--Pegram
in the wilderness--He surrenders--Indirect results
important--McClellan's military and personal traits.

The reasons which made it important to occupy West Virginia were
twofold, political and military. The people were strongly attached
to the Union, and had generally voted against the Ordinance of
Secession which by the action of the Richmond Convention had been
submitted to a popular vote on May 23d. Comparatively few slaves
were owned by them, and their interests bound them more to Ohio and
Pennsylvania than to eastern Virginia. Under the influence of Mr.
Lincoln's administration, strongly backed and chiefly represented by
Governor Dennison of Ohio, a movement was on foot to organize a
loyal Virginia government, repudiating that of Governor Letcher and
the state convention as self-destroyed by the act of secession.
Governor Dennison, in close correspondence with the leading
loyalists, had been urging McClellan to cross the Ohio to protect
and encourage the loyal men, when on the 26th of May news came that
the Secessionists had taken the initiative, and that some bridges
had been burned on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad a little west of
Grafton, the crossing of the Monongahela River where the two western
branches of the road unite as they come from Wheeling and
Parkersburg. The great line of communication between Washington and
the West had thus been cut, and action on our part was necessary.
[Footnote: Official Records, vol. ii. p. 44.]

[Illustration: CAMPAIGNS IN WEST VIRGINIA 1861.]

Governor Dennison had anticipated the need of more troops than the
thirteen regiments which had been organized as Ohio's quota under
the President's first call, and had enrolled nine other regiments,
numbering them consecutively with the others. These last he had put
in camps near the Ohio River, where at a moment's notice they could
occupy Wheeling, Parkersburg, and the mouth of the Great Kanawha.
[Footnote: _Id_., pp. 46, 47.] Two Union regiments were also
organizing in West Virginia itself, of which the first was commanded
by Colonel B. F. Kelley of Wheeling. The left bank of the Ohio was
in McClellan's department, and on the 24th General Scott, having
heard that two Virginia companies had occupied Grafton, telegraphed
the fact to McClellan, directing him to act promptly in
counteracting the effect of this movement. [Footnote: _Id_., p.
648.]

On the 27th Colonel Kelley was sent by rail from Wheeling to drive
off