Dark clouds dappled the evening sky as the Union steamboat B. C. Levi chugged down the muddy waters of the Kanawha River bound for Charleston, West Virginia. Brigadier General Eliakim Parker Scammon, a martinet, and disliked by his men, was “anxious to return to his post.”1 Cold rain pelted the boat as the captain of the craft realized the impossibility of running “the chutes” in the Kanawha: whitewater and falls formed around the river’s shoals. To wait out the storm, the pilot tied up at the hamlet of Red House Shoals, the oldest community between Point Pleasant and Charleston. Feeling secure in the storm, the Federals did not even bother to post a guard, and Scammon and many members of his staff turned in for the night of February 2–3, 1864.
Word traveled fast that a riverboat with a Yankee general was moored at Red House Shoals, and at dawn, Confederate partisans stormed the boat, rousing nearly forty sleeping Federals out of their slumber at gunpoint. Their “capture [was] no difficult task”—in fact, one reporter called the affair “ridiculous,” since fewer than ten Confederates pulled off the caper.2 At gunpoint, the small band of raiders ordered their prisoners to disembark with their baggage. Generously, the Southerners allowed the men to retain their private property, as they rifled through mailbags and ordered the captain to sail to the opposite side of the river, whereupon the raiders torched the boat.
Union soldiers willing to accept parole (sign a promise, which was generally adhered to, that once they returned to their lines, they would not engage in active service until they were officially exchanged with another prisoner) were released, but the Confederates kept their prizes: Scammon and several members of his staff. With the general and his officers in tow, the Confederates, with assistance from Thurmond’s Rangers, began the long journey to Richmond.
Undaunted and on foot, Scouts went on a hot pursuit to rescue Scammon. “After running six miles—and in an almost breathless manner informed the Lieutenant, of what was going on the Kanawha River—and in ten or fifteen minutes he started out with twenty-two of the Independent Scouts, who double-quicked 12 miles to get between the robbers.” Amazingly the footrace bore fruit—fleet of foot, the Scouts closed the distance and “got in sight of them and raised the yell, gave chase, ran them two miles, and being entirely exhausted, came to a halt, and then returned, picking up what their flying enemies had thrown away in the race.” Leaving a trail of debris in their wake, the Rebels fled into the verdant mountains. Although they could not rescue Scammon, the Scouts recovered about $1,000 worth of arms, tobacco, and dry goods, along with some of the mail, including “about sixty Rebel letters directed at residents of Mason and Putnam counties.”3
Mercifully, this would be one of the Independent Scouts’ last missions on foot. In the wake of the capture of Scammon and his staff came a new commander who saw the enormous benefits of the mounted Jessie Scouts.
Tall and sinewy, with a keen mind, thirty-six-year-old Ohioan George R. Crook sported an unruly beard that could double as a small furry animal. Befitting his mountain-man appearance, their new commander had nearly a decade of experience in the remote northwest territory of Oregon. An Indian fighter, but not an Indian hater, Crook learned Native American languages as well as culture from his time in the wilds of the northwest. Years later, after his death, one Indian chief said, “Then General Crook came; he, at least, never lied to us. His words gave the people hope. He died. Their hope died.”4 One of his aides would later compare Crook to Daniel Boone.5
With his mastery of culture, survival skills, and years of battling Native Americans, even wounded by an arrow, Crook brought deep knowledge of what would later be called counterinsurgency, special operations, and an evolving American way of war that he would help usher in. Crook took an immediate liking to Blazer, who retained command of the company and liked the Ohioan’s unconventional approach to dealing with partisans; in his autobiography, Crook even took liberties in recounting his role in the Scouts’ origin. Crook made the Scouts a high priority and issued General Order 2 on February 8, 1864: “The regimental commanders of this division will select one man from each company … to be organized into a body of scouts.… One man from each regiment so selected to be a Non-Commissioned Officer.… All these scouts then acting together will be under the command of Commissioned Officers.… Officers will be particular to select such persons only as are possessed of strong moral courage, personal bravery, and particularly adept for this kind of service. The men selected who are not already mounted will mount themselves in the country by taking animals from disloyal persons in the proper manner … providing, however, that sufficient stock is left these people to attend crops with.”6
However, horses were in short supply, and the loss of a horse could have a devastating impact on a small farm; Crook gave Blazer orders to beat the bushes and procure mounts. He also wisely understood and tried, at least on paper, to practice sound counterinsurgency principles before the term even existed. He hoped not to inflame the local population and push more of them into the arms of the Confederacy. What Crook ordered was not, however, precisely followed. Scout Asbe Montgomery framed the situation bluntly: “The beauty of it was that we were to be mounted on such horses we could get from the Rebs, either citizens or soldiers. Well, you could guess it was not long before we were mounted.”7 Blazer also captured many of their horses and continually upgraded their mounts when opportunities presented themselves: “Then we pick up horses and off to camp, laughing over our fun. Coming into camp we would dismount, and examine who had the worst horse, change off for a better one; so all the time were improving our company’s condition in the way of swift and suitable horses for our arduous labors.”8
Using Averell’s Jessie Scouts as a model, and his own experience, Crook attempted to increase the firepower of Blazer’s Scouts by pressing the War Department for repeating Spencer and Henry rifles—weapons that could fire as fast as a man could cock the gun’s lever and pull the trigger. Some of the men Blazer recruited, such as the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry, had Spencer carbines and brought them to battle, but the Federal bureaucracy dragged its feet on the larger request, claiming none were on hand. Better weapons would take time.
