THE LAUREL HILL RETREAT.
The capture of Pegram's position and of a large part of his force necessitated the evacuation of Laurel Hill, and Garnett began his retreat towards Beverly, sixteen miles distant. After two-thirds of the distance had been covered he was falsely informed that the enemy had already occupied that place, and retracing his steps almost to his abandoned camp, he turned off towards Beverly, crossing, by an almost impassable road, over Cheat Mountain into the Cheat River valley and intending by turning the mountains at their Northern end to regain his communications. On July 13th we were overtaken by the Federals between Kalers and Corricks fords. The 1st Ga. and 23rd Va., with a section of artillery under Lieut. Lanier, and a cavalry force under Capt. Smith, were formed into a rear guard to protect the wagon train. At Carrick's Ford the 23rd Va. suffered considerably and a part of the wagon train was captured. The larger part of six companies of the 1st Ga. and including the Oglethorpes, failed to hear the order to retire and held their position until the enemy had passed. Cut off from the main force and with no avenue of escape except the pathless mountains, that hemmed them in, they wandered for three days with nothing to appease their hunger except the inner bark of the laurel trees. On the third day, famished and worn out, they stopped to rest, when Evan Howell proposed that he and another member of the regiment would go forward and endeavor to find an outlet or a pilot to lead them to an inhabited section. He fortunately met with a mountaineer named Parsons, who took them to his home, called in his neighbors, killed a number of beeves to feed the famished men and then piloted them safely to Monterey.
Gen. Garnett, who was with the main column, had been killed, after passing Carrick's Ford, while withdrawing his rear guard and his force under Ramsey and Taliaferro marched all night and succeeded in passing the Red House and turning the mountain before Gen. Hill, who was sent by McLellan to intercept them, had reached that point. They were now on fairly good roads, in friendly country and at Petersburg, W. Va., the people turned out en masse to feed the exhausted Confederates. From this point they retired by easy marches to Monterey. The campaign, undertaken with a small force, to hold an unfriendly section, had proven an expensive failure."