Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (18 page)

Discarded equipment again cluttered the way. Roadside thickets were strewn with Confederate officers' baggage; fine camp-stools with General Garnett's mark lay in the muck. Wrecked wagons hung upside-down in the trees over dizzying precipices. “It was no longer the retreat of an army,” thought Reid. “It appeared the pell mell rout of a mob. The destruction of property was enormous. Fine, heavy duck tents, and elegant blankets, far better than the best of ours lay in the road and were trampled by the infantry and ground into the mud by the wagons…. Pouring rain soaked elegant clothing till it was almost utterly destroyed. And everytime one of their wagons was upset, the crash of its contents in rolling down the hillside ruined the whole.”
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The road grew worse by the mile. Benham's pioneers chopped their way through barricades of timber, sometimes with the very axes left in the trees by fleeing Confederates. The race became a test of endurance. “And still it rained!” marveled Whitelaw Reid. “Weary and hungry, our soldiers could hardly have pushed along, but every fresh sight of deserted baggage seemed to convince them that they must be on the very heels of the rebels.”
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By noon of July 13, Benham's force neared the rocky banks of Shavers Fork, a tributary of Cheat River. The river's name was said to come from the deceptive depth of its waters—a trait that had “cheated” many lives. Dark and turbulent from the rains, this river of death slowed the Confederate retreat. General Garnett's two-mile-long column of wagons and infantry had taken most of the morning to cross the swollen stream at Kalars Ford.

As he reached that crossing, Captain Benham spied the Confederate baggage train at rest in a long meadow on the opposite bank. A straggler's musket shot put the train to flight. Benham's Federals plunged into the river. Grateful as the cold waters purged them of mud, they broke into a chorus of the hymn “On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand.”
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At the second ford, three quarters of a mile downstream, the First Georgia Infantry crouched in ambush. That regiment, the Twenty-third Virginia Infantry, and a section of the Danville Artillery had been detached as a rearguard to delay pursuit. Meanwhile, the remainder of Garnett's 3,500-man force—the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-first Virginia Regiments, Hansbrough's battalion, a section of the Danville Artillery, and a cavalry squadron, followed by the wagons—continued downstream. The delaying strategy might have worked, had not several companies of the Georgians failed to hear an order to retreat and been cut off at the second ford.

The chase now became a running fight. Garnett's Confederates clipped downstream with Benham's bloodhounds at their heels. The Federals pulled a beautiful Georgia banner from a jettisoned wagon and waved it to speed their weary, mud-spattered comrades. Stragglers filled the roadside. General Morris sent orders for Captain Benham to “stop at once,” unless he was ready to strike. Now almost three miles below Kalars Ford, Benham replied, “Wait five minutes!”
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He approached a dismal crossing, known as Corricks Ford. The current ran deep there, and Garnett's wagons had stalled in the rocky riverbed. The scene was chaotic. Frantic drivers whipped and
cursed their teams. Drowning horses thrashed in the swollen stream. The rain hammered down.
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Here the Confederates made a stand. Colonel Taliaferro's Twenty-third Virginia Regiment and three guns of the Danville Artillery occupied a steep, eighty-foot bluff on the far bank. Fringed by laurel thickets with a clearing on the crest, that bluff perfectly commanded the ford. Captain Benham, the crack engineer, called it “one of the best natural defensive sites I ever saw.”
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Dressed in captured gray Confederate coats, skirmishers of the Fourteenth Ohio Infantry charged the riverbank. “Don't shoot!” cried teamsters trying to free wagons in the stream. “We are going to surrender.” A mighty “rebel yell”—perhaps the first of the war—rolled across the ford. In that instant a deadly blaze of light flashed from the bluff as Colonel Taliaferro's men opened fire on the Federals below.
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On the opposite bank, members of the Fourteenth Ohio leapt behind a rail fence. The Seventh Indiana filed in on their right; the Ninth Indiana crowded on the left, their ranks more than thirty deep as men jostled to get a shot. Barnett's Cleveland Artillery snapped into action. “A terrible fire ensued,” wrote James Hall. Cannonballs shrieked across the swollen river. Bullets filled the air, “hissing like venomous serpents.”

