Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (24 page)

“Come right along,” replied the guard as he leveled his musket. “The Captain will not mind being troubled; in fact, I am instructed to take men such as you to him.”

Captain Henry Cunard of the Third Ohio Infantry questioned the herder closely about his work. Pointing to the pair of long-legged military boots in his hand, Cunard asked how much they cost.

“Fifteen dollars,” replied the herder.

“Fifteen dollars!” the captain exclaimed. “Is that rather more than a farmhand who gets but twelve dollars a month can afford to pay for boots?”

“Well, the fact is, boots is a gettin’ high since the war, as well as every thing else.”

This herder was not up to the character he played. Cunard informed him he would be sent to headquarters. Betrayed by his footgear, the herder confessed his true identity—he was Confederate Captain Julius DeLagnel, thought to have been killed at Rich Mountain.

DeLagnel related how, wounded and bleeding, he had crawled from the battlefield to a farmhouse near Beverly. Secreted there, he had been nursed back to health. DeLagnel's hosts had dressed him in herder's garb in order to sneak through the Federal lines. He had been in the mountains for five days, presumably beyond danger, when caught at the last Union outpost. General Reynolds, an old army friend, received him warmly at Camp Elkwater, but as a former U.S. Army officer in Confederate service, DeLagnel would go to prison.
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Spies roamed the countryside. Citizens swept dusty roads to count the number of passing horsemen. Deserters and paroled prisoners offered details of enemy troop strength. Elderly gentlemen were caught with sketches of the Federal camps hidden inside their shoes. “A spy is on every hill top, at every cabin,” complained one general in Western Virginia.
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Two Pinkerton operatives, Pryce Lewis and Samuel Bridgeman, managed to infiltrate Confederate camps on the Kanawha River near Charleston. Lewis posed as an English tourist, dapper in a tall silk hat and new suit of baggy tweeds. Bridgeman played his servant, driving a carriage stocked with fine cigars, port, and champagne. The pair even duped Captain George S. Patton (grandfather of the famous World War II general) into dinner and an offer to tour the Southern defenses.
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Slaves also took a turn. Spying for the Confederates was a Randolph County slave named Richard Green. When the soldiers needed a guide, he piloted them through the mountains; when food was sought, he brought it through the lines. He was known to recover horses and cows stolen by the Yankees and bring them back to the rightful owners. The citizens near Huttonsville long remembered the goodwill of “Old Dick” Green.
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Women proved to be the most formidable spies. The daring duo Abbie Kerr and Mollie McLeod continued to aide the Southern cause after their exploit at Philippi. Far less subtle was Mary Jane Green, an illiterate and perfectly fearless Braxton County teen. She was an unabashed Confederate partisan, fond of cutting the telegraph wires. Her hatred of the “Yankee vagabonds” knew no limits.

When Federal troops arrested Mary Jane for carrying Rebel correspondence, she cursed them like a teamster. The brazen creature declared she would have the “heart's blood of every ‘Lincoln pup’ in Western Virginia.” Upon learning that her brother had taken the loyalty oath, Mary Jane denounced him as a coward, swearing that they could not “make a d___d Abolitionist of her.”
Packed off to the Clarksburg jail, she dreadfully abused passers by. Mary Jane shouted lustily for “Jeff. Davis and the Southern Confederacy;” she pledged to “have the heart of General Rosecrans” himself. A move to Wheeling's Atheneum Prison only increased her tantrums. In short order, she had the entire prison roiled. Guards delighted in teasing her, and Mary Jane retaliated with unprintable language about their ancestors.

Federal authorities called her a “perfect she-devil,” the meanest Rebel in Wheeling. They bound her with rope to protect the guards; when a sympathetic bailiff foolishly cut those bonds, she clobbered him with a brick. General Rosecrans finally ordered that Mary Jane be taken home—fervently praying that an exasperated soldier would shoot her along the way!
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If any woman could rival Mary Jane Green, it was Nancy Hart, a Rebel spy and bushwhacker of legendary proportions. Deadly as a rattlesnake, this mountain spitfire rode with a guerrilla band known as the Moccasin Rangers. Nancy was a pert, vivacious lass in her early twenties—not prone to give quarter as she terrorized Virginia counties west of the Alleghenies. When not marauding, Nancy posed as an innocent mountain girl, traveling the countryside with two adorable pet fawns. Who would have guessed she was a Confederate spy?
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The Hoosier fife major Dr. William Fletcher also sleuthed. On July 30, Fletcher was called to General Reynolds's tent and given orders to search out Confederates lines on the Huntersville road. Fletcher's companion on this two-day mission was Leonard Clark, a native of Western Virginia. Clark was a spy of repute, cool and sharp-witted, but quieter than the debonair doctor. Wearing a mixture of civilian and Confederate clothing for their assignment, the two agents procured horses and stuffed revolvers into their belts. Riding to the outer picket line about fourteen miles south of Huttonsville, they continued on foot.

