"Sudden our pathway turned from night,
The hills swung open to the light;
Through their green gates the sunshine showed,
A long, slant splendor downward flowed.
Down glade and glen and bank it rolled;
It bridged the shaded stream with gold;
And borne on piers of mist, allied
The shadowy with the sunlit side!"
The surroundings, the things of which we talked, our own sentiments, all combined to make the scene stir deep emotions for which the poet's succeeding lines seem the only fit expression, and to link the poem indissolubly with the scene as if it had its birth there.
When Wise had retreated from the valley, Colonel Tompkins had been unable to remove his family, and had left a letter commending them to our courteous treatment. Mrs. Tompkins was a lady of refinement, and her position within our outposts was far from being a comfortable one. She, however, put a cheerful face upon her situation, showed great tact in avoiding controversy with the soldiers and in conciliating the good-will of the officers, and remained with her children and servants in her picturesque home on the mountain. So long as there was no fighting in the near vicinity, it was comparatively easy to save her from annoyance; but when a little later in the autumn Floyd occupied Cotton Mountain, and General Rosecrans was with us with larger forces, such a household became an object of suspicion and ill-will, which made it necessary to send her through the lines to her husband. The men fancied they saw signals conveyed from the house to the enemy, and believed that secret messages were sent, giving information of our numbers and movements. All this was highly improbable, for the lady knew that her safety depended upon her good faith and prudence; but such camp rumor becomes a power, and Rosecrans found himself compelled to end it by sending her away. He could no longer be answerable for her complete protection. This, however, was not till November, and in August it was only a pleasant variation, in going the rounds, to call at the pretty house on Gauley Mount, inquire after the welfare of the family, and have a moment's polite chat with the mistress of the mansion.
For ten days after we occupied Gauley Bridge, all our information showed that General Wise was not likely to attempt the reconquest of the Kanawha valley voluntarily. His rapid retrograde march ended at White Sulphur Springs and he went into camp there. His destruction of bridges and abandonment of stores and munitions of war showed that he intended to take final leave of our region. [Footnote: My report to Rosecrans, Official Records, vol. li. pt. i. p. 40. Wise to Lee, Id., vol. ii. p. 1012; vol. v. p. 769.] The contrast between promise and performance in his case had been ludicrous. When we entered the valley, we heard of his proclamations and orders, which breathed the spirit of desperate hand-to-hand conflict. His soldiers had been told to despise long-range fire-arms, and to trust to bowie-knives, which our invading hordes would never dare to face. We found some of these knives among the arms we captured at the Gauley,--ferocious-looking weapons, made of broad files ground to a double edge, fitted with rough handles, and still bearing the cross-marking of the file on the flat sides. Such arms pointed many a sarcasm among our soldiers, who had found it hard in the latter part of our advance to get within even the longest musket-range of the enemy's column. It was not strange that ignorant men should think they might find use for weapons less serviceable than the ancient Roman short-sword; but that, in the existing condition of military science, officers could be found to share and to encourage the delusion was amusing enough! With the muskets we captured, we armed a regiment of loyal Virginians, and turned over the rest to Governor Peirpoint for similar use.
[Footnote: In some documents which fell into our hands we found a series of resolutions passed at a meeting in the spring at which one of the companies now with Wise was organized. It shows the melodramatic truculence which was echoed in the exhortations of the general and of other men who should have had more judgment. The resolutions were these:--
"Resolved: 1. That this company was formed for the defence of this Commonwealth against her enemies of the North, and for no other purpose.
Resolved: 2. That the so-called President of the United States by his war policy has deliberately insulted the people of this Commonwealth, and if blood he wants, blood he can have.
Resolved: 3. That we are ready to respond to the call of the Governor of this Commonwealth for resisting Abraham Lincoln and the New York stock-jobbers, and all who sympathize with them.
Resolved: 4. That we have not forgotten Harper's Ferry and John Brown.">[
On the 5th of August Lieutenant Wagner of the Engineers arrived at Gauley Bridge with instructions from General Rosecrans to superintend the construction of such fortifications as might be proper for a post of three regiments. I had already with me Colonel Whittlesey, Governor Dennison's chief engineer, an old West Point graduate, who had for some years been devoting himself to scientific pursuits, especially to geology. In a few days these were joined by Captain Benham, who was authorized to determine definitely the plans of our defences. I was thus stronger in engineering skill than in any other department of staff assistants, though in truth there was little fortifying to be done beyond what the contour of the ground indicated to the most ordinary comprehension. [Footnote: The cause of this visit of the Engineers is found in a dispatch sent by McClellan to Rosecrans, warning him that Lee and Johnston were both actually in march to crush our forces in West Virginia, and directing that Huttonsville and Gauley Bridge be strongly fortified. Official Records, vol. v. p. 555; Id., vol. ii. pt.. 445, 446.]
Benham stayed but two or three days, modified Wagner's plans enough to feel that he had made them his own, and then went back to Rosecrans's headquarters, where he was met with an appointment as brigadier-general, and was relieved of staff duty. He was a stout red-faced man, with a blustering air, dictatorial and assuming, an army engineer of twenty-five years' standing. He was no doubt well skilled in the routine of his profession, but broke down when burdened with the responsibility of conducting the movement of troops in the field. Wagner was a recent graduate of the Military Academy, a genial, modest, intelligent young man of great promise. He fell at the siege of Yorktown in the next year. Whittlesey was a veteran whose varied experience in and out of the army had all been turned to good account. He was already growing old, but was indefatigable, pushing about in a rather prim, precise way, advising wisely, criticising dryly but in a kindly spirit, and helping bring every department into better form. I soon lost both him and McElroy, my adjutant-general, for their three months' service was up, and they were made, the one colonel, and the other major of the Twentieth Ohio Regiment, of which my friend General Force was the lieutenant-colonel.