The Battle of White Sulphur Springs (20 page)

As dusk fell, Averell's command moved out again, headed for the only bridge over the Greenbrier River, the Greenbrier Bridge (located at modern Marlinton—6.5 miles from Huntersville), where Colonel Thomas M. Harris and his 10
^th
West Virginia Infantry awaited their arrival with a herd of cattle and plenty of good fodder for the horses.
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“The powers of endurance of both men and horses were tried to the utmost,” recalled a captain of the 8
^th
West Virginia, “and during that night's march a number of our worn-down horses were abandoned and the exhausted men would sleep in their saddles.”
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With the infantry to protect them, the exhausted men and horses of the Fourth Separate Brigade bivouacked for the night.
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The 10
^th
West Virginia had captured a substantial herd of cattle, and they also had Averell's wagon trains with them, so the troopers enjoyed a good meal of fresh meat for the first time in days. “Here we enjoyed a good night's rest, and had such dreams as only tired soldiers can have.”
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Benjamin Ronk of Company I of the 8
^th
West Virginia arrived in Huntersville with his regiment. However, “on arriving here I was so worn out with the rheumatism I here got past riding and was put in a wagon and hauled to Beverly,” the exhausted man scrawled in his diary.
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Averell did not know it, but large contingents of Confederate troops were pursuing him. Colonel Milton J. Ferguson's cavalry brigade was on its way to Warm Springs from Staunton, and Brigadier General John D. Imboden's mounted brigade was trying to race Averell to Huntersville. However, Averell's lead was insurmountable, and Major General Sam Jones correctly predicted that Imboden would not get to Huntersville in time to intercept Averell. However, with some satisfaction, Jones noted that Averell's command “have been severely punished, and when they reach Beverly will not, I think, be fit for service for several weeks.”
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Mudwall Jackson's command nearly caught up to Averell at Huntersville. His advance guard probed at the Union defenses and “discovered the enemy there apparently intending to make a stand in supporting distance of the infantry regiment which had been left in their rear,” reported Jackson. Since it was dark, Jackson decided to bivouac near the ruins of Camp Northwest, and that decision allowed the Fourth Separate Brigade to slip from his fingers. When his troopers advanced on Huntersville the next morning, they overcame yet another barricade constructed by Averell's troopers only to learn that the blue-clad horse soldiers had already moved on.
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Colonel James M. Corns and his five companies of the 8
^th
Virginia Cavalry caught up to Jackson and his three hundred infantry, who were “very much broken down by the long march from Camp Northwest to Millborough and back to Huntersville.” Corns pressed on to Marlinboro but discovered that Averell's rear guard had left two hours earlier. With that, Corns gave up. “My command being in no condition to pursue, most of the horses being broken down and barefooted, I concluded to come back to camp through Pocahontas [County] by the way of Frankford.”
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Jackson made one last attempt to cut off Averell on August 30, but his command's mounts were too worn out to accomplish much. Only a small detachment of Arnett's 20
^th
Virginia Cavalry managed to catch up to Averell's column. Arnett blockaded the road and posted some of his men, who delayed and fired upon the Federals, but his force was too small to accomplish much more than that. Thus, the halfhearted Confederate pursuit ended in frustration. Jackson concluded his report of the raid by claiming, “Regretting that I did not accomplish more, but respectfully submitting that, with all the means and information before me, I accomplished all that was possible.”
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He ordered Jenkins's Brigade to march to and occupy McDowell, where the brigade's horses would find plenty of good grass for grazing.
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In addition, a new threat loomed. Jones learned that Major General Ambrose E. Burnside and his Ninth and Twenty-third Corps were advancing on Knoxville, Tennessee. Burnside's large army of twenty-one thousand men posed a far greater threat than did Averell's small, battered, retreating brigade. Jones had to deal with this new danger—and quickly.
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With that new, major hazard to contend with, Sam Jones called off the pursuit of Averell's command.

