486

ATTACK ON SEWELL'S POINT BATTERY.

ment at Washington." He designated no less than twenty places in the State as points of rendezvous for the militia. One-fourth of these places were westward of the mountains. At the same time the insurgents strengthened the garrison at Harper's Ferry, and erected batteries on the Virginia bank of the Potomac, below Washington, for the purpose of obstructing the navigation of that stream, and preventing supplies for the army near the Capital being borne upon its waters. This speedily led to hostilities at the mouth of Acquia Creek, fifty-five miles below Washington City, and the terminus of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railway, where the insurgents had erected batteries to command the river: one at the landing, and two others, with a line of intrenchments, on the hights in the rear. The guns of these batteries had been opened upon several vessels during the few days that the National troops had occupied the Virginia shore, when they were responded to by Captain J. H. Ward, a veteran officer of the Navy, who had been in the service almost forty years.

• May 16, 1861.

At the middle of May," Ward had been placed in command of the Potomac flotilla, which he had organized, composed of four armed propellers, of which the Thomas Freeborn was his flag-ship, and carried 32-pounders. He was sent to Hampton Roads to report to Commodore Stringham. Before reaching that commander he had an opportunity for trying his guns. The insurgents who held possession of Norfolk and the Navy Yard had been constructing batteries on Craney Island and the main, for the protection of those posts, by completely commanding the Elizabeth River. They had also erected strong works on Sewell's Point, at the mouth of the Elizabeth;' and at the middle of May they had three heavy rifled cannon in position there, for the purpose of sweeping Hampton Roads. This battery was masked by a sand-hill, but did not escape the eye of Captain Henry Eagle, of the National armed steamer Star, who sent several shot among the workmen on the Point, on the 19th. The engineers in charge, supported by a company of Georgians and some Norfolk volunteers, sent several shot in response, five of which struck the Star, and she was compelled to withdraw." That night almost two thousand of the insurgent troops were sent from Norfolk to Sewell's Point, and these were there on the morning of the 20th, when Commander Ward opened the guns of the Freeborn upon the redoubt. The battery was soon silenced, and the insurgents were driven away.

May 29,

1861.

Ward reported to Stringham, and proceeded immediately toward Washington with his flotilla. On his way up the Potomac, and when within twenty-five miles of the Capital, he captured two schooners filled with fifty insurgent soldiers. He then proceeded to patrol the river, reconnoitering its banks in search of batteries; and on the 31st of the month he attacked those at Acquia Creek, in which service the Freeborn was assisted by the gunboats Anacosta and Resolute of his flotilla. For two hours an incessant discharge upon the batteries was kept up, when all the ammunition of the flotilla suitable for long range was exhausted. The three

1 See map on page 399.

2 The insurgents magnified this withdrawal, caused by a lack of ammunition, into a repulse, and claimed a victory for themselves. "This is the first encounter in our waters, and the victory remains with us," said a writer at Norfolk. No one seems to have been hurt, on either side, in this engagement.

ATTACK ON ACQUIA CREEK BATTERIES.

487

June 1.

1561.

batteries had been silenced. On the slackening of Ward's fire, the two on the hights began again, and for nearly an hour they poured volleys of heavy shot on the flotilla like hail, but only wounding one man. Unable to reply at that distance with effect, Ward withdrew his vessels, but resumed the conflict on the following day," in company with the sloop-ofwar Pawnee, of eight guns, Captain S. C. Rowan. For more than five hours, a continuous storm of shot and shell assaulted the works on shore. This cannonade and bombardment were briskly responded to by the insurgents, who seemed to have an ample supply of munitions of war. Twice their batteries were silenced, but their fire was resumed whenever that of the flotilla

ceased. The Pawnee became the chief object of their attention. She was hulled four times, and nine shots in all struck her; and yet, neither on board of this vessel nor of those of Ward's flotilla was a single person killed or seriously injured. During the engagement, the large passenger and freight house near the landing was destroyed by fire.

