The New Annals of the Civil War by Peter Cozzens

Author:Peter Cozzens
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811746458
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2012-12-17T16:00:00+00:00

From Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley, to Parkersburg, in West Virginia, the State of Virginia more than twenty years before the war constructed a very finely graded turnpike road. When hostilities began it was the great artery of communication between a large number of counties lying between the Valley and the Ohio River. Both sides used it from opposite ends in the operations of 1861 about Beverly, Philippi, and Rich Mountain, till the Confederates were driven east as far as the Valley, which, by the genius of [Lt. Gen. Thomas J.] Stonewall Jackson, they held against all odds in 1862. About twenty-two miles northwest of Staunton this “pike” crosses its second high range, called the Shenandoah Mountain. The crest of the mountain here had been fortified by Gen. Edward Johnson, in 1861, when he fell back from his fortified camp on the Allegheny Mountain, and after his failure to capture the Federal fortified camp on Cheat Mountain, an impregnable position in the face of so small a force as General Johnson commanded. At the close of the year 1862 I was ordered to occupy during the winter the strong position of Shenandoah Mountain, which thus became an outpost against such forces as the enemy might have on the line of the Staunton and Parkersburg pike.

From December till late in April we had a dull, quiet time at our mountain camp, which was located at the eastern base of the mountain, the top being too cold and destitute of water. I had a small brigade of a mixed character, consisting of the 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry, Col. George W. Smith commanding; the 18th Virginia Cavalry, Col. George W. Imboden—my brother—commanding; the 23rd Virginia Cavalry, Col. Robert White, commanding; Captain McLanahan’s six-gun Light Artillery; and Capt. John McNeil’s company of Partisan Rangers, together with Maj. Henry Gilmor’s and Major Davis’ Maryland Battalion, these three latter detachments being almost constantly employed in the lower valley and on the south branch of the Potomac, scouting. The nearest body of the enemy was a brigade at Beverly, some fifty or sixty miles from me. The intermediate country was debatable ground, small parties often meeting and fighting when on scouting service.

Many of my men were from the northwestern counties of Virginia and so familiar with all the roads and mountain passes and acquainted with the political and partisan feelings of the people that I had no difficulty in sending small parties of these brave and indomitable mountaineers fifty or one hundred miles to my front—on foot—to gain information. This they would obtain from our friends or their own families, who had access to the Federal camps. Thus during the winter, it was ascertained that the Federals had considerable detachments at Beverly, Buchanan, Clarksburg, Weston, Bulltown, Sutton, Summersville, Fayetteville Court House, and Charleston and were accumulating stores at all these points for the evident purpose of aggressive movements in the early spring against the Confederates in the Shenandoah Valley and in Southwestern Virginia. During the winter—in February, I think—General [Robert E.

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