8 A.M., a lively artillery duel began. Thirteen Federal guns poured a tornado of shot and shell into Camp Bartow. From the hills behind Travellers Repose, six Confederate six-pounders replied. One of those, a rifled gun of Captain Shumaker's battery, was promptly taken out of action by a fouled ball. “They fired an average 4 rounds to our one,” noted a Georgian in the trenches.
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Huge billows of white smoke rolled from the cannon muzzles as the grim beat of war played out above Greenbrier River. “The ball was now opened,” wrote an Indiana soldier, “roar after [roar] in quick succession from the big guns on both sides—the storm of shot and shell traversing mid air not more than fifty feet from our heads, was at once terribly grand and terrific.” That noise was likened to “10,000 packs of fire-crackers set off [all] at once.”

The guns fired with extraordinary rapidity. “There was no cessation of the infernal roar of the artillery,” wrote a Union correspondent. “Sometimes a half-dozen of our pieces would send forth a simultaneous roar, making the earth tremble, and the return fire seemed spiteful as it whizzed the shot mostly over our heads.” Reports echoed back and forth against the ridges, making the duel of cannons in that little valley “ever memorable.”
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Projectiles arched through the sky and exploded in a shower of death, or smacked the earth and bored deep like “iron moles.” To escape them, Confederates huddled in the safety of their trenches. Federal soldiers laid flat behind rail fences. “The balls pass directly over us, bursted over us, and the fragments rattled like rain on our backs,” wrote a member of the Fourteenth Indiana, “some fell before us, ploughed great furrows in the earth and blinded us with
dirt.” The shells emitted a wicked hiss or buzzing noise in flight—green troops dodged wildly at the sound of their approach. Wrote a horrified observer: “Of all the infernal inventions of war, it is these shells. They tear men and horses to tatters in an instant, as they fall whizzing among them.”
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Around 9:30 A.M., the pace of fire slowed. Federal infantry advanced to test the left flank of Camp Bartow. On the wooded heights above, Colonel Albert Rust's Third Arkansas Regiment waited—eager to atone for their failure at Cheat Mountain. A crisp volley by the Razorbacks chased the Yankees back. Federal guns turned spitefully on Rust's position, throwing shot and shell toward the woods in a futile effort to drive him out.
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Soldiers gradually became conditioned to the bombardment. Some began to joke at their predicament. In one fence corner, men huddled in a lively game of cards. Elsewhere, tired Federals warmed by the rising sun actually fell asleep as they lay on the battlefield.
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But there was little rest when the iron messengers of death arrived. “I laid about 20 feet from one of Howe's men that was struck in the breast and tore all to pieces,” wrote a soldier of the Thirteenth Indiana, “2 or 3 minutes after 3 horses attached to one of the ‘caissons’ was killed. This made the ‘Boys’ open their eyes.” A Union cannoneer, hit beneath the left shoulder by a round shot, used his pocketknife to detach the remaining sliver of flesh connecting his mangled arm. “That is pretty well done,” he muttered, then picked up the bloody limb and walked to the rear.
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One shell landed in a chicken coop, exploding in a cloud of feathers. Another bounced wildly through Camp Bartow until it struck the end of a Virginian's musket, doubling it into the shape of a hoop. Another sputtering ball rolled into the crowded trenches—only to be thrown out by a heroic Confederate just before it exploded. A small kitten belonging to members of the Twenty-third Virginia Infantry seemed equally brave, scurrying back and forth on the parapet, oblivious to the storm of death. Whenever a ball kicked up the dirt nearby, the little feline gamboled about it in playful glee.
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At some point during the bombardment, a white flag appeared over Travellers Repose. Lacking a yellow flag to mark it as a hospital, a harried Confederate surgeon had unfurled it instead. When a messenger from General Reynolds rode forward to inquire if the Rebels meant to surrender, Colonel Ed Johnson dismissed him with the curt reply: “go back and shoot your d__n guns.”
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Those guns soon got the range of Confederate batteries. The artillerists were badly mauled, forcing Captain Shumaker to move his cannons after every third fire. Confederate gunners disabled Captain Daum's six-pounder—snapping the axle with a well-aimed, solid shot, but many had dropped out of the action with wounds. Federal troops picked up shells with uncut fuses—evidence that green hands were now working the guns. The fire slackened until only a single cannon answered the Union barrage. After nearly three hours of spirited fire, the bloodied Southerners wheeled their pieces behind the crests of hills to cool.
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A lull came over the battlefield. Grown tired of watching the artillery, Federal colonels urged General Reynolds to take the works by storm, which he refused to do. Orders were given instead to test the Confederate right flank. The Seventh, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Indiana and the Twenty-fourth Ohio Infantry regiments crossed the face of a wooded hill and closed upon the enemy.
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Watching from the heights of Camp Bartow, Captain Shumaker's grimy cannoneers swabbed and packed their guns. As Colonel Dumont's Seventh Indiana Infantry drew within range, Shumaker's guns punished them with lethal loads of canister. The Federals staggered. “Distinctly could their officers be heard, with words of mingled command, remonstrance, and entreaty, attempting to rally their battalions into line,” wrote General Jackson. Shumaker's artillery poured on a “perfect rain” of canister, shot, and shell as the Federals retreated in confusion.
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General Reynolds surveyed the battlefield from an eminence. “[W]e distinctly saw heavy re-enforcements of infantry and artillery while we were in front of the works,” he claimed. That infantry amounted to elements of a single Confederate regiment
(the Fifty-second Virginia Infantry), and the artillery probably one or more guns earlier taken to the rear for repairs. Fearing that he was greatly outnumbered, with his batteries dangerously low on ammunition, Reynolds broke off the engagement. By 1 P.M., the Federals loaded their ambulances with the dead and wounded and marched back to Cheat Mountain. Jackson's Confederates did not pursue them.
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The October 3, 1861, “engagement at Greenbrier River” was a severe test for both armies. In an eighteen-hour period, Federal troops had marched at least twenty-four miles and endured a four-and-one-half-hour cannonade. “I marched 30 miles,” wrote one exhausted volunteer, “went double quick four miles, fought six hours, was knocked down with a cannon ball, & all this without breakfast or dinner—enough to kill a mule.”
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Camp Bartow was riddled by the bombardment. “Hundreds of our tents are shot through and through with cannon balls,” wrote the Thirty-first Virginia's James Hall. Bursting shells set a number of tents ablaze, consuming the contents. Dead horses lay about. More than eleven hundred rounds of Federal artillery were thrown into Camp Bartow during the fight. Southern cannons also ran hot. “The gun just above me fired 85 times,” reckoned John Cammack, “and the reports were deafening.…My hearing was badly injured by the noise.”
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Both commanders imagined their shelling had generated large losses; Generals Reynolds and Jackson each pegged enemy casualties at three hundred or more. Yet the Federals reported a “surprisingly small” loss of eight killed and thirty-five wounded. Reynolds believed that “the proximity of our batteries to the intrenchments caus[ed] many shots to pass over us.” Thanks in large part to those earthworks, the Confederate casualties were also light—six killed, thirty-three wounded, and thirteen missing.
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The thirteen missing Confederates turned up as prisoners, one of them in amusing style. A member of the Fourteenth Indiana, Brown by name, encountered a man he assumed was from one of the Ohio regiments. The stranger, in turn, presumed that Brown
was a Confederate. Each wore the same color uniform; each felt so sure of the other's identity that neither thought of inquiring. As they walked together along the mountain slope, Federal soldiers appeared in the meadow below.