After Action Report
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
Of
THE CIVIL WAR
The
Wright stuff
Phil Sheridan
And
The Last Battle of Winchester
by Sandy von Thelen
O
n January 16, 2017 Robert
Stone journeyed down to
Charlottesville to address
the Round Table on the
first campaign of the Civil War. Things
were still unsettled in Virginia despite
the secession of several other states
until Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. This
was the precipitating event that
pushed Virginia into the Southern Confederacy. On April 17, 1861 Virginia
passed its own ordinance of secession.
However there were some 48 dissenting votes cast of the 143 total that
were from the lower Shenandoah Valley and the Transmontaigne section of
Virginia, foreshadowing the eventual
dismemberment of the state of Virginia. Not surprisingly then, it was this
heavily divided part of the state that
would see the first action of the war.
As early as May 22, 1861 a
Union recruit Thornsberry Bailey
Brown, part of a Union militia, the
Grafton Guards, guarding an important
railway junction under Captain George
Latham, had been killed by a Confederate acquaintance Knight, who had
been drilling in Fetterman three miles
away with the Letcher Guards under
Mexican War veteran Colonel George
Porterfield. Porterfield had been directed to Grafton to hold the important railway junction of the B&O
railroad by Robert E. Lee, overall commander of all Virginia state militia.
Lee’s overall plan
was to block off access to Virginia
along the Ohio River, which would
include Wheeling, Parkersburg, and
Point Pleasant. These towns were
fairly quickly occupied by Union militia and later supplanted by Federal
army troops across the Ohio River
under command of George B.
McClellan.
Latham’s small force had
retired to Wheeling after Brown’s
death and Porterfield had moved
into Grafton with his small, poorly
armed force of about 750 men. He
was able to know all the Federal
plans by intercepting their telegraphs. McClellan had decided to
invade western Virginia on his own,
not waiting for direction from higher
authorities. Addressing his men in a
suitably bombastic fashion that they
were going up against “armed traitors” he dispatched General Benjamin Kelley with the 1st and 2nd West
Virginia and the 14th, 15th, 16th and
18th Ohio along with his volunteer
aide, Colonel Frederick Landers by
railroad towards Grafton. Porterfield, intercepting these communications by telegraph, retreated with his
weapons-deprived force 17 miles
south to Philippi, where a covered
bridge spanned the Tygart Valley
River and the vital Beverly Fairmont
Turnpike ran through it.
Continued on page 2
Scott Patchan
Scott C. Patchan is widely regarded as the leading authority and tour
guide of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley
Campaign. A life-long student of military
history, Scott is a graduate of James
Madison University in the Shenandoah
Valley. A native of Ohio, Scott currently
resides in Northern Virginia with his wife
and children. He is the author of Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign; Second Manassas: Longstreet's
Attack and the Struggle for Chinn
Ridge; The Battle of Piedmont and
Hunter’s Campaign for Staunton; The
Forgotten Fury: The Battle of Piedmont;
and most recently, The Last Battle of
Winchester: Phil Sheridan, Jubal Early,
and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign,
August 7 - September 19, 1864. He has
also authored six feature articles for
Blue and Gray Magazine on Shenandoah
Valley and Second Manassas Topics. He
has been a member of the Kernstown
Battlefield Board of Directors and twice
served as President of the Bull Run Civil
War Round Table.
General Thomas A. Morris, who
outranked Kelley, arrived in Grafton on
June 1, and approved a two-pronged
Federal attack on Philippi. Kelley would
lead 1600 men, who in a bit of deception,
would initially march east and then turn
south at Thornton on a back road and
arrive in the rear of the town. Colonel
Ebenezer Dumont and 1400 men along
with the famous Indian fighter Colonel
Frederick W. Landers would march directly south from Webster on the turnpike.
It was a night march in the pouring rain, but the sodden recruits did in
fact arrive in Philippi before dawn on
June 3, 1861. Morris had planned the
pre-dawn attack to be signaled by a pistol
shot. The green Confederate force had
failed to establish any pickets, eschewing
standard military procedure in favor of a
warm dry tent, and as a result the Federals were in close proximity to the Confederate outpost totally undetected. As fate
would have it, Confederate sympathizer
Mrs. Thomas Humphreys spotted the
advancing Federals and sent her son on
horseback to warn Porterfield. Before he
could get to the Confederate lines, she
saw her son accosted by the Federals and
she fired her pistol at them. Her shots
were interpreted as the signal and the
Federals began firing their artillery, which
awakened the slumbering Confederates.
