536

UNION TRIUMPH IN WESTERN VIRGINIA.

was so confident of this result, that on the night of the 14th he telegraphed, saying: Our success is complete, and I firmly believe that secession is

killed in this sec

try." He was disappointed. The fugitives were ral

tion of the coun

Bealington,' while

detachments from

McClellan's force pursued the fugitives from Beverly, under Major Tyler, to the summit of the Cheat Mountain Range, on the road toward Staunton, where the Fourteenth Indiana, Colonel Kimball, was left as an outpost.

A camp was established at the eastern foot of the mountain, and detachments were posted at important points along the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies. On the 19th, McClellan issued an address to his troops, from Huttonsville, telling them that he was more than satisfied" with their cona July, duct; that they had annihilated two armies well intrenched among mountain fastnesses; recounted the results of the campaign, and praised their courage and endurance without stint. The campaign

1861.

1 The three months' term of enlistment of these troops had now expired, and they returned to their homes, a greater portion of them to re-enlist for "three years or the war."

COX AND WISE IN THE KANAWHA VALLEY.

537 had been successful, and McClellan thus summed up the results in a dispatch to the War Department: "We have completely annihilated the enemy in Western Virginia. Our loss is about thirteen killed, and not more than forty wounded; while the enemy's loss is not far from two hundred killed; and the number of prisoners we have taken will amount to at least one thousand. We have captured seven of the enemy's guns in all.”

• July 12, 1861.

General Cox had been successful in the Kanawha Valley. He crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Guyandotte River, captured Barboursville after a slight skirmish, and pushed on to the Kanawha River. Wise was then in the valley of that stream, below Charleston, the capital of Kanawha County, and had an outpost at Scareytown, composed of a small force under Captain Patton.. This was attacked by fifteen hundred Ohio troops under Colonel Lowe, who were repulsed. That night, the assailed insurgents fled up the valley to Wise's camp, and gave him such an alarming account of the numbers of the invaders, that the General at once retreated, first to Charleston, then to Gauley Bridge (which he burnt), near the mouth of the Gauley River," and did not make a permanent halt until he reached Lewisburg, the capital of Greenbrier County. The news of Garnett's disaster, and Wise's own incompetence, had so dispirited his troops, that large numbers had left him. At Lewisburg, he was re-enforced and outranked by John B. Floyd, late Secretary of War, who had a brigadier's commission.

⚫ July 29.

The war in Western Virginia seemed to have ended with the dispersion of Garnett's forces, and there was much rejoicing over the result. It was premature. The "Confederates" were not disposed to surrender to their enemy the granaries that would be needed to supply the troops in Eastern Virginia, without a severer struggle. General Robert E. Lee succeeded Garnett, and more important men than Wise and Floyd took the places of these incompetents. Rosecrans succeeded McClellan, who was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac,' and the war in the mountain region of Virginia was soon renewed, the most prominent events of which will be recorded hereafter.

July 22,

538

TREASONABLE WORK IN MISSOURI.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WAR IN MISSOURI.-DOINGS OF THE CONFEDERATE "CONGRESS."-AFFAIRS IN BALTIMORE.-PIRACIES.

ET us turn for a moment from the contemplation of the aspect of affairs in Virginia, and in the immediate vicinity of the National Capital, to that of the course of events in the great valley of the Mississippi, and especially in Missouri, where, as we have observed, the loyalists and disloyalists had begun a sharp conflict for the control of the State, early in May. The first substantial victory of the former had been won at St. Louis, in the loyal action of the State Convention,' and in the seizure of Camp Jackson; and its advantages, imperiled by the treaty for pacification between Generals Harney and Price, were secured by the refusal of the Government to sanction that arrangement, and of General Lyon to treat with the disloyal Governor Jackson. The latter plainly saw the force of this advantage, and proceeded immediately to array the State militia, under his control, in opposition to Lyon and his troops and the General Government, and, by the violence of immediate war, to sever Missouri from the Union.

• June 12, 1561.

As we have observed, Governor Jackson, by proclamation, called "into the service of the State" fifty thousand of the militia, "for the purpose of repelling invasion," et cætera; in other words, he called into the service of the disloyal politicians of Missouri a host of men to repel the visible authority of the National Government, in the form of United States troops and regiments of loyal citizens of the Commonwealth. The Legislature worked in harmony with him, and various moneys of the State, such as the School Fund, the money provided for the payment of the July interest of the State debt, and other available means, to the amount of over three millions of dollars, were placed at the disposal of the conspirators, for military purposes. Jackson declared in his proclamation that his object was peace; that he had proposed the fairest terms for conciliation, but they were rejected, and that now nothing was left for him to do but to resist "invasion" by force of arms. At Jefferson City, the capital of the State, he raised the standard of revolt, with General Sterling Price as military commander.