The Union horse soldiers were hungry and exhausted.
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After so many days on the march with little in the way of rations or forage, both men and horses were in bad shape and nearing the limits of their endurance. “We knew that Jones, with all the forces that he could raise, would follow in pursuit, and there was a probability that Imboden would try to cut off our retreat at the mouth of the Elkwater, but we were resolved to cut our way through,” recalled a West Virginian, contemplating the ordeal of the next day's march. The men grimly prepared to move out.
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The Union column moved out at 2:00 a.m. on August 30. At daylight, they encountered a barricade, half a mile long and constructed of felled trees across a road, in an effort to delay the Fourth Separate Brigade's advance long enough for Mudwall Jackson's cavalry to fall upon them.
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Averell detailed some of his command to attack the barricade with axes, while the rest of his brigade used the opportunity to feed their horses and to build their own strong blockade across their rear in case the Confederates persisted in trying to pursue them. It took about an hour to clear the barricade. They still had another sixty miles to go to reach safety at Beverly. After a long day's march, Averell and his command camped for the night about ten miles from their destination of Beverly.
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The Fourth Separate Brigade finally arrived at Beverly—the starting point of the raid—about 11:00 a.m. on August 31. After twenty-seven days in the saddle, the long raid was finally over.
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“I arrived at Beverly on August 31 with the rest of the brigade after a fatiguing march of 125 miles,” reported Colonel John Oley of the 8
^th
West Virginia.
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“Averell and his command, when last heard from, were 15 miles beyond Huntersville, going rapidly toward Beverly, followed by a few of Jackson's men, all infantry,” reported Sam Jones. “Cavalry support, which he met at Huntersville, will probably shield him from further punishment, unless Imboden intercepts him at Huntersville. I think the blow aimed at us from that direction, with Averell to direct it, has been very effectually parried,” he proudly declared.
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At the same time, Patton's critical defeat of Averell at White Sulphur Springs left the Fourth Separate Brigade “so crippled, it was believed, as to relieve any apprehension of danger from him for a month or two,” correctly noted Jones. The repulse of Averell's raid permitted Jones to turn to meet the threat posed by Burnside's
army
. Jones sent “a part of his troops to the defense of southwestern Virginia. [Brigadier General Gabriel C.] Wharton's brigade…was ordered to the vicinity of the salt works near Abingdon, and General Jones went to the latter place on September 6.”
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The defeat of Averell at White Sulphur Springs permitted Jones to shift his thinly stretched forces to meet threats.

In spite of being effectually parried, Averell still had every reason to be proud of his troopers, even though their mission to seize the law library had failed. They had spent twenty-seven days on the march, under fire of the enemy or in line of battle for fifteen of those days. They spent twelve of those twenty-seven days without food for men or horses and literally cut or fought their way through 150 miles of Virginia and West Virginia wilderness. The long, arduous raid had been quite an ordeal for both men and horses.
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“The command arrived at Beverly on August 31, having marched, since June 10, some 636 miles, exclusive of the distance passed over by railroad and of the marches made by detachments, which would increase the distance for the entire command to at least 1,000 miles,” proudly wrote William Woods Averell. “This command has been mounted, equipped, and drilled; has marched over 600 miles through a rugged mountainous region, fighting the enemy almost daily; had one severe battle; destroyed the camps of the enemy; captured large amounts of supplies and 266 prisoners, in less than eighty days.”
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8

An Assessment of the Battle of White Sulphur Springs

With the long raid finally over, Brigadier General William Woods Averell wrote a congratulatory order to his Fourth Separate Brigade. Each regiment got the same order, only altered for the specific regiment involved. This is the order to the 14
^th
Pennsylvania Cavalry:

The General commanding the Fourth Separate Brigade desires to express to the officers and men of the 14
^th
Pennsylvania Cavalry, who took part into the recent expedition into the country occupied by the enemy his high appreciation of the fortitude and gallantry you have displayed. You sought the enemy in his own stronghold, and drove him from confusion from his camp, destroying his military resources throughout a vast region. Relying upon co-operation of other forces which had been promised to you, but which did not come, you attacked superior forces of the enemy with an impetuosity which dislodged him from his first position, and success was dawning upon your arms when lack of ammunition obliged you to pause. Even then you stood fast witnessing the fall of many noble comrades with a fortitude that the reinforcements of the enemy could not disturb
.