Totally surprised and wakened
by gunfire on a chilly, rainy morning was
more than the green Confederates could
cope with and after those very few who
were armed fired a few shots, the entire
Confederate encampment fled south.
Dumont’s soldiers entered across the
bridge and Colonel Landers ride down
the steep hillside through heavy underbrush was considered such a feat of
horsemanship that Leslie’s Weekly gave
an illustrated account afterwards.
Kelley’s column had arrived from the
north on the wrong road and thus were
unable to block the Confederate retreat.
While pursuing the Confederates, Kelley himself was shot in the
chest ,delaying the pursuit. Overall, it
was a fairly bloodless operation, but
there were two battlefield amputations,
believed to be the first in the war - both
Confederate, one was a VMI cadet with
the improbable name of Fauntleroy Dangerfield and the other an 18 year old col-
lege student, James E. Hanger. Hanger,
after recovering, made an artificial leg
for himself from barrel staves with a
hinge at the knee. His design worked so
well that the Virginia state legislature
commissioned him to manufacture for
other amputees and his company,
Hanger Orthopedic Group, became a
worldwide leader in prosthetic devices
even to this day.
As a result of the mini debacle
at Philippi, Porterfield was relieved of
his command and never enjoyed a field
command again. Ambrose Bierce was a
Union recruit at Philippi. Twenty years
later he wrote in his autobiographical
On A Mountain – “We gave ourselves,
this aristocracy of service, no end of
military airs; some of us even going to
the extreme of keeping our jackets
buttoned and our hair combed. We had
seen action, too; had shot off a Confederate leg at Philippi, ‘the first battle of
the war,’ and had lost as many as a dozen men at Laurel Hill and Carrick’s Ford,
whether the enemy had fled in trying,
Heaven knows why, to get away from
us.” McClellan, who was not present
but was in charge of the department,
received accolades for this battle with
no fatalities, his stealing of credit from
his subordinates would become a recurrent theme.
Brigadier General Robert S.
Garnett replaced Porterfield as the Confederate commander and went to work
fortifying the mountain passes leading
to the Shenandoah Valley – one at Laurel Hill and one at Camp Garnett at Rich
Mountain’s western base. By early July,
1300 Confederates under Lt. Col. John
Pegram had assembled. McClellan decided on a campaign of maneuver so he
sent Morris to pin Garnett at Laurel
Mountain and on July 14th sent out a
reconnaissance in force beginning with
skirmishes at Elmore and Roaring Creek.
Confederate prisoners had already convinced McClellan that he was facing
8,000 men and several Confederate
batteries.
On July 10th a local man, David
Hart, told McClellan how he could lead
the Federals around Pegram and the
Confederates to the top of Rich Mountain.
The Picket Post | April 2017
General William Starke Rosecrans
was assigned to make the flanking
attack on Confederate commander
DeLagnel’s 310 men and one cannon. Rosecrans’ 1800 men were
sufficiently winded by their climb
that they rested for two hours just a
short couple of hundred yards away
from the enemy before attacking
and rolling up the Confederate pickets. The Confederates, who were
completely surprised being attacked
in the rear, were able to re-align
their defenses and DeLagnel beat
back three charges but the final bayonet charge overwhelmed them.
This envelopment forced Pegram to
make a night retreat in pouring rain.
Jedidiah Hotchkiss led half the force
to safety even though one of his
men said that they “were willing to
fight those rascals naked.” That enthusiasm probably did not carry-over
to Pegram who got lost in the inky,
wet woods, was cut off and surrendered 523 men on July 13th.
Not surprisingly McClellan
did not move his forces an inch to
support Rosecrans and totally crush
the deflated Confederates. After
Garnett received a message from
Pegram that he was pulling back,
Garnett realized that he too would
be flanked so he also began to retreat. While directing his forces
crossing the river at Carrick’s Ford,
Garnett was shot and killed by pursuing Federals. The Federals, with
the Confederates in full retreat, then
moved into Beverly where Stonewall
Jackson’s sister, Laura Jackson Arnold, a staunch Unionist, welcomed
them. Joseph French Harding of the
31st Va. Infantry recalled, ”My comrades as well as myself, learned by
actual experience on this retreat
that I could fast longer and run faster than any other man in old Company F…on our retreat we camped one
night in Pendleton County, I think
after some of us had been marching
some sixty hours without food.”
