"...the birds had flown"
— Jenkins's Raid —
(sidebar)Confederate Gen. Albert G. Jenkins led 550 cavalrymen on a 500-mile raid from Salt Sulphur Springs, Aug. 22-Sept. 12, 1862, attacking Federal forces and destroying military stores. He captured and paroled 300 Union soldiers, killed or wounded 1,000 others, destroyed about 5,000 small arms, and seized funds from a U.S. paymaster. At Ravenwood, he forded the Ohio River and raised the Confederate flag in Ohio on Sept. 4. He captured Racine, recrossed the river, and ended the raid at Red House on the Kanawha River.
(main text)On August 31, 1862, Confederate Gen. Albert G. Jenkins and his cavalrymen left Weston after occupying the town and destroying Federal property there. At about 11 A.M. the next morning, the Confederates approached Glenville, where two companies of Lt. Col. Moses S. Hall's 10th West Virginia Infantry prepared for the attack. Capt. James M. Ewing, Co. G, described the action:
Jenkins advance guard, consisting of about 300 men, passed up the hill in a slow walk toward Glenville. I ordered the men to take aim and fire, which we did. This stopped the whole crowd, who immediately jumped off their horses. It was said we hit a few of them. I ordered the men back to where they couldn't see us and we reloaded our guns. We stepped to the edge of the bank and they were coming up the hill afoot. We fired another volley into them and then we ran across the woods to the opposite side of the farm. After we were secure in the brush over there they came up to where we had been thick and fast but the birds had flown. That ended the first battle I was ever in.
Ewing was killed during the Third Battle of Winchester, Virginia, on September 19, 1864.
Jenkins occupied Glenville until sunset, when he and his men rode toward Spencer.
"In the evening (Aug. 31, 1862), ?we took up our line of march for Glenville, in Gilmer County. We encamped about midnight, and resuming our march early next morning, approached within sight of Glenville about 11 o'clock next day. Here the enemy, consisting of two companies, fled after a single fire. Resting for the remainder of the day at Glenville, we started at sunset for Spencer." — Gen. Albert. G. Jenkins
(captions)(lower left) Federal infantryman, 33rd N.Y. Infantry —
Courtesy Library of Congress(upper center) Gen. Albert G. Jenkins —
Courtesy Library of Congress(lower right) Jenkin's Raid in West Virginia and Ohio, August-September 1862
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