Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/287

Rh was compelled to go back to Petersburg to make a crossing of the South Branch, and even then lost some men in crossing the icy stream, swollen by the spring thaw. He was compelled to send back from Moorefield his infantry and artillery. Greenland Pass was found occupied by the enemy, and it was carried by assault, April 25th. The garrison, composed of 52 men of the Twenty-third Illinois, Irish brigade, under Capt. Martin Wallace, and 34 men of Company A, Fourteenth West Virginia, under Captain Smith, displayed heroism equal to their assailants. Throwing themselves into a little church and two other log houses, they met the charge led by Col. Thomas Marshall, Seventh cavalry, supported by Colonel Dulaney, with a destructive fire, wounding Dulaney and a number of the attacking party. A second assault being repulsed, sharpshooters were posted, and Chapman's mounted rifles (Witcher's battalion) secured the stone works close to the building. Under a flag of truce, three times sent in, demands of surrender were made, but the reply was that they were "Mulligan's men and would fight to the last cartridge." Finally, after dark, a general assault was made; Ridgely Brown's and White's battalions stormed the buildings, while Lieutenant Williamson's pioneers applied the torch, and amid the flames the garrison surrendered. In the fight the Confederates lost 7 killed and 22 wounded. A detachment was then sent to burn the railroad bridge at Oakland, under the command of Col. A. W. Harman, consisting of the Twelfth cavalry, Brown's battalion and McNeill's rangers, while a detachment of the Eleventh cavalry under Capt. E. H. McDonald was sent against Altamont, and the remainder of the force moved on Rowlesburg, where the trestle bridge had been burned some time before by a Confederate party. There they found a garrison of 300, against which the Sixth cavalry was sent in front, supported by Colonel Marshall, with the Seventh, and Col. L. L. Lomax, with the