General Lyon promptly took up the gauntlet cast down by the Governor. He had already taken measures for the security of the important post at 4 See page 471.

1 See page 461.

2 See page 46S.

3 See page 469.

BIRD'S POINT AND THE CONFEDERATES.

539

Cairo, by sending a regiment of Missouri volunteers, under Colonel Shüttner, to occupy and fortify Bird's Point opposite.' That point is a few feet higher than Cairo, and a battery upon it perfectly commanded the entire ground

2

occupied by the National troops at the latter place. Captain Benham, of the Engineers, who constructed the works there, called attention early to the importance of occupying that point, for its possession by the insurgents would make Cairo untenable. Shüttner so strongly fortified his camp, that he was in no fear of any force the insurgents were likely to assail it with. But he was there none too early, and cast up his fortifications none too soon, for General Pillow, who was collecting a large force in Western Tennessee for the capture of Cairo, made Bird's Point the most important objective in his plan.

Pillow worked diligently for the accomplishment of his purpose, efficiently aided by B. F. Cheatham, a more accomplished soldier of Tennessee, who served with distinction under General Harney in the war in Mexico. He was among the first of his class in Tennessee to join the insurgents, and was now holding the commission of a brigadier-general in the service of the conspirators. Pillow was superseded in command by Leonidas Polk, a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, and Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Louisiana. Early in July, Polk accepted the commission of majorgeneral in the "Provisional Army of the Confederate States of America," and was appointed to the command of a department, which extended from the mouth of the Arkansas River, on each side of the Mississippi as far as the northern boundary of the "Confederacy." He made his head-quarters

BENJAMIN F. CHEATHAM.

at Memphis, in Tennessee; and, in his first general order, issued on the 13th of July, he showed great bitterness of feeling. He declared that the "inva

1 See map on page 472.

540

GENERAL LYON'S EXPEDITION.

sion of the South by the Federal armies comes bringing with it a contempt for constitutional liberty, and the withering influence of the infidelity of New England and Germany combined."

General Lyon's first movement against Jackson and Price was to send the Second Missouri Regiment of Volunteers, under Colonel (afterward General) Franz Sigel, to occupy and protect from injury the Pacific Railway, from St. Louis to the Gasconade River, preparatory to an advance toward the southern portion of the State,

• June 12, 1861.

by way of Rolla, to oppose an invasion by Ben McCullough, the Texas Ranger,' who had crossed the border from Arkansas with about eight hundred men, and was marching, with rapidly increasing numbers, on Springfield. On June 13. the following day,' Lyon left St. Louis in two river steamers (Iatan and J. C. Swan), with about two thousand men well supplied for a long march, their immediate destination being the capital of the Commonwealth, on the Missouri River, and their first business to drive Jackson and Price, with their followers, out of it. These troops were composed of Missouri volunteers, under Colonels Blair and Boernstein; regulars, under Captain Lathrop; and artillery, under Captain James Totten. The expedition reached the capital on the afternoon of the 15th. Jackson and Price, with their armed followers, had fled westward by way of the railroad, destroying the bridges behind them, and, turning northward, took post a few miles below Booneville, on the Missouri, forty miles from Jefferson City. Lyon followed them the next day, leaving Colonel Boernstein, with three companies of his regiment, to hold the capital. Contrary to the expectation of the insurgents, Lyon went by water, in three steamers (A. McDonnell, Iatan, and City of Louisiana), and the destruction of bridges availed the insurgents nothing.

June 16.

June 18.

LEONIDAS POLK.

d

At Rocheport, at dawn on the 17th, Lyon ascertained that the insurgents were encamped a few miles below Booneville. Pressing into his service a ferry-boat there, he pushed forward a short distance, when he discovered a battery on a bluff, and scouts hastening to report his approach. He at once disembarked on low ground, on the south side of the river, formed in column, sent forward his skirmishers, and soon found his foes. They were encamped on the high ground, and were under the command of Colonel J. S. Marmaduke, of the State forces, General Price having gone on in a boat to Lexington, on account of alleged illness. On the near approach of Lyon, the frightened Governor had ordered that no resistance should be made; but the braver Marmaduke, feeling strongly posted, had resolved to fight. A troop of his cavalry and a battalion of infantry occupied the road. Some of his troops had made a citadel of a strong brick house on

1 See page 267.