Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/318

 310 Southern Historical Society Papers.

we met General Jones he had selected five hundred head of as fine cattle as ever were in West Virginia, and the drovers and guards were directed to take them as quickly as possible to General Lee's army. -No country could have been more abundantly supplied with live stock than all that fine grazing country of Northwestern Virginia was at that time, and all of this stock, independently of the sympathies of the owners, was brought back safely within the Confederate lines. Many and pitiable were the scenes of women, girls and old men, pleading for their horses and cattle, but the Confederate soldiers that had been sent there to execute the orders of their government, did it faithfully. General Jones completely remounted his en- tire brigade of cavalry with fresh horses, the pick of the coun- try, and ever since the Civil War, in that part of West Vir- ginia the Imboden raid has been regarded the greatest calamity that ever befell their country.

RESULTS OF THE RAID.

The results of the Imboden raid, from a military standpoint were, to supply the meat rations of General Lee's Army, and on the strength supplied by some of those cattle the raid was made into Pennsylvania one month later, when the great battle of Gettysburg was fought the first week of July, 1863. The war records show another result was, General Benjamin S. Roberts was relieved of his command in Western Virginia, and General William Woods Averill was appointed in his place. The government at Washington was greatly displeased with General Roberts, principally because he had allowed all that valuable property to be captured and taken within the Confede- rate lines. Another result of the Imboden raid was the assemb- ling in West Virginia of what was known as the Eighth Army Corps, under General Averill, for the purpose of destroying all the western part of Virginia inside the Confederate lines, and the three successive raids made by him in August, Novem- ber and December of that year, the last raid ending up at Salem, Va., where General Averill did so much damage to the rail- road and Confederate stores at that place. The political effect of the "Imboden Raid" inside the Federal lines in that part