ernment for the State. This was subsequently recognized by the Government of the United States, and through it the new State of West Virginia was finally formed.

When Virginia joined the Southern Confederacy, it gave command of its forces to Robert E. Lee, son of a Revolutionary officer, and related to the family of Washington. Lee had enjoyed the confidence of General Scott up to the action of Virginia, when he resigned his commission in the United States army, and received the appointment from his own State. To control West Virginia, he sent a force under Colonel Porterfield; but the Union men were already organizing, and General George B. McClellan was appointed to the command of the Department of Ohio, which included Western Virginia. On the 26th of May, Colonel Kelley, with the First Virginia Regiment, advanced upon Grafton. Porterfield fled, but Kelley, operating in conjunction with Ohio and Indiana troops under Dumont, planned the surprise and capture of Porterfield at Philippi. Kelley, delayed by the darkness and a storm, had a longer distance to march, and did not come up in time; but Dumont routed Porterfield, and Kelley joining in pursuit, completed his overthrow. The enemy's camp, with arms, horses, and supplies, was captured, and confidence was at once given to all in the Western part of Virginia who wished to adhere to the old Government of the country. Wallace, with other Indiana troops, made a dash at Romney, and for a time with great gallantry thwarted the movements of the enemy.

On the 23d of June, McClellan took command in person at Grafton, the troops organized by him numbering twenty thousand. With these he commenced operations against General Garnett, the Confederate commander. Colonel Rosecrans, scaling the mountains, attacked one of Garnett's divisions under Pegram, at Rich Mountain, and, in

spite of artillery, drove them down the mountain-side with a loss of four hundred men. As McClellan approached, Pegram fled, exposing Garnett's rear. That commander in turn endeavored to escape into the wild mountains of the Cheat Range, abandoning all his artillery except one piece. The whole Confederate force was thus by a single blow scattered. Pegram, after a vain endeavor to escape, finally surrendered on the 14th, with his force almost starving. Garnett retreated along Cheat River, hotly pursued till he reached Carrick's Ford. There, on the 13th of July, he made a stand, but his troops broke before the charge of the Western troops, who crossed the river under a heavy fire. In the endeavor to rally them, Garnett was killed. The Confederate force was for the time broken up. A small portion, rallied by Colonel Ramsey, reached Jackson's command beyond the Alleghanies, but the army of Western Virginia had lost twelve hundred in killed, wounded, and prisoners, and great quantities of arms and stores. General Cox had successfully occupied the Kanawha valley, and for a time Western Virginia seemed secure.

Fortress Monroe, situated at the mouth of the James River, had been reinforced, and was held by a large force under General Butler, and armed vessels blockaded the rivers emptying into the Chesapeake, making it easy for the United States Government to commence operations from that point. But the first operations in this part of Virginia were ill-managed and disastrous. A force sent out to surprise a party of the enemy at Big Bethel was repulsed with considerable loss, including two officers, Lieutenant Greble of the United States army, and Major Theodore Winthrop of the volunteers. As general interest was felt in these early victims of the war, we give sketches of their lives, which describe the whole affair.

LIEUTENANT JOHN T. GREBLE, U. S. A.

KILLED AT GREAT BETHEL, JUNE 10, 1861.

THE regular service, on the fatal tenth of June, lost an officer enjoy. ing the highest credit, and one whom the city of Philadelphia will long remember with pride. John Trout Greble, first lieutenant in the Second Artillery, was descended both on the paternal and maternal side from the oldest of the families in the city. In the Revolutionary War, some of these families furnished brave hearts and ready hands to build up that noble government, to defend which from unnatural, because domes tic, enemies their illustrious descendant ventured so boldly, and so gloriously lost his life.

The first of his ancestors, on the father's side, who came to America, Andrew Greble, was a native of Saxe Coburg Gotha, who settled in Philadelphia in 1742, and who, with his five sons, served in the army of the Revolution, sharing in the toils and the glories of Monmouth and Princeton. On his mother's side, he was descended from the Jones, a Welsh family which emigrated to Philadelphia from Barbadoes, as early as 1689, and this family, though members of the Society of Friends, sent to the army of freedom Abraham Jones, the great-grandfather of young Greble.

He won alike the respect

John Trout Greble was born in Philadelphia, on the 19th day of January, 1834. From boyhood John had been remarkable for the innocence and purity of life, an almost feminine character, blended, however, with great firmness and courage, not the result of a robust, physical constitution, but springing from the action of principle and honor. Corresponding to the early training in his family, he won the attachment of all with whom he came in contact. After passing with credit through the requisite preliminary studies at the Ringgold Grammar School, he, at the age of twelve, entered the Central High School, where he graduated four years later, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He had already decided on his career, and obtained, in 1850, his appointment as a cadet at West Point. Here his life was a fitting sequel to that spent under his father's roof. of his fellow-students and the approval of his professors, and on the 1st of July, 1854, graduated high in his class. As he had availed himselt of the government school to serve his country and not his private ends, he entered the army at once, being commissioned brevet second lieutenant in the Second Artillery, then stationed at Newport Barracks. In September, he was made second lieutenant, and went to Tampa, Florida, where he served with his regiment for two years, taking an active part in the operations of the last Indian troubles caused by Billy Bowlegs, who, struck by the young lieutenant's merit, promised before the war to kill him himself in action, so that he should die nobly by the hand of a great chief. Lieutenant Greble escaped unhurt, however; but the duties in which he was engaged at Fort Myers, and in the Hillsborough and Big Cypress Swamps, brought on a fever, from which he never completely recovered. In consequence of this, he came to the North, on sick leave, but early in the year 1856 returned to Florida