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of New River, with his brigade.
Rosecrans, fearing Floyd would retreat ordered Benham to push forward at once to Cassidy's Mills, on his flank and rear, to intercept him. This was not accomplished in time, and Floyd fled precipitately, strewing the way with tents, tent-poles, working utensils, and ammunition, in his efforts to lighten his wagons.
Benham pressed his rear heavily through Fayetteville, and on the road toward Raleigh; and near the latter place he struck the Confederate rear-guard of four hundred cavalry, under Colonel Croghan,1 who was mortally wounded.
Onward Floyd sped, with Benham close at his heels; but the pursuit was ended near Raleigh, after a thirty miles' race, by the recall of Benham, and the fugitive escaped to Peterston, full fifty miles southward from his point of departure.
He soon afterward took leave of his army, in a stirring proclamation, praising his men for their courage and fidelity, and reminding them that for five months “hard contested battles and skirmishes, were matters of almost daily occurrence.”
General Rosecrans also issued ani address to his troops, in which he recapitulated their services, and implored them to prepare for greater deeds in the future.2 Thus ended the campaigns in the Kanawha Valley.3
But little more effort was needed to rid Western Virginia of the insurgents.
Already General Kelly, who had behaved so gallantly at Philippi in June,4 had struck them a severe blow on the spot where Colonel Wallace, first smote them a few months before.5 Kelly had recovered from his, severe wound, and, with the commission of Brigadier-General, was in command of troops in the autumn, guarding the Baltimore and Ohio Railway along its course through West Virginia.
Ascertaining that a; considerable insurgent force, consisting of cavalry, under Colonel Angus McDonald, and militia under Colonel Monroe, was at Romney, preparing
1 St. George Croghan was a son of the eminent Colonel George Croghan, who so gallantly defended Fort; Stephenson, at lower Sandusky, in the War of 1812. His family were residing in Newburgh, on the Hudson River, at this time.
2 Rosecrans said: “When our gallant young commander was called from us, after the disaster of Bull's Run, this department was left with less than 15,000 men to guard 800 miles of railroad, and 300 miles of frontier, exposed to bushwhackers, and the forces of Generals Floyd, Wise, and Jackson. The northwestern pass into it was fortified and held, Cheat Mountain secured, the rebel assaults there victoriously repelled, and the Kanawha. Valley occupied. A march of 112 miles, over bad roads, brought you upon Floyd's intrenched position, whence, the rebels were dislodged and chased to Sewell. Finally, your patience and watchings put the traitor Floyd: within your reach, and though, by a precipitate retreat, he escaped your grasp, you have the substantial fruits. of victory. Western Virginia belongs to herself, and the invader is expelled from her soil. In the name of our Commander-in-Chief, and in my own, I thank you.”
3 On the 10th of November, a most unhappy event occurred in the extreme southwestern portion of Virginia. The village of Guyandotte, on the Ohio River, near the Kentucky line, was held by a small Union forceunder R. V. Whaley, a loyal Virginian, commanding the Ninth Virginia Regiment, who had a recruiting station there. At eight o'clock in the evening, a guerrilla chief, named Albert G. Jenkins, who, with his mounted men,. had been for some time carrying on a distressing warfare in that region, dashed into the little village, surprised the Union force, and made over 100 of them prisoners. They killed every man who resisted. With prisoners and plunder, Jenkins fled the next morning. It was reported that the Secessionists in the village had entrapped many of the Union soldiers in the coils of social enjoyments, and then gave Jenkins notice that he could easily win a prize. This so exasperated Colonel John J. Zeigler, a loyal citizen of Wayne County, who was in command of the fifth Virginia, and who entered the town the next morning, that he ordered the houses of the disloyalists to be burned. Almost the whole village was laid in ashes. Jenkins had represented his section of Virginia in Congress.
The guerrilla bands who infested portions of Virginia during the whole war, were composed of the disloyal citizens of that State. Some of them gave themselves names significant of their character and intentions. A portion of one of these bands, composed of residents of Flat Top Mountain, in Mercer County, were captured near Raleigh, in Western Virginia, by Colonel (afterward General) Rutherford B. Hays, of Ohio, and he found bypapers in their possession, that their organization was known as “The flat top Copperheads,” their avowed object being the destruction of the lives and property of Union men.4 See page 496, volume I.
5 See page 518, volume I.
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