Henry Wilson Storey's History of Cambria County, V.II, p.155

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History of Cambria County, V.2

HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY. 155


January 4th. (1864.)
    * * * Arrived in Cumberland tonight on a march and found photographs sent from Baltimore.
    South Branch, Hampshire Co., W. Va., January 13, 1864.
    * * * The Southern Confederacy came into West Virginia a couple of weeks since and there was consequently a great ebullition – a scattering and tearing things to pieces, and a series of such strategic marches and wiley tactics that in spite of frozen feet and ears we must admire, it was a Moscow on a delicate scale and as poor Jim Moon said, must excite praise and admiration to all future generations of antiquity. Gen. Averell made a nice raid and broke the East Tennessee railroad; it cost him considerable horse flesh and prisoners. He came back closely followed by Fitz Hugh Lee who frightened the authorities into an evacuation of nearly the whole country without a single fight. Lee took all the conscripts he could find, a train of three hundred horses and seventy-five wagons; a few hundred prisoners and numerous stores and went home drunk and merry.
    There is a big heading in the press, “War in West Virginia, etc.” – this is its history:
    It may have a great weight in the general result but I have not yet been able to see it.
    I am away from the regiment now and carrying on for myself on a solitary out post with my company. I have a block house, iron clad – and one brass howitzer, formidable arrangement, (to see that the South branch empties regularly and peacefully into the Potomac.) It is a tolerably good winter arrangement, rather better than marching through the cold and lying in snow but I am at a loss for society and sorely miss the few congenial spirits of the regiment. As for the boasted chivalry and hospitality of Virginians in this section of the country, it is a sad failure. When we come across an intelligent family the females generally wear black and regard a Yankee as the personification of everything evil, and in conversation they will invariably force their political sentiments upon you, though as an offset they are tolerably handsome, and if they can be induced to friendship, they are very honorable, much more so than men.
    The civil law is dead here and the commander of an out post has to be Squire and Judge, decide all petty cases and make the unruly behave. The slightest punishment inflicted is to cut off the supply of sugar and coffee; it has a great effect on the disloyal; mathematically expressed it stands thus: 1 disloyal man minus 1 pound of coffee equals 1 oath of allegiance. Who would not be delighted in such a rare country as this! Everything takes care of itself, dilapidation is the universal picture everywhere. Where there is or was improvements, those who ever knew anything at all have joined the rebel army and those who are left barely know enough to get out of the rain. What is the use of having Emancipation societies?

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	HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.	155
January 4th. (1864.) * * * Arrived in Cumberland tonight on a march and found photographs sent from Baltimore. South Branch, Hampshire Co., W. Va., January 13, 1864. * * * The Southern Confederacy came into West Virginia a couple of weeks since and there was consequently a great ebullition – a scattering and tearing things to pieces, and a series of such strategic marches and wiley tactics that in spite of frozen feet and ears we must admire, it was a Moscow on a delicate scale and as poor Jim Moon said, must excite praise and admiration to all future generations of antiquity. Gen. Averell made a nice raid and broke the East Tennessee railroad; it cost him considerable horse flesh and prisoners. He came back closely followed by Fitz Hugh Lee who frightened the authorities into an evacuation of nearly the whole country without a single fight. Lee took all the conscripts he could find, a train of three hundred horses and seventy-five wagons; a few hundred prisoners and numerous stores and went home drunk and merry. There is a big heading in the press, “War in West Virginia, etc.” – this is its history: It may have a great weight in the general result but I have not yet been able to see it. I am away from the regiment now and carrying on for myself on a solitary out post with my company. I have a block house, iron clad – and one brass howitzer, formidable arrangement, (to see that the South branch empties regularly and peacefully into the Potomac.) It is a tolerably good winter arrangement, rather better than marching through the cold and lying in snow but I am at a loss for society and sorely miss the few congenial spirits of the regiment. As for the boasted chivalry and hospitality of Virginians in this section of the country, it is a sad failure. When we come across an intelligent family the females generally wear black and regard a Yankee as the personification of everything evil, and in conversation they will invariably force their political sentiments upon you, though as an offset they are tolerably handsome, and if they can be induced to friendship, they are very honorable, much more so than men. The civil law is dead here and the commander of an out post has to be Squire and Judge, decide all petty cases and make the unruly behave. The slightest punishment inflicted is to cut off the supply of sugar and coffee; it has a great effect on the disloyal; mathematically expressed it stands thus: 1 disloyal man minus 1 pound of coffee equals 1 oath of allegiance. Who would not be delighted in such a rare country as this! Everything takes care of itself, dilapidation is the universal picture everywhere. Where there is or was improvements, those who ever knew anything at all have joined the rebel army and those who are left barely know enough to get out of the rain. What is the use of having Emancipation societies?