When directed to withdraw you retired with the dignity of soldiers baffled, but not beaten. You have encountered cold and hunger, and the numerous shots of lurking cowards have been met with the indifference of tried courage. The combined efforts of the enemy failed to make you propose, or to prevent your return
.

Let the grief which fills our hearts for our fallen comrades and friends render them stout in a just cause. Prepare at once for greater undertakings
.
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Averell had every reason to be proud of these men, who had only been converted to cavalry a few months earlier and who had no prior experience with such a trying expedition.

“I could but admire the conduct of our men,” proudly echoed a captain of the 8
^th
West Virginia. “During the whole march I did not hear a single man grumble, and they were perfectly indifferent to the cowardly attacks of the bushwhackers, except some indignant expression of what they would like to do if they only had them in their power.”
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A member of the 3
^rd
West Virginia sounded a similar note. “We were not whipped, but held our ground until a lack of shooting material compelled us to retreat. If we had been supplied with ammunition, the victory would surely have been ours,” he declared. “The fault lies at some man's door, not with the brave soldiers who were in the fight.”
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Not surprisingly, the Confederate newspapers took a much different view of events. “The Yankees under the great raider Averill took a summer jaunt to the White Sulphur Springs for the benefit of their health and met with such a warm and cordial reception that many of them concluded to remain and take up their bounty land, but finally concluded to be satisfied with six feet by two of ground, instead of a quarter section,” colorfully proclaimed one Virginia broadsheet.
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Lieutenant Colonel George M. Edgar, commander of the 23
^rd
Battalion of Virginia Infantry, whose command bore the brunt of the fighting at White Sulphur Springs, weighed in. “Of all the battles of the Civil War, fought in the Department of Western Virginia, none were more prolonged, more stubbornly fought, more creditable of the commanding officer and his subordinate officers of all arms, or to the rank and file, or more interesting in their details than that of White Sulphur Springs, Dry Creek, or Rocky Gap, as it has been variously called.”

Edgar continued, “It was unique, too, both in the purpose of the expedition in which it was the chief incident, and in the successful use of infantry in intercepting and defeating a large body of cavalry and mounted infantry, aided only by a battery of four guns and a few hundred cavalry, hurried to the field in the progress of the fight—the whole aggregating barely two-thirds of the strength of the opposing force.”
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Edgar apparently never realized that Patton's force significantly outnumbered Averell's. However, the rest of his points remain valid, particularly in discussing the importance of slower infantry being used to bring cavalry to bay.

Both sides suffered heavy losses. Indeed, many men of both sides paid with their lives. Averell reported 3 officers and 28 enlisted men killed, 11 officers and 114 enlisted men wounded and 1 officer and 66 enlisted men captured or missing, for total losses of 218, which represented 17 percent of his total command.
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Patton reported 2 officers and 18 enlisted men killed, 11 officers and 118 enlisted men wounded and 18 enlisted men missing or captured, for total losses of 162, representing losses of about 7 percent of his total command.
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Given the relatively small numbers of command, the heavy losses reflect the ferocity of the combat that raged at White Sulphur Springs for a day and a half that hot August.

Colonel James M. Schoonmaker eloquently summed up the nature of the battle at White Sulphur Springs in a letter to J.H. Slocum, then the manager of the Greenbrier Resort, in November 1914. “It will be noted that with the exception of my regiment, all of the soldiers in both armies were Virginians,” he said, “and in subsequent conference with men engaged on both sides, all agreed that it was one of the hardest fought battles of the Civil War.” Schoonmaker concluded by suggesting to Slocum, “The proximity of the battlefield should make it an additional attraction to your beautiful and historic resort.”
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Sadly, and as described below, Schoonmaker's prediction about the battlefield providing an additional attraction for the Greenbrier proved wrong.