June 13, 1861 - Lew Wallace's Raid on Romney

June 13, 1861

Lew Wallace's Raid on Romney

 
Romney, West[ern] Virginia

Col. Lew Wallace: 11st Indiana Infantry (Zouaves!)

vs.

A few hundred unnamed Confederates

* So early! Only three days after "Big Bethel" and ten after "Philippi" 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=150660

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=33450

Engagement at Romney:

Lew Wallace Storms the Bridge

On the night of June 12, 1861, Col. Lewis Wallace led his 11th Indiana (Zouaves) Regiment from Cumberland, Maryland, by train across the Potomac River and into present-day West Virginia. He had learned that “several hundred” Confederate troops were in Romney, as he wrote in his official report, drilling and forcing Unionists into Confederate service. After detraining and marching across the mountains before dawn, Wallace and his men neared Romney about 8 A.M. on June 13 and encountered pickets who fired and ran into town to give the alarm.

As Wallace approached the covered wooden bridge that spanned the South Branch of the Potomac River in front of you, he “could distinctly see … a battery of two guns, planted so as to sweep the road completely. I directed my advance guard to cross the bridge on the run, leap down an embankment at the farther entrance, and observe the windows of a large brick house [Sycamore Dale, across the river and upstream]. … A warm fire opened from the house, which the guard returned, with no other loss than the wounding of a sergeant. … I led a second company across the bridge, and … soon drove the enemy from the house.” Wallace and his regiment set off in pursuit, but the Confederates fled together with most of Romney’s civilians. After searching the town for weapons and supplies, Wallace marched his men back to Cumberland, arriving at 11 P.M.

[Sidebar:]

Lewis “Lew” Wallace was born in Brookville, Indiana, on April 10, 1827. He served in the Mexican War, left the army for a political and legal career, and raised the 11th Indiana Infantry regiment when the Civil War began. On July 9, 1864, he delayed Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early’s army at the Monocacy River in Maryland, giving the defenders of Washington, D.C., time to organize. After the war, he served as governor of New Mexico (famously offering Billy the Kid a pardon) and as minister to Turkey. He is best known as the author of the novel Ben Hur. He died in Crawfordsville, Indiana, on February 15, 1905.