Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided (9 page)

An Indiana volunteer thought the schedule in camp was “bound up pretty tight…we have to toe the mark.” Reveille was at five o'clock, and the order of the day was drill. “After breakfast we went out and drilled, or tried to,” wrote Billy Davis. “The Sergeants took out squads and drilled, while the officers studied. They do almost as well as the officers, we are all as awkward as can be.” Strapping farm youths accustomed to the plow sometimes found the terms “right” and “left” incomprehensible—for them it was necessary to substitute the familiar commands for steering oxen: “gee” and “haw.”
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In contrast, Germans of the Ninth Ohio Regiment drilled under an exacting Prussian drillmaster who barked commands in their native tongue. A Cincinnati newspaper reported what everyone at Camp Dennison knew about the Germans: “Training incessantly, exploiting boundless tenacity, they have already achieved extraordinary precision and skill. An old English-speaking officer said recently that the Ninth is one of the best regiments he had ever seen.”
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Living quarters varied. Some of the Hoosiers at Camp Morton slept in animal stalls on the fairgrounds or in tents. At Ohio's Camp
Dennison, the wooden shanties constructed by William Rosecrans underwent dramatic improvement. Ebenezer Hannaford wrote how they were “transformed into the likeness of pleasant country cottages, by means of lattice-work porches, cornices of various patterns, pigeon-houses, and similar ornamentation.” Nearly every dwelling had a distinctive sign, with titles like the “Astor House,” the “Major Anderson,” “Stars and Stripes,” “Barnum's Museum,” or the “Canary Bird Nest.”
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Cooking details were formed, but the roads to Camps Dennison and Harrison were dotted with carriages, “protruding from which might be seen baskets and bottles, all filled with the good things of this life.” A special train accommodated visitors. Since “admission was open to all, and few came empty-handed, soldier-life at Camp Harrison became simply a kind of protracted picnic.” Roared an Irish volunteer overcome by the bounty, “If this be war, God grant we may niver have pace.”
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Liquid spirits were mostly forbidden. “They [are] not going to let the boys swair or drink any,” reported an Indiana volunteer. Testified an Ohio recruit, “We don't drink any beer here, or any drinks—only coffee and water.” Others hinted of more potent libations. “Canteens were furnished to day, are of tin covered by a coarse cloth,” noted Billy Davis. “Some of the boys think them good for Buttermilk, Cider or something stronger.” Davis's leather-bound journal reported that members of his regiment had gone to town one evening; “Some returned drunk, others are out.” The following day's entry: “At breakfast time the missing boys returned…. They are still drunk.”
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Punishment might include extra duty or time in the guardhouse. For stealing, insubordination, and other infractions, recruits would be shaved bald, marched through camp with a humiliating sign, chained to a log, or strapped to the wheel of a gun carriage. For dire offenses like murder, the soldier might face a firing squad or hanging.
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The Union volunteers of 1861 wore all manner of uniforms—from the gaudy, outlandish fezzes and bloomers of Zouaves to plain
civilian garb. Ebenezer Hannaford's company of the Sixth Ohio Infantry wore a “distinctive pattern, in gray cloth,” bought with private contributions. The Seventh Indiana Regiment was in camp for nearly a month before they received uniforms. “The color is gray,” noted Billy Davis, “and quite neat when a fellow gets a fit, but such fortunate ones are few.”

There was no standard uniform color during the first months of war. “Militia gray” was popular in the North. Some Confederate troops wore blue. The familiar blue uniform did not become standard Union issue until 1862, a situation that led to tragic errors.
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Early Union volunteers often received the same arm as their enemy—antiquated muskets firing a huge .69 caliber ball. More than one groused that his weapon “had not been shot since the war with England.” A description of arms for the Fourteenth Indiana Infantry appeared in the
Indianapolis Journal
: “Over 200 men in the regiment are armed with percussion-locked muskets altered from the old fashioned flintlock and the remainder are provided with the latest pattern of smooth bore muskets.” Flanking companies and sharpshooters received the more accurate British Enfield rifles. “The Regiment took 120 rounds of ammunition for each man,” concluded the
Journal
, “sufficient quantity to do a vast amount of execution on the rebels.”
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General McClellan arrived to review the troops at Indianapolis, fanning rumors of departure for the seat of war. The excitement swelled as muskets were loaded and fired for the first time. Billy Davis lay on his bunk afterward with Bible in hand, lingering over the inscription by a young lady. “Friend Billy;” it read, “You go to fight for us, we will pray for you, may you fight bravely, and should you fall may you die happy.”
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“
I hope to secure Western Virginia to the Union.”

—George B. McClellan to Abraham Lincoln

A column of volunteers marched at the Wheeling Island fairgrounds. They were soldiers of Virginia, cast from a different mold. Scorned by their own state, these recruits drilled for Mr. Lincoln's army instead. They made up the First Virginia Volunteer Infantry—a United States regiment formed on Confederate soil.