Crook labeled Blazer’s company the “Division Scouts.” “Each regiment to [contribute] and have a detachment making some eighty men,” recalled Montgomery. Sergeants took charge of a squad of men; Montgomery led his “old 9th Virginia boys,” which, he said, “I was proud of, as I could eat, fight, and, if necessary, die with them.”9
With the reorganization of the Scouts, Blazer needed a second in command and leaned on his venerable noncommissioned officer Montgomery, who recommended Lieutenant James Ewing of the 9th West Virginia. Ewing liked to hunt Confederates; “his very soul and strength were all strung at full might as warring against the Rebels.” Courageous, and a man who led a “rough and ready life,” Ewing attacked Rebels through “quick and active fighting” and demonstrated skill in the saddle: he “put spurs to his horse and [would] make him ‘git.’ ” With his “helper,” Ewing and Blazer often divided the company and went after different groups of partisans. In early 1864, they went on a “grand raid” across the mountains for four days and in the Coal River region. With “Old Dick,” the men’s nickname for their leader, “we thought ourselves ‘bully,’ and not to be scared of trifles.”10 Deep in largely unfriendly territory, the Scouts remained undaunted. One of those men was Sergeant Joseph Allen Frith, a handsome, twenty-three-year-old, gray-eyed farmer who had recently joined the Scouts from the 34th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. His fellow soldiers described him as “always ready for any thing, and always in good humor,”11 and he had many friends, which was indicative of the esprit de corps and cohesion within the unit.
Resting during portions of the day, Blazer’s Scouts probed the mountains at night: “[We] mounted, and the Captain, for he had been promoted by this time—going into the enemy’s country, riding slowly, not a word to break the silence. On we rode, each comrade holding his gun in hand, not knowing how soon we might need them, as all that country had in it more or less scouts of Thurmond’s men; and so used every means to avoid a surprise.” The Scouts often surprised the bushwhackers. In one incident Confederates poured out of a house and started firing on Blazer’s Scouts. With speed and firepower, the men routed their opponents. Urging his men forward, Montgomery remembered Blazer shouting, “Charge, Boys, give them fits!”12 The Scouts put spurs to their mounts and rode into a maelstrom of “balls whizzing like hail.” Undaunted, they reached the house, sprang from their horses, and “gave them Yankee thunder,”13 remembered Montgomery.
The few Confederates lucky enough to escape took to the mountains while others fell into Blazer’s hands. “You may guess how they fared, as we had refused to take any more of Thurmond’s men prisoners, as they had shot some of our men,”14 wrote Montgomery.
In another incident, Montgomery recalled ambushing Thurmond’s men: “Here they are boys! Shoot their hearts out go for them; show no quarter!” A yell rang out along the line of horsemen, “Give it to them don’t spare one; remember the bushwhackers have no quarters!”15 The guerrillas and bushwhackers gave no quarter; they regularly executed captured Scouts. A war of annihilation thus raged in Appalachia.
The labors of Blazer’s Scouts bore fruit. In May 1864, a reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial recorded, “General [Crook] informed me last night that the bushwhackers have been entirely driven out of the Kanawha Valley, owing to the skill of [Captain] Blazer and a company of picked men. Travel from Gauley to here is now comparatively safe, and immense trains and supplies are continually coming in.”16
With the Union lines of communication now more secure thanks to Blazer’s Scouts, the Federals planned a daring raid.