At about this time, another aggressive movement was made by the United States forces. It was important to gain information concerning the advance of the insurgents, said to be at Fairfax Court House at the close of May. Lieutenant Charles H. Tompkins, with seventy-five of Company B. of the Second Regiment of United States Cavalry, stationed, as we have seen, on Arlington Hights, was sent on a scout in that direction. He left Fort Corcoran at half-past ten in the evening of the 31st, and reached Fairfax Court House at about three o'clock the next morning, where Colonel (afterward General) Ewell, late of the United States

b

b May,

1861.

This picture is from a sketch made by Mr. E. Forbes, an excellent artist, then accompanying the National forces. Acquia Creek Landing, with the shore battery, is seen in the foreground, with the bluffs rising back of it. The spectator is looking toward the northwest, up Acquia Creek, at the mouth of which is seen a sloop. The line of intrenchments is seen on the bluffs back of the landing.

2 Report of Commander Ward to the Secretary of the Navy, May 31 and June 1, 1861. Report of Cominander Rowan to Secretary Welles, June 2, 1861.

488

THE UNIONISTS IN WESTERN VIRGINIA.

Dragoons, was stationed with several hundred insurgents. Tompkins captured the pickets and then dashed into the town, driving a detachment of the insurgents before him. These were re-enforced, and a severe skirmish occurred in the street. Shots were fired upon the Union troops from windows. Finding himself greatly outnumbered by his enemy, Tompkins retreated in good order, taking with him five fully armed prisoners' and two horses. He lost one man killed, one missing, and four who were wounded. He also lost twelve horses and their equipments. It is estimated that about twenty of the insurgents were killed or wounded. Among the killed was Captain John Q. Marr, a highly esteemed citizen of Virginia, who had been a member of the late Secession Convention. "He has been the first soldier of the South," said the Nashville Union, "to baptize the soil of the Old Dominion with patriotic blood."

This gallant dash of Tompkins gave delight to the loyal people, and made the insurgent leaders at Manassas and its vicinity very vigilant and active. They were expecting an attack from the direction of Washington City, and were alarmed by military movements already commenced in Western Virginia. Troops from the more Southern States were still crowding in, and it was estimated that these, with the Virginians under arms, comprised about forty thousand men, in the camp and in the field, within the borders of the Old Commonwealth on the 1st of June, prepared to fight the troops of the Government.

There was a civil and political movement in Northwestern Virginia at this time, in opposition to the conspirators, really more important and more alarming to them than the aspect of military affairs there. It commanded the profound attention of the Government, and of the loyal and disloyal people of the whole country.

The members of the Virginia Secession Convention from the western portion of the State, as we have observed, could not be molded to suit the will of the conspirators, and they and their colleagues defied the power of the traitors who controlled the Convention. Before the adjournment of that Convention, the inhabitants of Northwestern Virginia were satisfied that the time had come when they must make a bold stand for the Union and their own independence, or be made slaves to a confederacy of traitors whom they abhorred; and Union meetings were called in various parts of the mountain region, which were largely attended. The first of these assembled at Clarksburg, in Harrison County, on the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, on the 22d of April, when resolutions, offered by John S. Carlile, a member of the Convention yet sitting in Richmond, calling an assembly of delegates of the people at Wheeling, on the 13th of May, were adopted. The course of Governor Letcher was severely condemned, and eleven citizens were chosen to represent Harrison County in the Convention at Wheeling. Meet

• May 4, 1861.

ings were held elsewhere. One of these, at Kingwood, in Preston County, evinced the most determined hostility to the conspirators, and declared that the separation of Western from Eastern Virginia was essential to the maintenance of their liberties. They

1 Among the prisoners was W. F. Washington, son of the late Colonel John Marshall Washington, of the United States Army. He was sent to General Mansfield, at Washington City, with the other prisoners, where he took the oath of allegiance and was released.

UNION CONVENTION AT WHEELING.

489

also resolved to elect a representative in the National Congress. Similar sentiments were expressed at other meetings, especially in a mass convention held at Wheeling on the 5th of May, where it was resolved to repudiate all connection with the conspirators at Richmond. A similar meeting was held at Wheeling on the 11th, when the multitude were addressed by Mr. Carlile and Francis H. Pierpont.

