Two Union Scouts Captured in Confederate Uniform Survive a Hostile Interrogation

written from Weston, (West) Virginia, on September 2, 1862 and he reported the impact of a Confederate cavalry raid led by Albert Gallatin Jenkins that was a diversionary attack intended to draw Union attention away from a major invasion of the Kanawha Valley located far to the south by General William W. Loring.

“I have been away from home now nearly a month and have not heard one word as yet having wrote twice to Mother and Ace [this is his brother, Aseph]. I thought I would write to you to find out what has become of you all. I suppose you have heard before about the Rebels taking this place. It is our fault we were not here at the time. When we came from Ravenswood the next day some of the men went and got on a drunk and was going to shoot the quartermaster when he telegraphed to Gen’l Kelly who ordered us to the mountains for punishment. If we had been here they would never have taken this town as the infantry would have fought which they did not, they did not even fire a gun but run like thieves. The boys jeer at them asking how high is the Ohio, and how is the grain in Indiana. There will be some of them shot if they say a word.”

Arch Rowand was not quite seventeen years old when he left his Pennsylvania home to join the Union Army without his parent’s permission, but before the end of the war, he would be a very experienced veteran and have a Medal of Honor in his possession.

One of the most important functions of the cavalry of both sides during the Civil War involved the collection of intelligence. Skilled volunteers were selected from most cavalry regiments and soon brave men moved in the advance or on the flanks of their regiments in order to prevent any surprise attacks. Frequently, they moved far in the advance of their regiments independently to collect information on the presence, condition, and intentions of the enemy forces in their vicinity.

In order to perform their scouting duties effectively, many of these men were provided the enemy’s uniform to wear as they conducted their operations. While wearing an enemy uniform, the volunteer scout placed his life in his hands since the commonly applied rules of war defined his presence within the opposition’s lines while wearing the wrong uniform as an act of espionage punishable by death. The secret service to their country these volunteers performed involved hazardous activities that could lead to summary execution, if they were apprehended. Dangers other than summary execution awaited the volunteers, but the armies on both sides continued to locate soldiers willing to perform this dangerous duty.

As one of the volunteers for scout duty, Arch Rowand explained how he made his decision to become a scout during an interview with a Harper’s reporter, William Beymer, that occurred in 1912, long after the end of the war.

“’Why did you ever begin?”

“’It was as I told you — Company K [1st West Virginia Cavalry] had been on detached service — scout duty — for some time. When the company was drawn up in line, and the captain called for volunteers for ‘extra dangerous duty,’ I looked at Ike Harris and Ike looked at me and then we both stepped forward. They took us to headquarters and gave us two rebel uniforms — and we wished we had not come.’

“’But why did you volunteer?’

“He looked at me over his glasses. ‘I don’t know! We were boys — wanted to know what was the ‘extra dangerous duty,’ and’ — chuckling to himself at a hidden recollection, ‘when we found out, we hadn’t the face to back down.’ And that’s how it all began.”

By the end of the war, Arch Rowand had led a life of adventure, winning a Medal of Honor in the process. He would be one of the very few scouts selected to accompany Sheridan to Texas at the end of the Civil War for the purpose of entering Mexico to collect information as the victorious Union army maneuvered to force Maxmilian I and his French army from Mexico. Rowand and a few dozen other experienced scouts would wear their old Confederate uniforms across the Rio Grande as they collected vital intelligence on the activities of the French, Austrian, Belgian, and Mexican Imperial troops that had generally supported the Confederacy.

But it is Rowand’s account of his capture and survival of a hostile interrogation that shows the danger these young volunteers were in after they volunteered for the hazardous duty.

Lynchburg Capture Episode

The Battle of Lynchburg was fought on June 17–18, 1864, two miles outside Lynchburg, Virginia, as part of the American Civil War. The Union Army of West Virginia, under Maj. Gen. David Hunter, attempted to capture the city but was repulsed by Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Anderson Early. 

Arch Rowand’s Account of Capture, Interrogation, and Survival

It was on this trip that I and another scout were captured by Lee Hoffman, of the Hampden [Hampton] Legion, about 4 miles from Lexington. Four of Averill’s scouts were ordered by Gen. Averill to go through Breckinridge’s lines and bring Gen. Duffie, a Frenchman who commanded a brigade of our cavalry who had been sent to go around Lynchburg. We started late in the afternoon, about dark, but were not informed that Hunter’s scouts had tried to get through and were driven back. We had positive orders not to go into a house. At half past 10 that night Townsend and I, despite that order, noticed a light in a house while riding along, and went to the house to get something to eat, against the protests of the other scouts who stood outside. The lady in the house was up with a sick child and we asked her to give us something to eat and we would pay for it. She said: “I don’t charge our boys anything.”

Townsend and I were dressed in full Confederate uniform and the lady naturally took us for Confederates. She gave us some bread and some cold meat and some milk. Townsend and I started out of the house expecting to find the two comrades. There was a fence in front of the house, about 12 feet away. It was very dark. As we got about half way to the fence we were summoned to surrender, and a dozen heads bobbed over the fence with guns leveled at us. I asked them: “Are you ‘Yanks?’” “No.” I said: “Then we will surrender.”