Although residents of Ohio and Pennsylvania swelled their ranks, a large number hailed from the Virginia panhandle. At least one company, the “Iron Guards,” came from the mills of Wheeling. These blue-collar Unionists did not look much like soldiers. They lacked uniforms and accouterments of any kind. The citizens of Wheeling had donated blankets, and each man clasped an old Springfield musket—courtesy of the state of Massachusetts—for the United States government was disinclined to send arms to Virginians.
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Colonel Benjamin Franklin Kelley led the First Virginia Volunteers. A native of New Hampshire, Kelley had spent much of his life in the Virginia panhandle. He was a tall and commanding fifty-four years of age, with rugged good looks, thick hair, shaggy brows, and a goatee. Kelley's erect carriage suggested a martial
background; he was in fact a graduate of Vermont's celebrated Partridge Military Academy, and had once been an officer of Wheeling militia. He was employed as a freight agent for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in Philadelphia when war broke out. A call by Virginia residents brought the patriotic Kelley back to Wheeling, and there he took command of a Union regiment unique in every way.
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Less than one hundred miles southeast, Confederate volunteers under Colonel George Porterfield gathered on the B&O Railroad at Fetterman, just outside of Grafton. The vital rail junction at Grafton gave Porterfield much concern. The town was poorly sited for defense, and its citizens were unsympathetic. Grafton was populated by immigrant Irish railroad laborers with little taste for secession. “I do not like the place,” grumbled a Confederate recruit. “No cheers greet us here; no secession banners wave.”
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Rumors of a plot to poison the Rebels swirled at Grafton. A bevy of young girls dressed in red, white, and blue were known to promenade there. Perhaps most repugnant of all was a large United States flag rippling over the main street. George Latham, temporary secretary of the Wheeling Convention, was responsible for that flag. Trading his pen for a sword, the twenty-nine-year-old attorney had raised a company of Union recruits known as the “Grafton Guards.” He awaited only the May 23 vote on secession to offer their services to Federal authorities in Wheeling.
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Taunted by Captain Latham's banner, some two hundred Confederate volunteers under Captain John A. Robinson of the “Letcher Guards” marched into Grafton on May 22 to remove it. Among them was John Cammack: “As we were moving onto the west end of town we heard a tremendous noise of shouting which we thought was joy at our coming. It was not. Nearly the whole population was out on the streets, but they were not cheering. They were shouting and cursing and abusing us dreadfully.”

Captain Robinson ordered two men to tear down the “damn rag.” An outraged Unionist hurled a chair, knocking the captain from his horse. Robinson arose in a huff, about to give the order to fire when he spied Latham's men—on rooftops, at windows, and in doorways with guns leveled—ready to pour out a deadly volley. The perplexed Confederates fell back. Latham's flag was untouched.

As if on cue, that pesky bevy of girls appeared, waving little Union flags as they serenaded the passing Rebels. Defiantly, Captain Robinson halted his men. The angry crowd hissed and jeered. “ We were held for about an hour on the platform of the old railroad hotel,” recalled a terrified John Cammack, “and it seemed to me we had an officer for about every six men and all of them begging the men not to shoot. Practically the whole town was out in the street above us cursing and calling us ugly names. I think that was about the longest hour I ever spent.”
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Bloodshed was averted—by a matter of hours.

That afternoon, two members of the Grafton Guards, Daniel Wilson and Thornsberry Bailey Brown, notified other Unionists in the area of Latham's imminent departure. Emboldened, Brown and Wilson returned by way of Confederate-occupied Fetterman. Near 9 P.M., they approached the intersection of the Northwestern Turnpike and the B & O Railroad on the edge of town.

“Halt,” cried a sentinel from the darkness. Brown and Wilson could make out three figures—Captain Robinson's Confederates. A second warning rang out. The pair drew close enough to recognize Daniel Knight, a well-known troublemaker. Brown had once disarmed him in an ugly altercation, and Knight had vowed revenge. The thought of Daniel Knight blocking access to a public highway infuriated Brown.

“Damn him, what right has he to stop us,” exclaimed Brown. He drew a revolver and fired—shearing the lobe from Knight's right ear. Knight staggered, leveled a flintlock musket, and discharged the contents into Brown's chest. Brown collapsed; blood poured from three gaping wounds near his heart. Wilson turned and fled.

Bailey Brown was dead—the first enlisted man in United States service to be killed by a Confederate soldier. His death on May 22, 1861, preceded by two days that of Union Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the well-known Northern martyr shot down in Alexandria while removing a Confederate flag. Brown's bloodstained corpse was handed over to his friends and put on display at the Grafton Hotel. The event sparked a commotion. Hundreds came to view the fallen hero—and to vote in the long-awaited referendum on Virginia's Ordinance of Secession.
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To many citizens, the May 23 referendum was mere formality, a vote to legalize acts previously consummated in Richmond. Virginia had already formed an alliance with the Confederacy. But John Carlile, Frank Pierpont, George Latham, and other members of the Wheeling Central Committee encouraged Unionists to resist at the polls—to take a “firm, stern and decided stand” against the ordinance.

The election came off in relative calm, although it was influenced by soldiers' bayonets. Balloting was done by voice, a fact that likely kept many from expressing their true feelings. To no one's surprise, eastern Virginia counties overwhelmingly approved the Ordinance of Secession, while many western counties voted strongly against it. Governor Letcher gave the results as 125,950 to 20,373 in favor of secession, but admitted that returns from numerous western counties had not been received. The western vote was never fully ascertained. It was clearly divided; majorities for secession were later reported in the eleven western counties of Barbour, Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Gilmer, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Randolph, Roane, Tucker, and Webster.
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In the wee hours after the referendum, Captain George Latham and his “Grafton Guards” flagged a train bound for Wheeling. On May 25, they were mustered into service as Company B, Second (U.S.) Virginia Volunteer Infantry—the first Union company recruited from Virginia's interior. Porterfield's Confederates occupied Grafton that same day.
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