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| Carrick's Ford.2 |
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laurel bushes, the insurgents broke and fled.
They had fought bravely against great odds, and yielded only when their ammunition was almost exhausted.
Garnett tried to rally them to make another stand, and while trying to do so he was shot dead.1 A youthful Georgian, who was among the few around the General at that moment, fell dead at his side.
The insurgents fled to the mountains, and were pursued only about two miles. The
main body of Morris's force soon came up, and the victors slept near the Ford that night.
They had lost two killed and ten wounded, two of them mortally.
The insurgents lost thirty men killed, a much larger number wounded, and many who were made prisoners.
They also lost their cannon, many wagons, and forty loads of provisions.
The body of their fallen General fell into the hands of the victors, and was tenderly cared for and sent to his friends.3 This is known as the battle of Carrick's Ford.
Whilst the stirring events which we have just considered were transpiring, General McClellan, at Beverly, sent cheering dispatches to his Government; and, when he heard of the dispersion of Garnett's forces at Carrick's Ford, he expressed his belief that General Hill, then at Rowlesburg, on the Cheat River, where the Baltimore and Ohio Railway crosses that stream, would certainly intercept the fugitives at West Union or St. George.
He
1 Major Gordon, who accompanied the Ninth Indiana, had joined the Seventh in the water. He jumped upon a stump to cheer on his comrades, when Garnett directed several of his men (Tompkins's Richmond Sharp-shooters) to fire on him. They did so, but without effect. He discovered Garnett, and directed Sergeant Burlingame, of the Seventh, to shoot him. The General almost instantly fell.--See Stevenson's Indiana's Roll of Honor, page 58.
2 this view of Carrick's Ford is from a drawing by Edwin Forbes, an artist who accompanied the expedition. The name of the Ford was derived from that of the person who owned the land there.
3 Stevenson (page 59) cites the following description of Garnett, who was a graduate of West Point, of the class of 1841:--“In form he was about five feet eight inches, rather slenderly built, with a fine, high, arching forehead, and regular and handsome features, almost classic in their regularity, and mingled delicacy and strength of beauty. His hair, almost coal black,.as were his eyes, he wore long on the neck, in the prevailing fashion of the Virginia aristocracy. His dress was of fine broad-cloth throughout, and richly ornamented. The buttons bore the coat of arms of the State of Virginia, and the star on his shoulder-strap was richly studded with brilliants.”
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