Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 2.djvu/288

76 cavalry, while Capt. O. T. Weems, with 80 sharp-shooters of the Eleventh cavalry and a part of Witcher's battalion, was ordered to fire the railroad bridge. Both efforts failed, and Jones moved on to Evansville, while Lieutenant Vandiver and 8 men captured Independence and a home guard of 20 men. Jones then crossed the railroad at that point and was joined by Harman and McDonald, who had been successful in their expeditions.

On the 28th the command crossed the Monongahela at Morgantown and marched on Fairmount, which they occupied on the morning of the 2Qth, capturing the garrison of 260 after a brisk fight. Scarcely was this capitulation concluded before reinforcements arrived, who began shelling the Confederates, but the enemy was held off, mainly by Harman and Marshall, while under the direction of Lieutenant Williamson and Capt. John Henderson the magnificent iron railroad bridge of three spans, each 300 feet, erected at a cost of about half a million dollars, was completely destroyed. The Confederate loss at Fairmount was but 3 wounded. At dark the command started out to join Imboden, and finding Clarksburg occupied by the Federals, the Maryland cavalry under Brown made an attack on Bridgeport, 5 miles west of that place, capturing 47 prisoners, burning the bridge to the east and the trestle work to the west, and running a captured train into the chasm. Next day they reached Philippi, and the captured horses and cattle were sent to Beverly. The junction was completed with Imboden at Weston on the 5th, and on the same day their picket was attacked at Janelew.

Judging his exhausted force not sufficient to meet the enemy in pitched battle, after resting two days General Imboden retired southward, while Jones' cavalry started against the Parkersburg. branch of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. Colonel Harman, with the Twelfth and Eleventh regiments and Witcher's battalion, moved on West Union, where he burned two bridges, meanwhile