Most shot high, showering each other with tree boughs. On the riverbank stood Sergeant Copp, “fighting parson” of the Ninth Indiana Infantry. “He fired carefully,” Whitelaw Reid reported, “with perfect coolness, and always after a steady aim, and the boys declare that every time, as he took down his gun, after firing, he added, ‘And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!'”

The angry skirmish lasted nearly thirty minutes. Colonel Dumont's Seventh Indiana Infantry crossed upstream to take the Rebels in flank, but found a brush-choked ravine impractical to scale. The Seventh was soon back in the river, wading downstream beneath the Confederates, guns and cartridge boxes held high above the current as shot and shell roared overhead. Not a man was lost as they neared Colonel Taliaferro's right flank. Nearly out of
ammunition, Taliaferro was forced to retreat. A fine rifled cannon remained on the bluff, its gun carriage shattered by the fall of wounded battery horses. Most of the Confederate wagon train lay abandoned in the road below.
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At the sound of battle, General Garnett rode back toward Corricks Ford, finding chaos at every turn. Unable to locate his rearguard, Garnett confronted Colonel Ramsey of the First Georgia Infantry and demanded, “Where is your regiment?” Ramsey's forlorn reply was, “I don't know.”

Corricks Ford was actually two river crossings, one at each end of a large island, a half mile apart. The log home of William Corrick overlooked the lower ford. Here General Garnett met Colonel Taliaferro, pointed to a large pile of driftwood on the far bank, and remarked that it would “form capital shelter for skirmishers.” Garnett picked ten good riflemen from the Twenty-third Virginia's “Richmond Sharpshooters” and placed them behind the driftwood.

Shots rang out nearby. Colonel Taliaferro urged the general to fall back. “The post of danger is now my post of duty,” was Garnett's stiff reply. Taliaferro was ordered to join the retreat. Garnett lingered at the river's edge on horseback, prominently exposed. A young aide named Sam Gaines remained by his side. Federal skirmishers raced toward the crossing. From the driftwood, Garnett's riflemen opened fire. The fragrant cologne of wildflowers along Shavers Fork mixed with the acrid smell of gunpowder.

Bullets hissed across the ford. Gaines ducked as he felt the wind of a ball pass his face. In fatherly tones, Garnett lectured him on the proper bearing for a soldier. The general showed no fear of death.
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From the opposite bank, Major Jonathan Gordon of General Morris's staff pointed out a Confederate officer silhouetted above the driftwood. A small party of the Seventh Indiana prepared to give him a volley. Sergeant R.F. Burlingame drew a bead and commanded those Hoosiers to “ready, aim, fire.”

Garnett turned in the saddle and ordered his skirmishers to withdraw. In that instant, a ball struck him squarely in the back. He toppled to the riverbank. Federal riflemen splashed across the ford and found him among the wildflowers a few paces from the stream. He lay headfirst, on his back, uttering not a groan. Major Gordon reached Garnett scarcely a moment later, just as his muscles made “their last convulsive twitch.”
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The fallen general was dressed in a black overcoat and a uniform of handsome blue broadcloth. His identity was unknown—word was sent to the rear that an officer had been killed with “stars on his shoulders.” In one of the Civil War's many ironies, a Federal aide, Major John Love, arrived on the scene and grimly identified the dead man as Robert Garnett, his old West Point roommate.

Even in death, Garnett's features “bore a look of calm dignity.” Major Gordon gently closed the eyes, straightened the limbs, and bound the jaw with a handkerchief. The general's remains, a dress sword, gold watch, and pocket book, were placed under guard. Beside him was a dead Confederate rifleman, the figure slight and boyish, with “girlish” locks of golden blonde. “There they lay,” wrote Whitelaw Reid, “in that wild region, on the banks of the Cheat, with ‘back to the field and face to the foe.'” Northern soldiers filed past in silence. Their deference was no conventional thing—Robert Garnett was the first general officer killed in the Civil War.
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Garnett's death signaled the end of Captain Benham's pursuit. Federal troops of General Charles W. Hill's railroad detachment were ordered to cut off the fleeing Rebels in western Maryland. Billy Davis and rest of Benham's bloodhounds dropped out for a well-deserved rest, “wet to the skin and mud to our ears.” They had slogged over almost thirty miserable miles of road in a twenty-four-hour span, with scarcely a mouthful to eat, fought a lively engagement, routed the enemy, and killed his commander.

