Free Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided by W Hunter Lesser Page A

signed that letter “F.H. Pierpont, Governor of Virginia.” 200
     
    Few American executives ever faced Governor Pierpont's dilemma. The Restored Government had little real authority. Secessionists remained in control of most state and local offices. There were bills to be paid, yet Pierpont's government had no money. Early on the morning of June 24, he sought to withdraw five thousand dollars apiece from two Wheeling banks. When a cashier balked, Pierpont explained the risk in his matter-of-fact way: “If my government succeeds you are sure of your money. If it does not succeed, your money is not worth a bubble.” He secured the loans and went on to reap more than $41,000 in Federal notes that Virginia had neglected to appropriate.
     
    Pierpont's fund-raising was capped by a spectacular raid on $27,000 in gold. The Exchange Bank of Weston held that treasure trove, deposited by the state to pay for construction of a “Lunatic Asylum.” When rumors reached Pierpont of intentions by that other governor of Virginia to seize the gold, he sent John List of Wheeling to claim it for the Restored Government. Colonel Erastus B. Tyler's Seventh Ohio Infantry accompanied List to Weston, snapped up the gold, and escorted it to Clarksburg in a hearse. It was the heaviest guarded “funeral” procession ever seen in Western Virginia. 201
     
    The Second Wheeling Convention adjourned on June 25, 1861. In twelve days of debate, Virginia Unionists had sketched out a new state government. They would reconvene on August 6 to take up the issue deftly sidestepped—creation of a new state. 202
     
    A dispatch from Secretary of War Simon Cameron soon brought cherished news to Wheeling. “The President,” wrote Cameron, “never supposed that a brave and free people, though surprised and unarmed, could long be subjugated by a class of political adventurers always adverse to them, and the fact that they have already rallied, reorganized their government, and checkedthe march of these invaders demonstrates how justly he appreciated them.”
     
    The letter was addressed to “Hon. Francis H. Pierpont, Governor of the State of Virginia.” It was tacit Federal recognition of the Restored Government. 203
     

CHAPTER 8
A DREARY-HEARTED
GENERAL
    “ I don't anticipate anything very brilliant—indeed I shall esteem myself fortunate if I escape disaster. “
    —Robert S. Garnett, C.S.A.
     
    Alarming dispatches poured into Richmond from over the mountains. “The affair at Philippi was a disgraceful surprise,” General Robert E. Lee was notified. “The only wonder is that our men were not cut to pieces.” Colonel Porterfield's Confederates had fled to Huttonsville, a crossroads hamlet about forty miles south of Philippi. They were not to be blamed for running, insisted one officer. What he blamed them for was that “they didn't stop running when the Yankees stopped.”
    Virginian John Cammack spoke for many of those demoralized Confederates: “It seems to me that if Colonel Porterfield had set out to help McClellan he could not have done it any more successfully than he did.” A respected officer informed Lee, “I am pained to have to express my conviction that Colonel Porterfield is entirely unequal to the position which he occupies.” 204
     
    A court of inquiry charged Porterfield with negligence. However, General Lee ruled out court-martial proceedings. He considered the inquiry punishment enough—hoping “that the sadeffects produced by the want of forethought and vigilance…in this case,” would be “a lesson to be remembered by the army throughout the war.” 205
     
    Lee faced trials of his own. A June 8 proclamation by the governor handed Virginia's military forces over to the Confederate States and terminated Lee's duty as general-in-chief. Overnight, he became a brigadier general in the Confederate army—the highest rank then existing—but an officer without assignment. Lee remained in Richmond as a personal advisor to