Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/316

 308 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Philippi road was the nearest way to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and this road had been used by the Federals at Bev- erley for the purpose of hauling supplies. Another thing in our efforts to capture the fort at Beverley. We had taken the Staunton and Parkersburg pike beyond Beverley that leads to Buchanan. The Federals left Beverley just before sundown, and as we afterwards learned, fled all the ,way through the mud to Philippi (a distance of thirty-one miles) that night.

NEITHER KILLED NOR WOUNDED.

There was not a single Confederate killed or seriously wound- ed in the capture of Beverley, in April, 1863. The Confederates were pretty well worn out when we reached Beverley, and especi- ally was this true of the infantry, that had come from Lewis- burg, Staunton and Harrisonburg, all of them having tramped over one hundred miles, but they were greatly rejoiced at the thought of capturing so easily the old town of Beverley, that had then been in the hands of the Federals since the nth day of July, 1861.

It was the capture of this town on that day that made the great military reputation of General George B. McClellan, and the earthworks that we had just chased the Yankees out of were probably the product of his brain. General McClellan was at Beverley reposing on his Rich Mountain laurels, where he and Rosecrans had more thousands than Colonel Heck had hundreds, when the administration at Washington in their dire discom- fiture after the 2ist of July, sent for him to come, and that with all possible speed to take the command of General McDowell's defeated and disorganized army, and on his arrival at Washing- ton, he was hailed as the "Young Napoleon." In approaching Northwestern Virginia from the east, Beverley is the key to all that country, and none knew this fact better than the Federals, and the boast was often made by even the private Federal sol- diers that "Beverley would never be taken," and this had been the fear of -our leaders that we would have to go around Bever- ley, and if Beverley had not been captured, as the writer now views it, the Imboden raid would have been a failure. The purpose of the raid was not to fight, but to capture all the horses, mules and especially all cattle that could be gotten within the