It is not necessary for me to follow the subsequent operations in West Virginia, as my duties were connected with General McClellan and his campaigns in that district ended with the death of General Garnett and the dispersion of his army. About a week afterwards he was called to a new field of duty at Washington city, and it is not my purpose to touch upon events in which I took no part. It is enough to say that, with somewhat fluctuating changes, the rebels were gradually forced back from the Great Kanawha Valley, and the eventual result left West Virginia in possession of the Federal troops, her own inherent loyalty having contributed largely in producing this condition. The Union sentiment of the people was everywhere made manifest, and the new State government was consolidated and heartily sustained, ending in her ultimate admission as a separate member of the Federal Union in June, 1863.
CHAPTER XV.
General McClellan is called to Washington and placed in Command of the Armies, after the Battle of Bull Run.—The Secret Service Department.—Its Duties and Responsibilities.
As I am not attempting to write a history of the Civil War, but merely relating, as best I can, the leading incidents connected with my labors in the secret service, I shall not dwell upon the details of the military movements of the war, except as they are necessarily connected with my own movements. It is necessary, however, to make cursory mention of that remarkable chain of circumstances which followed General McClellan's campaign in West Virginia, resulting in entire and unexpected change of circumstances to him, and a consequent enlargement of my own field of operations. Therefore, without pausing to describe the various movements and enterprises in West Virginia during the remainder of the year 1861, or detailing the campaign of the three months' volunteers under General Patterson, and their bloodless victory at Harper's Ferry, I will pass on to other scenes and events which lead directly to the turning-point in my story.
Patriotism in the North was excited to such a pitch that the people were impatient of delay, and eager to strike a decisive blow—a blow that would at once annihilate treason and wipe out the insult to a nation's flag, and maintain a nation's honor. The resounding echoes of the rebel guns that had done their work of destruction on Sumter's walls, were still vibrating in the air.
The Confederate seat of government had been transferred from Montgomery to Richmond, immediately after Virginia's indorsement of the secession ordinance, and this enthronement of rebellion so close to the very stronghold of freedom, caused patriotic resentment to blaze up with fresh intensity.