The Convention of delegates met at Wheeling on the 13th. A large number of counties were represented by almost four hundred Unionists. The inhabitants of Wheeling were mostly loyal; and when the National flag was unfurled over the Custom House there, in token of that loyalty, with public ceremonies, it was greeted with loud acclamations of the people, and the flinging out, in response, of the flag of the Union over all of the principal buildings in the city.

The chief topic discussed in the Convention was the division of the State and the formation of a new one, composed of the forty or fifty Counties of the Mountain region, whose inhabitants owned very few slaves and were enterprising and thrifty. A division of the State had been desired by them for many years. The Slave Oligarchy eastward of the mountains and in all the tide-water counties wielded the political power of the State, and used it for the promotion of their great interest, in the levying of taxes and the lightening of their own burdens, at the expense of the labor and thrift of the citizens of West Virginia. These considerations, and their innate love for the Union, produced a unanimity of sentiment at this crisis that made the efforts of secret emissaries of the conspirators, and open recruiting officers of the military power arrayed against the Government, almost fruitless. This unanimity was remarkable in the Wheeling Convention, which, too informal to take definite action on the momentous question of the dismemberment of the State, contented itself with passing resolutions condemnatory of the Secession Ordinance, and calling a Provisional Convention to assemble at the same place on the 11th day of June following, if the obnoxious ordinance should be ratified by the voice of the people, to be given on the 23d of May. A Central Committee was appointed,' who, on the 22d of May, issued an argumentative address to the people of Northwestern Virginia.

These proceedings thoroughly alarmed the conspirators, who expected a revolt and an appeal to arms in Western Virginia, under the auspices of the National Government; and on the 25th of May, Governor Letcher wrote a letter to Colonel Porterfield, who was in command of some State troops at Grafton, at the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Northwestern Railway, ordering him to "take the train some night, run up to Wheeling, and seize and carry away the arms recently sent to that place by Cameron, the United States Secretary of War, and use them in arming such men" as might "rally to his camp." He told him that it was advisable to cut off telegraphic communication between Wheeling and Washington, so that the disaffected at the former place could not communicate with their allies at head-quarters." "Establish a perfect control over the telegraph, if kept up," he said, "so that no dispatch can pass without your knowledge and inspec

66

1 That Committee consisted of John S. Carlile, James S. Wheat, C. D. Hubbard, F. H. Pierpont, G. R. Latham, Andrew Wilson, S. H. Woodward, James W. Paxton, and Campbell Farr.

490

PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNION CONVENTION.

tion before it is sent. If troops from Ohio or Pennsylvania shall be attempted to be passed on the railroad, do not hesitate to obstruct their passage by all means in your power, even to the destruction of the road and bridges."

The people in all Eastern Virginia, under the pressure of the bayonet, as we have observed,' ratified the Ordinance of Secession, and gave a majority of the votes of the State in its favor, while the vote in Western Virginia was overwhelmingly against it. A Convention was accordingly held at

Wheeling on the 11th of June, in which about forty counties of the mountain region were represented. It met in the Custom House; and each delegate, as his credentials were accredited, took a solemn oath of allegiance to the National Constitution and its Government.

The Conven

tion was organized by the appointment

of

Arthur J. Boreman, of Wood County, as permanent President, and G. L. Cranmer, Secretary. The President made a patriotic speech on taking the chair, and found the delegates in full union with him in sentiment. The Convention then went to work in earnest. A committee was appointed to draw up a Bill of Rights, and on the following day it reported through its chairman, John S. Carlile. All allegiance to the "Southern Confederacy" was totally denied in that report, and it recommended a declaration that the functions of all officers in the State of Virginia who adhered to it were suspended, and the offices vacated. Resolutions were adopted, declaring the intention of the people of Virginia never to submit to the Ordinance of Secession, but to maintain the rights of the Commonwealth in the Union; also, calling upon all citizens who had taken up arms against the National Government to lay them down and return to their allegiance.

• June 13, 1861.

On the third day of the session," an ordinance was reported for vacating all the offices in the State held by State officers acting in hostility to the General Government, and also providing for a Provisional

1 See page 384.

2 The delegates all took the following oath :-" We solemnly declare that we will support the Constitution of the United States, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land, any thing in the Ordinance of the Convention that assembled at Richmond on the 13th day of February last to the contrary notwithstanding. So help me God."