General Robert E. Lee then
appointed General William Wing
Loring to try his hand at defending
the gaps from the Federals moving
Continued on page 3
2
inexorably eastward. On August 3,
1861, Lee left the comforts of Richmond
to take field command of Confederate
forces in western Virginia. In a series of
skirmishes lasting from Sept. 11- 15, Lee
and Loring unsuccessfully maneuvered
against a smaller Federal force under
Brig. General Joseph J. Reynolds defending a series of mountain passes and
the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike. The
key was control of the plateau summit
of Cheat Mountain which was fortified
but only manned by 300 Federals. Hampered by rain and a complex plan of five
different movements incompetently
executed, the attack failed miserably.
With continuous bad weather and the
element of surprise gone, “Granny Lee”
abandoned the effort and was recalled
October 30 and sent to South Carolina,
where he shed “Granny” and was
dubbed the “King of Spades.”
Upcoming
Apr. 17: Scott Patchan, Phil
Sheridan and the Last Battle of
Winchester
Thornsberry Bailey Brown
Private
the first in a seemingly never ending
series of Confederate reverses in western Virginia until that portion of the
state felt confident in seceding from the
rest of Virginia on June 20, 1863.
So did the first campaign of the
Civil War come to an end. The Confederate effort to hold onto western Virginia was totally flummoxed by bad
weather, incompetent generalship, lack
of firepower and supplies, and in some
cases just bad luck. It did enjoy a number of firsts – first death by enemy fire
– Thornsberry Bailey Brown; first land
battle – Philippi; first amputation James E. Hanger; first General Officer
killed – Robert S. Garnett; first use of a
railroad to transport troops – Wheeling,
VA.; first use of wartime telegraph –
George B. McClellan; and first use of
field artillery – Philippi. It also became
Westminster Canterbury
of the Blue Ridge, Pantops
See: charlottesvillecwrt.org
Dinner Menu: Choice of
prime rib, grilled salmon,
or crab cakes
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dinner is optional,
SPECIAL OFFERING TO
MEMBERS OF THE CHARLOTTESVILLE-ALBEMARLE
COUNTY CIVIL WAR ROUND
TABLE
but reservations are required.
In last month’s newsletter, the
coming April 26-29 4-day Civil War
conference, “Mystify,
Mislead, and
Surprise”, STONEWALL JACKSON
IN THE VALLEY was described in
detail. This promises to be an exceptional event of interest to all Civil War aficionados.
ROBERT S. GARNETT
Brig Gen—CSA
ROTUNDA ROOM
Kevin Walker, Chief Executive
Officer of the sponsoring Shenandoah
Valley Battlefields Foundation, has informed us they are offering members of
our Round Table a 10% discount on all
full conference registrations. To take
advantage of this generous offer, call to
register and mention you are a Charlottesville Civil War Round Table member.
INCLEMENT WEATHER
Please respond to
Sandy von Thelen
971-8567 (W) or 202-7064 (H)
or make your reservation on the
webpage
The Picket Post
The monthly newsletter of the Charlottesville-Albemarle County Civil War
Round Table.
Officers:
President, Peyton Humphrey
Vice President, Jim Donahue
Treasurer, Sandy von Thelen
After Action Reports, Sandy von Thelen
Program Chairman, Sandy von Thelen
Newsletter Production, Duncan Campbell
Web Page Liaison, Duncan Campbell
Mailing Address:
Check the meeting status with
Sandy von Thelen
(434) 971-8567 (W), or (434) 2027064 (H)
The Picket Post | April 2017
CWRT
13 Canterbury Road
Charlottesville, VA, 22903
Telephone: (434) 202-7064
3
"Mosby: The War Years"
By
C. W. Whitehair
(Review by James H. Donahue)
Mr. C. W. Whitehair is not as
well known a Civil War historian as
Gary Gallagher or James M. McPherson, but he does a splendid job describing the characteristics and personality of Colonel John S. Mosby,
CSA, head of the famous Mosby's
Rangers. I have not discovered much
historical information about Col.
