Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/264



S the season approached for opening military operations again, after the winter of 1861-62, General Rosecrans was sent to the West, and the general command of the Federals in West Virginia, now called the Mountain department, was given to Gen. John C. Fremont, with headquarters at Wheeling. On the Confederate side there was considerable activity in March on the border. General Johnson had reoccupied Huntersville, and at Camp Alleghany and other posts had a force of about 3,000 men present. Among his soldiers were the Thirty-first, Fifty-second, Twenty-fifth, Fifty-eighth and Forty-fourth Virginia regiments and the Churchville cavalry. Brig.-Gen. Henry Heth, who in a subordinate capacity had gained distinction in the campaigns of the previous year, had his headquarters at Lewisburg, with 1,400 men and four guns, including the Twenty-second and Forty-fifth infantry and the Eighth cavalry, and had called out the militia of Mercer, Greenbrier and Monroe counties. But the military events in western Virginia were for some time to be subordinate to the great campaigns of the year, the plans of which were speedily developed. As it became evident that McClellan would menace Richmond from the peninsula, Johnston's army withdrew from Manassas about the middle of March, and Jackson fell back from Winchester to Mount Jackson. General