In the first week of May 1864, the band struck up such a loud tune of martial music that the melodies echoed off the West Virginia mountains. In full splendor, the musical ensemble of the 5th West Virginia Infantry marched while Blazer’s Scouts, who remarkably, as an elite unit, also had a few musical instruments, rode down the Kanawha Turnpike straight into the heart of Thurmond’s Appalachia, making as much racket as possible. At night, the Federal troops stoked the flames of massive bonfires; unlike in the stealth missions of the past, General George Crook wanted the Confederates to know that his army had taken the offensive.
A roving martial symphony musical display was part of Crook’s genius for unconventional warfare: the 5th West Virginia Infantry deployed to distract and mislead the enemy in a feint with Blazer’s Scouts in the van. The ruse worked—confused Confederates took the bait and initially focused their attention on the small force, while Crook marched toward his objectives on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The raid on the railroad was part of Grant’s overarching strategy to bring pressure on the Confederacy on multiple fronts. Crook’s raid on Dublin was equally complex. The primary attack involved the bulk of Crook’s Kanawha Division marching 140-plus miles over winding mountain trails and swollen streams behind enemy lines, to attack Dublin Depot and the New River Bridge on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad a few miles away from the depot. The object of multiple previous, unsuccessful Union operations, the 780-foot covered railway bridge was a vital strategic artery and difficult for the Confederates to replace. To confuse the Rebels, General William Averell, led by the Jessie Scouts, aimed to destroy the Confederate saltworks at Saltville as well as the lead mines in Wythe County, Virginia, some forty miles west. At the same time, Blazer’s Scouts and the 5th West Virginia marched toward Lewisburg in a feint to divert Confederates away from Crook. Another force, under Major General Franz Sigel, a German American immigrant, targeted Staunton, a critical supply base and railhead for the Confederacy.
The operations dovetailed into Grant’s master stratagem. For the first time in the war, Union armies coordinated their offensives across numerous theaters. Recognizing that Richmond would fall with the loss of Lee’s army, Grant ordered the Army of the Potomac to target the Army of Northern Virginia, beginning first at what would become known as the Battle of the Wilderness in early May. Grant ordered Meade, “Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.”1 Simultaneously, Major General Benjamin Butler’s forces marched from the Virginia Peninsula to attack Lee and Richmond from the east. Sherman’s army, meanwhile, invaded Georgia and attacked the Confederate forces led by Joe Johnston, who retreated before the advancing Union Army, to seize the vital railhead and industrial area of Atlanta. Nathaniel Banks led a force assigned to the capture of Mobile, Alabama.
In Lewisburg, West Virginia, the musical ruse employed by the 5th West Virginia and Blazer’s Scouts proved effective. Confederates reported an entire Union division near Lewisburg, and Thurmond’s men attacked Blazer’s Scouts and the Union decoy force instead of Crook’s division, which advanced largely unmolested over the mountains toward Dublin. The now-expert Blazer’s Scouts stealthily made their way over Sewell Mountain. “When we started, the Rebs learned of our coming, and blockaded the road over those mountains, so no wagon or horse could pass,” one Scout recalled. “But our horses were too well used to the woods to be stopped.” They concealed themselves during the day and traveled at night by main roads. Blazer’s Scouts “wound their way through brush and over logs.”2 Despite their stealth, Thurmond still attacked, and the Scouts sustained several killed and wounded.
Freezing rain and even snow pelted man, beast, and wagon as Crook’s main force of 6,000 fought through a quagmire of soupy mud. The raiders paralleled the New River, marching along remote trails in the mountains of West Virginia before they emerged near the Virginia border at Princeton Court House. Here, a small Rebel cavalry force fired on them and quickly retreated.
Continuing the footslog to Dublin, Crook ordered his men to wiretap the Confederate telegraph lines near the route of the raid. The Southern operator at Dublin immediately discerned Federal interlopers trying to read his signals. He tapped out in Morse code, “Hello Yank,” and snarkily invited General Crook to dinner. Crook had a sense of humor and accepted the invitation but added that he would regrettably be a day late.3
The electric telegraph was one of the most underappreciated technological advancements that changed the face of warfare during the Civil War. It transformed the nature of leadership, allowing unprecedented, almost instantaneous communication not only between officers but also to their commanders in chief. Lincoln often huddled in the telegraph room of the White House getting real-time updates from field commanders as to the status of troop movements—the country’s first wired president.
By 1861, telegraph cables connected almost all major cities in the Union with more than 50,000 miles of wire, while far fewer lines connected the South. Though they improved communication, they could also be a liability; lines were vulnerable to being tapped, as Crook demonstrated.
Caught by surprise, Confederate general Albert Gallatin Jenkins constructed his battle lines with less than forty-eight hours to prepare. Commanding a hodgepodge force consisting mainly of old men and boys from the home guards, Jenkins built a hasty defensive line of logs, rail fences, and earth, stretching about a half mile along a ridge between Cloyd’s Mountain and the town of Dublin, to block the path to warehouses and the major depot of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. A large meadow about 500 yards long and a winding muddy creek lay in front of the Rebel defenses.
