The cavalry of General Scammon's command left Raleigh on
Wednesday, 15th, to cut the [Virginia and] Tennessee Railroad. On the [18th]
they reached Wytheville and had a desperate and bloody encounter. The Rebels
occupied the houses firing from them on our men. Our loss is serious. Colonel
Toland, Thirty-fourth Ohio Mounted Infantry, killed. Colonel Powell, Second
Virginia Cavalry, wounded mortally. Captain Delany, a brave and valuable
officer of my brigade, killed. He was wounded in the body as he rode into town;
dismounted and stood by his horse firing his revolver when he was shot through
the head and killed instantly. The ball came from a house hitting the eagle
ornament on the side of his hat. Two of his lieutenants badly wounded. The
Rebels used the houses as fortifications. They were burned.
Captain Delany was killed at Wytheville on the 18th. It was
near the entrance to the town from the northwest. His horse had been killed and
he stood by her firing his revolver. He reloaded after firing all his shots. A
ball from a second-story window struck through the eagle ornament on his hat and
ranging down through his head came out at his lower jaw on the opposite side.
Colonel Toland was at the bottom of the ascent leading up into town, urging the
men to go in and fire the town, when he was shot through the breast. It is
thought the same citizen, a man of wealth living in a brick house at that end
of town, shot both Colonel Toland and Captain Delany. He (the citizen) was
killed by a [man of the] Thirty-fourth. His house was burned. One citizen, a
large fleshy man, in specs, was killed.
The Second Virginia Cavalry behaved shamefully. They would
not go in to the support of Captains Gilmore and Delany. The Thirty-fourth did
nobly. Major Huffman, Second Virginia, said with a smile as Lieutenant-Colonel
Franklin and the Thirty-fourth passed in: “That's right Colonel, go in” I but
[he] didn't offer to go in himself.
SOURCE: Charles Richard Williams, editor, Diary and
Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, Volume 2, p. 423
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