8th Virginia Cavalry- Pg 8
On Sunday, November 17, Rutherford Birchard Hayes, later the nineteenth president of the United States, then in charge of the Twenty-third Ohio Regiment, was sent in command of two hundred men from the Twenty-third and Twenty-sixth Ohio, six miles towards Raleigh Courthouse to watch a road on which it was thought Colonel Jenkins' Confederate cavalry might pass. A party of Confederates did pass, and Hayes chatted with some of them. He described them in his diary as "civil and friendly fellows." He saw nothing of Jenkins, however, but heard cannon firing down the Kanawha, and prepared rail barricades.
On November 18, General Schenck left on account of sickness, and his brigade, left in command of Colonel E. P. Scammon, was stationed at Fayetteville. They received orders to remain there for the winter. They were instructed to build a little fort or two, keep about fifteen hundred men, sixty horsemen, and a battery of four to six small cannon. In the meantime they were housed comfortably. Hayes occupied a brick house which had been deserted by its owner, a Confederate. At night when the duties of the day were ended, the officers sat around and played whist.
Hayes gives a good account of the ensuing three months in his diary and letters. On November 25, 1861, he wrote to his mother:
"After several days of severe marching, camping on the ground, without tents, once in the rain and once on the snow, we have returned from a fruitless chase after Floyd's Rebel army, and are now housed in the deserted dwellings of a beautiful village. We have no reports of any enemy near us and are preparing for winter. We shall quarter here if the roads to the head of navigation would allow. As it is we shall probably go to a steamboat landing on the Kanawha. Snow is now three or four inches deep and still falling. We are on high ground -- perhaps a thousand feet above the Kanawha River -- and twelve miles from Gauley Mountain. Our troops are very healthy. We have here in my regiment six hundred and sixty-two men of whom only three are seriously ill. Perhaps fifteen others are complaining so as to be excused from guard duty. The fever which took down so many of our men has almost disappeared.
This is a rugged mountain region, with large rushing rivers of pure clear water and full of the grandest scenery I have ever beheld. I rode yesterday over Cotton Hill and along New River a distance of thirty miles. I was alone most of the day, and could enjoy scenes made still wilder by the wintry storm.
We do not hear of any murders by bushwhackers in this part of Virginia, and can go where we choose without apprehension of danger. We meet very few men. The poor women excite our sympathy constantly. A great share of the calamities of war fall on the women. I see women unused to hard labor gathering corn to keep starvation from the door. I am now in command of the post here, and a large part of my time is occupied in hearing tales of distress and trying to soften the very small amount of salt, sugar, coffee, rice, and bacon goes a long way where all these things are luxuries no longer procurable in the ordinary way.
We are well supplied with everything. But clothes are worn out, lost, etc., very rapidly in these rough marches. People disposed to give can't go amiss in sending shoes, boots, stockings, thick shirts and drawers, mittens, or gloves, and blankets. Other knickknacks are of small account."
On November 29, in a letter to his niece, Hayes said, "We are in no immediate danger here of anything except starvation, which you know is a slow death and gives ample time for reflection." On December 10, Hayes, together with Captain Carlos A. Sperry and Lieutenant R. P. Kennedy Moved into a cottage owned by J. H. Phillips, a dry goods dealer who had joined the Confederate army. Phillips' store had been burned by Union men, but Hayes said of the cottage, "We shall take good care of the premises and try to leave them in as good condition as we find them."
At this time Hayes thought the war would be of short duration. He said, "Once taught to respect the North, they will come to terms gladly, I think." On December 17, he said, "The Rebels are getting sick of it. Nobody but Jenkins holds out in all this country. Rebel soldiers come and give up their arms."