O N the 8th of March, 1864, while in commandof the District of Lehigh , with headquartersat Reading, Pennsylvania , I received an order fromthe President appointing me to the command ofthe Department of West Virginia, and on the 10thof the same month I arrived at Cumberland , theheadquarters of the depai-tment.
As this was the time when General Grantassumed the chief command of the armies andbegan his preparations for the campaign of1864, it seemed to me necessary to subordinateall military arrangements in the department tothe paramount object of making the bulk of ourforces available as an auxiliary force in the pro-spective campaign. It was also necessary to pro-tect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , the shortestline of communication between Washington andCincinnati . To reach these ends a system ofdefensive measures was applied to the line ofthat road, and the troops were concentrated atcertain points on the road to be reorganized, dis-ciplined, and provided with all the necessary ma-terial for active service. The intrencliments atHarper’s Perry were extended and strengthened,and the construction of detached works was begunat Martinsburg, Cumberland , Grafton, and Clarks-burg, to protect these places against raidingparties. There were block-houses at the mostimportant points on the Baltimore and Ohio, andiron-clad railroad cars were brought into requisi-tion, each of them armed with a small piece. APontoon-bridge was laid over the river at PallingWaters, between Plarper’s Perry and Williamsport .
Atthe middle of March there were about 24,000men in the department, most of them guardingthe railroad from Monocacy and Harper’s Perryto Parkersburg and Wheeling , while about 3500Under General Crook were in the Kanawha Valley .Amid great difficulties the work of organizationWent on tolerably well, so that I expected to have,after the middle of April, a force of about 20,000men ready for “active service in the field.” Onthe 29tli of March General E. O. C. Ord arrivedat my headquarters at Cumberland with a let-ter from General Grant, saying in substance thatI should immediately assemble 8000 infantry,1500 cavalry (“picked men”), besides artillery,Provided with ten days’ rations, at Beverly, for thePurpose of marching by Covington to Staunton ;the troops to be under the command of General*-h'd, who supplemented the letter by saying, on theauthority of General Grant, that the column shouldstart within ten days. General Crook was to movefrom Charleston against the Virginia and Tennes-see Railroad, destroy as much of it as possible, andthen turn toward Lynchburg or await furtherorders. Crook had been summoned to Grant’sheadquarters about a week before, where thisraid” had been discussed and decided upon. Ina hother letter I was directed to have a large trainready and to move up the Valley and meet the ex-pedition of Ord and Crook as soon as it should reach
Staunton. The most energetic measures were im-mediately taken to put this plan into operation.All the troops that could be spared were con-centrated at Webster and Clarksburg to move toBeverly as soon as the necessary material should becollected at that point. But continuous rains hadmade the roads so bad that it was almost impossi-ble to move even empty wagons to Beverly, andonly about 6500 troops could be assembled for theexpedition, unless the whole region from Harper’sPerry and Martinsburg to Cumberland and Parkers-burg were to be left unprotected and exposed to hos-tile enterprises. Of all these circumstances Gen-eral Grant was informed, and General Ord, who wasevery day in my headquarters, became so diffidentin regard to the whole matter that he asked Gen-eral Grant to be relieved. His request was grantedon the 17th of April, and on the same day ColonelO. E. Babcock arrived with instructions fromGeneral Grant to confer with me about the bestway of solving the “raiding ” problem. It was de-cided that General Crook should move against theVirginia and Tennessee Railroad and New RiverBridge with the best and strongest part of ourforces, about 10,000 men, while the remainder,about 7000, should advance in the ShenandoahValley, at least as far as Cedar Creek, with thedouble object of protecting the eastern part of thedepartment, from Harper’s Perry to Cumberland ,and at the same time facilitating the operations ofGeneral Crook by inducing his opponent to detacha part of liis forces from south-west Virginia against the troops advancing in the ShenandoahValley. This arrangement was approved by Gen-eral Grant. Reenforcements of infantry and thebest mounted cavalry were sent to General Crookon the Kanawha by way of Parkersburg and theKanawha River; one division of infantry of eightregiments, besides the remnants of General Aver-ell’s cavalry division and three batteries (later onincreased to five), was concentrated at Martins-burg and put under the command of GeneralJulius Staliel, the senior officer. Besides thesetroops there remained on the Baltimore and Ohio,from Monocacy and Harper’s Ferry to Parkers-burg and Wheeling , a total distance of 300 miles,for local defense and other duties, seven regimentsof infantry, several batteries, and a few hundredcavalry.
It was understood that Crook should commencehis movement on the 2d of May, while the troopsin the Shenandoah should start a few days earlierto divert the enemy’s attention from south-w r estVirginia . General Averell, who had distinguishedhimself by Ms successful raid against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, in December, 1863 [seep. 480], was especially assigned by General Grantto the command of the cavalry division to operatewith General Crook.
In conformity with these arrangements I leftCumberland on the 25th of April for Martinsburg,inspected the troops assembled there, and moved to
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