Mosby but he certainly is a legendary
Confederate hero who operated primarily throughout Northern Virginia
and, at times, in the Shenandoah Valley.
In 1840, at age 6, John S.
Mosby's family moved from Edgemont to Old Lynchburg Road, Albemarle County, near the Monticello,
whereby his father maintained a
large farm. A graduate of the University of Virginia in the mid-1850's, he
formed his Partisan Rangers on June
10, 1863, two years after the war
broke out. The Confederacy Partisan
Law officially sanctioned his Rangers,
and he carried out guerrilla warfare
for four years, primarily against the
Army of the Potomac. His Rangers
became known as the 43rd Battalion
Virginia Cavalry, Army of Northern
Virginia. They wore the official gray
uniforms and insignia. Mosby had no
problems recruiting dedicated, loyal
Virginians who would rather serve
under him than in the regular army,
as he offered them an adventurous
and daring lifestyle in combat to protect their homeland against the despised Northern invaders. Mosby
served under Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson until his death at Chancellorsville,
and then for Lt. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. He
was a well-recognized leader, a great
risk taker, was very successful and
became feared by the Yankees. He
was often praised for his outstanding
reconnaissance, spying, ability to infiltrate enemy lines, interrupting Union
communications, train robberies and
other disruptive enemy operations by
Generals Jackson, Stuart and Robert
erals Jackson, Stuart and Robert E. Lee. He
rose steadily through the ranks and was
eventually promoted to Colonel, CSA.
Mr. Whitehair researched many
of Mosby's journals and letters to present,
in 17 period sketches, the heroics of Mosby and his battle-hardened brave soldiers.
The book contains, word-for-word, Mosby's adventures. Mosby was very coy at
engaging and outwitting the Union cavalry
and infantry, always outnumbered by upwards to 4:1, but inflicting heavy casualties while sustaining very few of his own
forces. Oftentimes operating in the guise
of Union soldiers, which he and his men
were especially adept at, he led an effective and efficient campaign by using surprise raids on the unsuspecting enemy. He
captured innumerable Union soldiers, including several Generals, as well as many
wagons, supplies, weapons, livestock,
mules and horses, which he turned over to
his superiors for use by the Army of Northern Virginia. He paroled most of the captured soldiers or turned them over to the
Army for imprisonment at Libby Prison in
Richmond.
JOHN SINGLETON MOSBY
Colonel, CSA
and Gen. George Custer. Gen. U.S.
Grant even offered a $2,000 bounty if
he was caught dead or alive.
In Chapter 24, Retaliation II,
Mosby describes, in detail, the famous
"tit-for-tat" of captured soldiers after
he learned of Custer's brutal conduct at
Front Royal in August 1864, whereby
Custer ordered his men to hang six of
Mosby's Rangers for their successful
raid on a Union train carrying many
civilians and some Union soldiers. In
retaliation Gen. Lee sanctioned Mosby
to hang 6 captured Yankees, which was
carried out by lottery. This action was
very effective, as he convinced Gen.
Sheridan to order his troops, especially
Custer's, to conduct the remainder of
the war under the proper "laws of war."
The book concludes with Mosby, operating independently, learning
of the surrender of both Lee and Joseph
E. Johnston's armies. Being loyal to the
"Cause" he sent a message to Lee advising if he should surrender his troops.
However, Lee was himself officially a
prisoner, awaiting exchange, and had
no authority to give Mosby orders. Following an emotional meeting with his
men, Mosby advised them to do whatever they decided. Many chose to surrender to Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock
until the official end of the war in July.
Mosby, on the other hand, never formally surrendered, as it was beneath
his dignity. Instead, he chose to return
to his father's home in Lynchburg until
the Union army found him. He was formally paroled in June 1865.
Mosby was well educated and
an excellent writer, so the accounts
detailed by Mr. Whitehair are very accurate and extremely interesting, describing the every-day life of his soldiers. I promise that you will find it difficult to put this book down once you
start reading it as it reflects perhaps the
most informative account of the famous Mosby's Rangers.
Mosby escaped capture on several occasions due to his adventurous and
risk-taking tactics. He was wounded several times, once that nearly cost him his life,
but was very fortunate to survive the war.
He became a nemesis to the Army of the
Potomac, especially Gen. Phillip Sheridan
The Picket Post | April 2017
4