Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/220



N May 24th, Colonel Porterfield, who, with about 100 men, had been holding the town of Fetterman, fell back to Grafton, and sent Col. J. M. Heck, who had joined him two days before, to Richmond, to report the condition of the little force, half armed and altogether undisciplined, which was attempting to hold the important post of Grafton, the junction of the roads connecting Washington with Parkersburg and Wheeling and thence with the Western States. In response to this appeal General Lee could only say that he would furnish some arms at Staunton, Va., and give Heck authority to recruit a regiment in the valley and mountain counties on the road to Grafton. Meanwhile, Colonel Porterfield had received advices of the concentration of Federal troops on the Ohio river, at Marietta and Bellaire and on Wheeling island, with the intention of invading the State; and he thereupon caused the destruction of the railroad bridges at Farmington and Mannington, northwest of Grafton, and one on the Parkersburg line.

Almost simultaneously Gen. George B. McClellan, in command of the Federal department of Ohio, issued a proclamation to the people of western Virginia, declaring that "armed traitors" "are destroying the property of citizens of your State and ruining your magnificent railways," that the general government had heretofore carefully abstained from invading the State, or posting