The Comanches: A History of White's Battalion, Virginia Cavalry

by Frank M. Myers

The brigade encamped at Moorfield, until the morning of the 24th, when the General marched it to Petersburg, nine miles above, where the men forded the river.

The ford at that place is covered with rocks of almost every size and shape, making it a difficult passage at any time, but now the mountain stream was full to overflowing, and the waters foamed over the rocks as from some enormous mill-flume, increasing infinitely the difficulty and danger of crossing, so that some of the men, in viewing the angry flood, turned and fled in greater dismay than if an army of Yankees had faced them; but by aid of some noble-souled citizens, who rode through the water and guided the horses of the men, the crossing was effected, and the cavalry found themselves fairly started into the mountains, but the infantry and artillery, being unable to cross, were sent back to the Shenandoah Valley.

On the 25th, the command approached Greenland Gap, in the eastern front ridge of the Alleghany mountain, Col. Dulaney, with his regiment (the 7th) being in front; and when, about sunset, the enemy’s pickets were discovered, the 7th charged, driving them in and finding a force of infantry strongly posted in an old log meetinghouse and some other buildings near by. Col. Dulaney himself was badly wounded, and his regiment cut in two, as the enemy fired so heavily upon it, after the leading squadrons had passed their position, that the remaining ones were unable to follow, and halted in front of the meetinghouse.

Gen. Jones soon came up, and at once began his arrangements to take the place. He had brought several kegs of powder with him to blow up the Cheat River trestle work with, and he now determined to try the effect of some of it just here in his first encounter with the enemy. His pioneer corps, made up by details from each regiment and battalion, was provided with axes and bundles of straw, the first to be used to break open the windows of the fort, while the latter was to be set on fire and thrown into it, and at the same time Lieut. Williamson (his engineer) was to get the powder under the building. He dismounted his three battalions and placed White’s men in front; Brown’s Marylander’s in the rear, and Witcher’s mounted riflemen at the end of the house, and it being now dark, the General rode down near it, and politely informed the Yankees that “he had them surrounded, and a barrel of gunpowder under the house,” and that, unless they surrendered, he would “blow them all to hell in five minutes;” to which they, with equal politeness responded, by requesting him to “go there himself.”

The General’s information as to the surrounding was correct, but Williamson’s gunpowder plot was a failure, owing to his inability to approach the fort without getting shot, and they knew that if he had powder under them he wasn’t likely to tell them, for they were fully persuaded he would greatly prefer blowing them up, if possible, to having them surrender on any terms; and Gen. Jones, thinking they had received sufficient warning, ordered his storming parties to advance, telling the men to “go right up to the building and punch out the chinking of the logs;” “that the pioneers would throw blazing straw into the house, and then all were to fire their guns and pistols through the cracks, by the light of the straw inside;” and assuring the men that “a signal would be given for them to retire before the powder was touched off.”

The battalions advanced promptly to the positions assigned them; White’s men being compelled to wade a stream that ran through the Gap, nearly waist deep, three times; and all the while exposed to a withering fire, for the Yankees opened fire from the house the moment the troops began to move, and kept it up incessantly.

The Marylanders, led by Col. Brown, moved quickly to the rear of the house as White’s battalion marched up in front, and here was a great blunder, on the part of General Jones, in placing these two commands in such a position, for their fire was far more fatal to each other than to the enemy, as they both commenced firing at short range, with the old house exactly between them.

As for Witcher’s men, they were mountaineers, and fired from behind the rocks at a safe distance, scattering their bullets promiscuously all about the house, but really doing quite as much good as the other two commands which charged immediately up to the walls.

The Yankees fired coolly and rapidly, and almost before the pioneer corps could light the first bundle of straw and throw it into the house, every man of the corps was down, either killed or wounded, but they acted nobly[nobly] while they were allowed to act at all.

The affair lasted about fifteen minutes, during which the firing was very heavy and constant, and at one time the powder business very nearly caused a stampede among the Confederates, as one of them suddenly called out to his comrades to “look out for the powder,” and they all took it to be the promised signal of Gen. Jones.