They had captured more than fifty Confederate wagons, one hundred fifty horses, three regimental flags, a rifled cannon, medical stores, fine tents, camp equipment, and military chests. “I confess
I scarcely see how they can be equipped again,” exclaimed Whitelaw Reid. “Their losses along the road, at Cheat River, and beyond are almost incalculable.” The quality of Confederate gear—particularly medical supplies—was startling. “It is a fact,” Reid observed, “that this army at Laurel Hill was in every respect far better equipped than ours.” The temptation proved too great. Federal ninety-day men, nearing the end of their enlistments, shamelessly looted the wagons.
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Whitelaw Reid captured the drama of war for readers of the
Cincinnati Daily Gazette
. Leaving General Garnett's body, he returned to the bluff held by Taliaferro's Confederates. Scribed Reid:

The first object that caught the eye was a large iron rifled cannon (a 6-pounder) which they had left in their precipitate flight. The star spangled banner of one of our regiments floated over. Around was a sickening sight. Along the brink of that bluff lay ten bodies, stiffening in their own gore, in every contortion which their death anguish had produced. Others were gasping in the last agonies, and still others were writhing with horrible but not mortal wounds, surrounded by the soldiers whom they really believed to be about to plunge the bayonets to their hearts. Never before had I so ghastly a realization of the horrid nature of this fraternal struggle.

These men were all Americans—men whom we had once been proud to claim as countrymen—some of them natives of our own Northern States. One poor fellow was shot through the bowels. The ground was soaked with his blood. I stopped and asked him if any thing could be done to make him more comfortable; he only whispered ‘I'm so cold!’ He lingered for nearly an hour, in terrible agony. Another—young, and just developing into vigorous manhood—had been shot through the head by a large Miniè ball. The skull was shockingly fractured; his brains were protruding from the bullet hole, and lay spread on the grass by his head. And he was still living! I knelt by his side and moistened his lips with water from my
canteen, and an officer who came up a moment afterward poured a few drops of brandy from his pocket-flask into his mouth. God help us! What more could we do?
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Among the wounded was a visiting Massachusetts boy who had been impressed into the Confederate army. While trying to escape as the fighting broke out, he had been shot in the leg by a Rebel officer. The casualties at Corricks Ford fell mostly upon the Twenty-third Virginia and Fourteenth Ohio Regiments. Despite their commanding position, Taliaferro's Confederates suffered more than twice the casualties of Captain Benham's force. Confederate losses totaled at least twenty-nine, but the Federals had only twelve killed and wounded.
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Eleven Confederates were buried on the battlefield. The young man killed beside General Garnett was honored with a special plot behind the Corrick house. Captain George Latham's Grafton Guards inscribed a board to mark his grave: “Here lies the body of a youth (name unknown) who fell defending his general while his comrades ran away.”
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As word of General Garnett's death spread through the Southern ranks, his army fled in disarray. Reports that Yankees awaited to the east on the Northwestern Turnpike near Red House, Maryland, only increased the panic. “The doors of Northern prisons seemed to be standing wide open for us,” recalled one demoralized Confederate. The rabble extended for miles. Citizens told of ravenous soldiers who caught poultry from barnyards as they passed, and, tearing off the feathers, devoured them raw.
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Nearly four hundred members of the First Georgia Infantry, cut off near Kalars Ford, became lost in a “perfect wilderness.” The uninhabited country was terrifying. In crossing McGowan Mountain, the frazzled Georgians hacked their way through immense laurel thickets with Bowie knives. Famished, they peeled the bark of birch trees for sustenance. “Many pathetic instances came to my observation,” wrote Georgian Isaac Hermann, “some
reading testaments, others taking from their breast-pocket, next to their heart, pictures of loved ones, dropping tears of despair.” One captain dug a tiny piece of tallow candle from his haversack and presented it to his son. “Eat that,” he said. “It will sustain life.”