America's Good Terrorist by Charles P Poland;

Author:Charles P Poland;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY&AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Military
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2020-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Governor Wise and the Defense of Virginia

Like the citizens of the national capital, residents in the Old Dominion’s capital were also greatly alarmed when told about Harpers Ferry. The excitement affected all of Richmond, including Governor Wise’s young son, John. The lad ran breathlessly to tell his father the news about Harpers Ferry that he had read on a bulletin board of a Main Street newspaper office. He found his dad in the library, roused from his afternoon nap and reading telegrams about Harpers Ferry. Soon the governor pulled the Virginia Code from the shelf, studied it, and sent word to the commanders of the militia near the invasion. He had telegrams sent to President Buchanan and the governor of Maryland, asking for permission to pass through the District and Maryland “with armed troops, that route being the quickest route” from Richmond to Harpers Ferry. Later that evening the governor waited for further news at the drab old depot in the center of town, which was usually dark and gloomy at night, but was now brightly lit. Outside on the dim streets, curious masses swarmed about to catch a glimpse of militiamen with three days’ rations waiting near the railroad cars.

Amid such excitement, young John Wise donned a little blue jacket with brass buttons and a navy cap, grabbed a long-barreled squirrel-rifle (half again as tall as the boy), took a powder horn and bullets, and joined the few militiamen who were able to board the train on a few hours’ notice. Young John’s glory was short lived. Before the train left, the governor’s slave butler, “Uncle Jim,” pulled the mortified youngster from under a train seat and took him home while onlooking militiamen laughed heartily. As an adult John would write, “Jim may have been father’s slave, but I was Jim’s minion, and felt it. There was no potentate I held in greater reverence no tyrant whose mandates I heard in greater fear.”20

At 8:00 p.m. the train left and proceeded north to Aquia Landing, with the governor and 60 men of Company F of the First Regiment of the Virginia Volunteers. At Aquia Landing the small force boarded a steamer for Washington, where it was joined by the Alexandria Rifles, a force of 28 men from across the river. After a long delay in the District and at the Relay House, 10 miles south of Baltimore, they proceeded to Harpers Ferry, arriving at 1:00 Tuesday afternoon, October 18. They were too late to assist in capturing Brown. The majority of the Richmond militia never made it to Harpers Ferry, as it took until 7:00 on the morning of Brown’s capture for 223 men of the First Regiment and the 41 members of the 179th Regiment to ready themselves for departure. At Fredericksburg they were reinforced by 16 militiamen and three musicians of the Washington Guard. This force of 283 followed the identical route taken earlier by Wise and Company F. After being fed dinner aboard ship at the cost of $0.

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