The harsh crackle of musket fire and boom of cannons peppered the lines of blue as Crook’s men charged across the meadow on the sunny morning of May 9. Outnumbered by nearly three to one, the home guard and other Confederate troops unleashed a withering volley on the Union attackers. Five Federal flag bearers went down in the melee as the attack faltered. Men retreated and looked for cover. Seeing the unfolding disorder, Crook leaped from his horse and led his troops forward into the storm of lead and iron. Despite the dashing charge, the general floundered in the mud and water of the creek and had to be helped out by his men. The Federals descended on the Confederate breastworks. Fighting became hand to hand and raged for a little under an hour. One Ohioan later wrote about the intensity of the battle, “Old soldiers say that it was one of the hardest of the war for the time it lasted.” Crook lost 10 percent of his men killed and wounded. Confederates under Jenkins’ command lost 23 percent of their force, a massive number considering the duration of the fight—Jenkins himself suffered a wound that would prove mortal. Captured by Crook’s men, the former Democratic congressman, a wealthy planter and slave owner, died a dozen days later at the hands of a careless orderly who ruptured an artery from the wound at the base of his amputated arm, causing him to bleed out.
With Jenkins’ force cleared from the ridge, Crook rumbled toward Dublin, where his men tore up nine miles of railroad track and put to the torch warehouses full of priceless war materiel and supplies as they moved on to their most prized main objective—the destruction of the long-sought-after New River Bridge.
Crook placed the Jessie Scouts out front, along with a company of skirmishers led by Captain Michael Eagan; they approached the crucial bridge and supply artery. “A cannon-ball … struck deep in the ground right in front of me, stunning me severely for a few minutes,” remembered Eagan.4 Confederate and Union artillery dueled from opposite sides of the bridge. Motivated by an aide who “said that whoever would burn the bridge would be remembered,” Eagan took some matches and climbed up one of the piers. He “broke off some dry pine from the side works and ignited the bundle in the west end of the bridge.” Flames quickly engulfed the timber-covered railroad bridge, and within minutes the trestle seemed to leap from its stone pylons as it plunged into the river below.* Future president, and at the time regimental commander of the 23rd Ohio, Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes savored the moment. “A fine scene it was, my band playing [Yankee Doodle] and all the regiments marching onto the beautiful hills hurrahing and enjoyed the triumph.”5
Moving up and down precipitous mountains and across “tortuous streams” for nearly a week, Arch Rowand and the Jessie Scouts rode ahead of Averell’s force of 2,000 mounted troops, charged with attacking the Confederate saltworks and lead mines. They found the Confederates on May 7. “Captured scouts of the enemy and one company of the Eighth Virginia (Confederate) Cavalry on picket,” wrote Averell.6 The Confederates gleaned accurate information from their scouts that a Union force was advancing but were uncertain whether the raid would target the lead mines or the saltworks.
General John Hunt Morgan, back in command after his 1863 arrest and imprisonment following his raid in Ohio, correctly guessed Saltville and dug in his force of 4,000 troops. Outnumbered by two to one, Averell attempted to skirt around Morgan and attack Wytheville, though they nevertheless collided. “At [Wytheville] we ran into Morgan’s men, too heavy for us to tackle, and we got back. The Confederates got my horse; they shot him from under me,” remembered Arch Rowand. Averell’s force barely escaped with their lives. “Averell was wounded that day with a bullet on the top of his head which disabled him for a little while.”7 The two sides battled for over four hours, and Averell lost more than one hundred men and officers. In the dead of night, the raiders escaped by crossing the swollen New River. When Confederates hot on their heels arrived soon after, the river had miraculously risen to impassable levels. “Had their designs been accomplished in reaching the river before me the success of the expedition might have been varied,” Averell laconically reported.8
Averell’s men destroyed track and other critical infrastructure as they moved to join Crook’s force. With the bridges burned behind them and the river swollen, the two commands began the long journey back to West Virginia together. Hundreds of enslaved men, women, and children seeking their freedom flocked to the two Union commanders. Low on supplies and food, Crook nonetheless mercifully accepted them into his protection even though being bogged down by civilians could jeopardize his escape from the Confederates. Denying them passage could have resulted in their death or severe punishment, and the Union commander also saw an indirect benefit of removing a portion of the Confederate labor force.
Snow, mud, and rugged terrain combined with worn-out horses and mules made for a difficult journey. Thurmond’s Rangers sniped at them along the way. After they had run the gauntlet forged by Mother Nature and Confederate bushwhackers, all that stood between the raiders and their destination, Meadow Bluff, West Virginia, was the swollen Greenbrier River. Crook improvised and converted supply wagons into barges—jumping in to guide stalled horses and mules across the river. Harassed by Thurmond’s men, the general was grazed by a stray bullet. Unflinching, he continued to press forward.
With all the commands united at Meadow Bluff, Crook ordered Blazer and his men to “forage in the vicinity of Lewisburg and take everything. In two days had ten wagons loaded and sent to the army,” Asbe Montgomery recalled.9
Blazer’s Scouts and the Jessie Scouts did not rest long. Once again, the men would traverse the same ground to attack Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley.
* Remarkably, the Confederacy rebuilt the bridge within a month. Unfortunately, the Union failed to bring the explosives needed to destroy the stone pylons.