By this time an infantry force had reached Marietta, consisting of the Fourteenth Ohio Volunteers, Colonel James B. Steadman, and the Eighteenth Ohio Volunteers, Colonel T. R. Stanley. The Fourteenth had been drilling for three weeks at Camp Tayler, in Cleveland. It came with full ranks, completely armed and equipped for service. The Eighteenth had not yet received arms and equipments, but these were promised at an early day. In those days a regiment of infantry meant a thousand men, and not a mere skeleton of two or three hundred, such as were common later in the war, when the ranks had been decimated by disease and the deadly storm of battle. The Fourteenth Ohio reached Marietta on the 24th of May and the Eighteenth on the following day.
The rumors of forward movements at length assumed definite form. It became known that a campaign was about to begin across the river in Western Virginia. On May 27th the following dispatch was received:
Cincinnati, Ohio, May 27, 1861.
To Col. Barnett:
Upon the requisition of Col. Steadman you will supply him with a detachment of two guns, with the proper officers and men.
G. B. McCLELLAN,
Major General.
On this day the Fourteenth Ohio Infantry went by boat to Parkersburg, Virginia—the state of West Virginia had not then been formed—being the first Union force to occupy that place. Col. Steadman took possession without meeting any opposition worthy of mention. It was now reasonably certain that the artillery would very soon follow to take part in the campaign. Every man was directed to hold himself ready to be up and away at a moment’s notice.
CHAPTER III.
The Campaign in Western Virginia.
Picturesque dreams of mighty conflicts and fields of glory disturbed the slumbers of those in Camp Putnam during the night of May 27th. Nor were they far out of the way, for before another sunset, part of the artillery would be en route for “the front.” Early on the morning of the 28th a telegraph messenger handed to Colonel Barnett a dispatch which read as follows:
Parkersburg Va., May 28, 1861.