Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/76

62 with July, were very far-reaching in their results. McClellan, by the force of numbers many times increased in efficiency by the aid of steam power on navigable rivers and railways, by the use of field telegraphs following his movements, and by superior strategy, made possible by these agencies, compelled the Confederates to retreat from the banks of the Ohio to near the Alleghany range of the Appalachians, and abandon to Federal control—which thenceforward during the war was well nigh continuous—most of Trans-Alleghany Virginia, nearly one-third of the State. These results were not only of present but of great future importance to the Federal government in the conduct of the war. They not only gave it control of the navigable waters of the Ohio along and within the borders of Virginia for transportation purposes, but also gave it access to and control of the important coal mines and salt works on the Big Kanawha, and the newly-discovered petroleum wells in the Little Kanawha basin, to the great advantage of Ohio and other Western States, and enabled it to establish camps of observation, accessible by rail and river, far within the borders of Virginia, from which raiding parties were constantly threatening Virginia's interior lines of communication through the Great Valley and the lead mines, salt works, coal mines, blast furnaces, foundries, and other important industrial establishments in and near that grand source of military supplies, thus requiring the detaching of large numbers of troops to watch these Federal movements, and to guard these important and indispensable sinews of war. They deprived Virginia of a large portion of her annual revenues, of a most important recruiting ground for troops, and enabled the bogus government of Virginia to establish and maintain itself at Wheeling, and under the protection of Federal armies strengthen the disloyal element in that part of the State, and organize numerous regiments of infantry and companies of cavalry and artillery to swell the numbers of the Federal army. McClellan had good reason to exult at his success, no matter if it had been easily won.