Romney, skirmish at
One of the most important of the earlier military operations of the
Civil War, in its moral effect, was performed under the direction of
Col. Lew. Wallace, with his regiment of Zouaves, the 11th Indiana, raised by himself, and presented with its colors by the women of
Indiana.
It was sent to
Evansville, in southern Indiana, on the
Ohio River, to prevent supplies of any kind being sent to the
South.
There, as a police force, it chafed with impatience for more active service, and on June 6, 1861, it was ordered to proceed to
Cumberland, Md., and join
General Patterson, then moving from
Pennsylvania towards
Harper's Ferry, where the
Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was with a strong force.
Travelling by railway, the regiment reached
Grafton, Va., very soon, and on the night of the 9th was near
Cumberland.
At
Romney, Va., only a day's march south from
Cumberland, there was then a Confederate force, about 1,200 strong.
Wallace resolved to attack it at once.
Led by faithful guides along an unguarded mountain road, at night,
Wallace, with 800 of his men (having left the others at
New Creek), made a perilous journey, and got near
Romney at 8 P. M. on June 11.
In a narrow pass, half a mile from the bridge that spanned the south branch of the
Potomac at
Romney, the advance of the Zouaves was fired upon by Confederate pickets.
The camp of the latter was on a bluff near the village, where they had planted two cannon.
The
Indianians pressed forward, drove the
Confederates before them, and, pushing directly up the hill, captured the battery.
After a slight skirmish, the
Confederates fled in terror to the forest, leaving only women and children (excepting negroes) in the village.
Having no cavalry with which to pursue the fugitives,
Wallace at once retraced his steps and returned to
Cumberland.
In the space of twenty-four hours he and his men had travelled 87 miles without rest (46 of them on foot), engaged in a brisk skirmish, “and, what is more,” reported the gallant colonel, “my men are ready to repeat it tomorrow.”
The indomitable energy, skill, and spirit displayed in this dash on
Romney had a salutary effect, and made the
Confederates in all that region more circumspect.
According to the Richmond papers, it so alarmed
Johnston by its boldness and its menace of his line of communication with
Richmond and
Manassas (for he supposed it to be the advance of a much larger force near), that he immediately evacuated
Harper's Ferry and moved up the Shenandoah Valley to
Winchester.
Roosevelt, Theodore