Lighthearted banter gave way to silence. Only a few dwellings, mostly vacant, were observed as Fletcher and Clark followed the Huntersville road to Mingo Flats. Some women there informed them that lodging could be had at a place called Big Spring, four miles south. A sinking sun cast long shadows as the roadway climbed mountain spurs. Although the citizens had claimed no soldiers were about, fresh horse tracks were observed. The route began a gentle descent. Each man squinted into the growing darkness. A death-like stillness pervaded the scene. Only the plaintive call of a whippoorwill could be heard.

Clark froze. “I saw a man move behind that tree,” he warned, pointing toward a large oak about a hundred yards ahead. “Let us take to the woods and go around.”

“No, I think you are mistaken,” Fletcher replied, “I can make out any form I wish on dark and shadowy evenings. I think it's imagination.”

Clark trailed Fletcher at a cautious pace. “Halt! Halt! Halt!” rang out from every direction—the two had blundered into a trap.

Fighting the urge to run, Fletcher put on a bold face. “What are you stopping citizens here for, in the public highway?”

“Surrender!” barked a tall soldier as he leveled a deer rifle on Fletcher's chest.

“Run, Clark, run!” Fletcher hissed to his companion, a few paces behind.

“Just you stand still,” commanded the Rebel, “If your friend moves, I'll blow you to h__l!”

Fletcher threw down his revolver as bayonets closed around. Clark was still outside the circle of pickets and might have escaped, but surrendered to preserve his friend's life.

“What shall we tell them?” whispered Clark.

“Truth only, and as little as possible,” Fletcher muttered.

The pair was taken to Confederate headquarters, a log house at Big Spring. Fletcher gave his real name and rank to the commanding officer, adding that they were scouting under orders and had walked into the ambuscade. Clark identified himself as a native
Virginian serving in the Union army. At that, a crimson-faced officer drew his sword and lunged forward. “Don't you know, sir,” he yelled at Clark, “you are guilty of the most damnable treason, taking up arms against your native State.…I'll cut your damned heart out!”

Fletcher and Clark had been captured under “very suspicious circumstances.” Their future looked grim—the penalty for spying was death.
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“
Since the days of the deluge, I do not think it has stormed so hard and long.”

—William B. Fletcher

On July 29, 1861, a small party of Confederates rode west into the mountains from Staunton, Virginia. At the head of that party was General Robert E. Lee. The general had no bodyguard. Only staff members John A. Washington and Walter Taylor, a cook named Meredith, and a servant named Perry accompanied him. All of the headquarters baggage was in a single wagon.
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If the procession was plain, the general himself commanded attention. Only days before he took leave for Western Virginia, Lee had encountered three prominent ladies on a Richmond street.

“He sat his horse gracefully,” Mary Chesnut recalled, “and he was so distinguished at all points that I very much regretted not catching the name…. We chatted lightly and I enjoyed it, since the man and horse and everything about them was perfection.”

As Lee rode off, Mrs. Chesnut asked eagerly, “Who is he?”

“You did not know?” one of her companions exclaimed. “Why that was Robert E. Lee, the first gentleman of Virginia.”

“He looks so cold, quiet, and grand,” concluded Mrs. Chesnut.
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The gentleman who had impressed those ladies was anxious to reach the Alleghenies. As military advisor to President Jefferson Davis, Lee had been “mortified” by his absence from the field of battle at Manassas. Now he hoped to make amends.

President Davis must have been loath to detach the general from his side, for Lee entered the mountains without formal orders. “General Lee has gone to Western Virginia, and I hope may be able to strike a decisive blow at the enemy,” wrote the president on August 1. “Or, failing in that, will be able to organize and post our troops so as to check the enemy, after which he will return to this place.” Lee was to coordinate the effort of Generals William Loring, Henry Wise, and John Floyd. President Davis concluded that his skill and diplomacy would best serve their independent commands.

Robert E. Lee did not formally take charge of the Confederate Army of the Northwest, but he would endorse orders as the “General Commanding.” Lee's mission was not well understood by the southern public. Nonetheless, high expectations followed him into the mountains.
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As his tiny escort followed the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, Lee was reminded of happier days. “A part of the road, as far as Buffalo Gap, I passed over in the summer of 1840, on my return to St. Louis, after bringing you home,” he wrote his wife, Mary. “If any one had then told me that the next time I traveled that road would have been on my present errand, I should have supposed him insane.” Lee found the mountains too “peaceful” and “magnificent” for war. Rain fell on that first day, but he failed to regard it as an omen.
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Upon reaching Monterey, Lee conferred with General Jackson and inspected the troops. He gracefully consented when asked to present a flag made by the ladies of Augusta County, but turned to the company officer after the formalities. “Now Captain,” Lee spoke gently, “I would advise you to roll up that beautiful banner,
and return it to the ladies for safe keeping. You are now in for a number of years of hard military service, and you will not need your beautiful flag.”
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