On to Grafton

by William T. Price

Published 1901

Introduction

They mustered in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress;
To right those wrongs, come weal or woe;
To perish or o'ercome the foe!"

Tacitus, one of the most accomplished historians of the ages, makes this very wise observation on the uses of history:

This I hold to be the office of history; to rescue virtuous actions from oblivion, to which a want of records would consign them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in the opinion of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base actions.

This correspondent has taken it in hand to transcribe the contents of a diary that was kept during an excursion to Grafton during May and June 1861, as a volunteer chaplain.

During the national troubles that characterized the year of 1861, a military post was located at Grafton, a railroad town in Tyler County, now West Virginia. As a strategical point, it was regarded as very important, because the Parkersburg branch made a junction here with the main stem of the B&O Railway. A volunteer company, numbering over two hundred young men, the choice of the Highland families, was raised in a few days after the Lincoln proclamation, and organized with Felix Harness Hull, captain.

The names of Robert H. Bradshaw and Jesse Gilmore recur vividly to the writer's memory, as enthusiasts in the impending cause.

Orders came from Governor Letcher to take up the march for Grafton, and the troops started the 18th of May. At the solicitation of Captain Hull and others, and being more than willing besides, I tendered my services as a volunteer chaplain.