This morning, at seven o'clock, our tents were struck, and, with General McClellan and staff in advance, we moved to Middle Fork bridge. It was here that Captain Lawson's skirmish on Saturday had occurred. The man killed had been buried by the Fourth Ohio before our arrival. Almost every house along the road is deserted by the men, the women sometimes remaining. The few Union men of this section have, for weeks past, been hiding away in the hills. Now the secessionists have taken to the woods. The utmost bitterness of feeling exists between the two. A man was found to-day, within a half mile of this camp, with his head cut off and entrails ripped out, probably a Union man who had been hounded down and killed. The Dutch regiment (McCook's), when it took possession of the bridge, had a slight skirmish with the enemy, and, I learn, killed two men. On the day after to-morrow I apprehend the first great battle will be fought in Western Virginia.
I ate breakfast in Buckhannon at six o'clock A. M., and now, at six o'clock P. M. am awaiting my second meal.
The boys, I ascertain, searched one secession house on the road, and found three guns and a small amount of ammunition. The guns were hunting pieces, all loaded. The woman of the house was very indignant, and spoke in disrespectful terms of the Union men of the neighborhood, whom she suspected of instigating the search. She said she "had come from a higher sphere than they, and would not lay down with dogs." She was an Eastern Virginia woman, and, although poor as a church mouse, thought herself superior to West Virginia people. As an indication of this lady's refinement and loyalty, it is only necessary to say that a day or two before she had displayed a secession flag made, as she very frankly told the soldiers, of the tail of an old shirt, with J. D. and S. C. on it, the letters standing for Jefferson Davis and the Southern Confederacy.
Four or five thousand men are encamped here, huddled together in a little circular valley, with high hills surrounding. A company of cavalry is just going by my tent on the road toward Beverly, probably to watch the front.
As we were leaving camp this morning, an officer of an Ohio regiment rode at break-neck speed along the line, inquiring for General McClellan, and yelling, as he passed, that four companies of the regiment to which he belongs had been surrounded at Glendale, by twelve hundred secessionists, under O. Jennings Wise. Our men, misapprehending the statement, thought Buckhannon had been attacked, and were in a great state of excitement.
The officers of General Schleich's staff were with me on to-day's march, and the younger members, Captains Hunter and Dubois, got off whatever poetry they had in them of a military cast. "On Linden when the sun was low," was recited to the hills of Western Virginia in a manner that must have touched even the stoniest of them. I could think of nothing but "There was a sound of revelry by night," and as this was not particularly applicable to the occasion, owing to the exceeding brightness of the sun, and the entire absence of all revelry, I thought best not to astonish my companions by exhibiting my knowledge of the poets.
West Virginia hogs are the longest, lankest, boniest animals in creation. I am reminded of this by that broth of an Irish lad, Conway, who says, in substance, and with a broad Celtic accent, that their noses have to be sharpened every morning to enable them to pick a living among the rocks.
Colonel Marrow informs me that an attack is apprehended to-night. We have sent out strong pickets. The cannon are so placed as to shoot up the road. Our regiment is to form on the left of the turnpike, and the Dutch regiment on the right, in case the secession forces should be bold enough to come down on us.
SOURCE: John Beatty, The Citizen-soldier: Or, Memoirs of a Volunteer, p. 16-8
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