They came in. I had my revolver out; they took the revolver. In my left hand pocket I had a small pocketbook in which was a pass signed by Col. Scott of Hunter’s staff, naming me as a scout and which passed me through the lines at all times. I quickly slipped my hand in my pocket and threw that small pocketbook up my sleeve and held it in the hollow of my arm. They took us in the house. We found then we were with Capt. Lee Hoffman of the Hampden [Hampton] Legion, who was there on a scout hunting the “Yanks,” and he had found us two. He asked us who we were. I told him we were two of McCausland’s couriers going to the natural bridges for Gen. Breckinridge with verbal dispatches. He asked me what they were, and I told him: “I can’t tell you; they are for Gen. Breckinridge.” He asked me where the written dispatches were. I told him I didn’t know; he would have to ask Gen. McCausland. I had been in McCausland’s camp two nights before and knew all about his force. The captain made me describe McCausland, the number of regiments he had, the number of guns, and everything about it. 

While the Capt. Was examining me, there was a scout that belonged to Jenkins’ regiment examining Townsend. Townsend was a deserter from Jenkins’ regiment and he of course was well posted as to all the questions asked by the Confederate scout. They were together the year before when they captured a number of our general officers on the Big Kanawha. 

Hoffman asked me where I was from. I told him Lewis County. He asked me if I knew anybody in Weston. I told him I did. Among the men he asked me to describe was a lawyer by the name of Jackson and also a Dr. Hoffman. The knowledge of Weston came to me from the fact that my company was camped there in August and September 0f ’62. After I was there an hour and a half the Confederate scout said to the Capt.: “This man is all right.” And I said to Capt. Hoffman; with a smile on my face: “You think we are deserters.” He said: “No, I don’t. I don’t understand you.” I said: “What is wrong with me?” He said: “That is what puzzles me. You have answered all my questions satisfactorily, and,” he said, “you are a southerner. I know you are not a Yankee.” “Well, then,” I said, “to make yourself sure that we are all right, you had better send a couple of men with us and have us under guard to Breckinridge’s Hdqrs.’

This proposition appeared to drive all doubts out of the Capt’s mind about us. In fact, I made the proposition to get out of there and get the two of them so we would have some show of getting away. For with a dozen around us the jig was about up. He finally said: “I have got a letter I want you to take and deliver to Gen. Breckinridge, and I want you to go through as quick as you can.” Said I: “Yes, you have detained us here an hour and a half.” I noticed the clock in the room when we went in was half past ten, and it was not twelve o’clock before he handed me the letter. We went out and Capt. Hoffman wanted to trade horses with me. He offered $700 to boot. I told him no; that as couriers we had to have good, fast horses and I would get into trouble if I exchanged. So, we started off with the horses, and coming down the lane Townsend made a move to turn towards our camp. I hit his horse a smack and turned it around the other way. He came to his senses then, and we started towards Breckinridge’s Hdqrs. After getting away about half a mile. I said to him: “We can’t get through.” (We didn’t know what happened to our other two men.) “I will take the first cow path and go up over the mountains and strike the Lexington and Staunton Pike, and then for Lexington.” Which we did, and about daylight ran into our pickets. Then we had trouble. 

An O [Ohio]. militia regiment came up the wagon trace and they couldn’t understand why a scout would be in the Confederate uniform. They dismounted us, made us walk to their Hdqrs. and there the colonel of course sized us up and down for Rebels and was going to hang us, and all this and that. I told him who we were and told him if he didn’t send us the Hdqrs. forthwith he would get himself into trouble. He cursed me and said I was impudent. I told him I was a soldier under orders; he could do what he pleased, and went and sat down on a stump of a tree and about 15 or 20 minutes later they started us down to Lexington under guard. We asked for our horses, but they made us foot it. The Lieut. rode my horse and one of the guard rode Townsend’s. We got down to Hdqrs. We were recognized there, of course, very quickly, and I made my report to the Lieut. of the way we had been treated by the Col. and by the pickets. Then somebody got a scolding, and a pretty severe one.

We left Lexington to go to Lynchburg. Averill’s cavalrymen advanced. We scouts reported to Gen. Averill, and he to Hunter that the Confederates were running reinforcements into Lynchburg. General Averill sent a company of the 14th Pa. Cavalry under Capt. Thos. Kerr, now living in Pittsburgh, who went clear around Lexington and reported to Gen. Averill that the Confederates were running heavy reinforcements into Lynchburg. Averill told him to send at once and make a report of the fact to Hunter. Hunter said he had other information. Hunter would neither believe Capt. Kerr, his own, or Averill’s scouts, with the result when he did start to fight to take Lynchburg that he was heavily outnumbered and got whipped very badly.

From Lexington, Maj. Gen. David Hunter advanced against the Confederate rail and canal depots and the hospital complex at Lynchburg. Reaching the outskirts of town on June 17, his first tentative attacks were thwarted by the timely arrival by rail of Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early’s II Corps vanguard from Charlottesville. Hunter withdrew the next day after sporadic fighting because of a critical shortage of supplies. Hunter’s disastrous line of retreat that included starvation for many of his soldiers through West Virginia took his army out of the war for nearly a month and opened the Shenandoah Valley for a major Confederate advance into Maryland that culminated in Jubal Early’s attack directly on Washington, D.C..

The highly independent Rowand and Townsend managed to get themselves captured while in full Confederate uniform by disobeying orders and entering the unidentified woman’s house in an effort to get something to eat. Probably more confident in their disguise than the two scouts who remained outside, Rowand has been scouting for two years at the time he was captured and he could mimic a Southern accent very well since he had lived in Greenville, South Carolina, for several years as a child while his Quaker father worked there as a bookbinder. Townsend was in particular danger since he was being questioned by a man from the very regiment he previously deserted. Both men maintained their cover for status perfectly during their extended interrogations lasting over an hour. Rowand’s cover story was based on his claim of being from Lewis County where his regiment had spent nearly two months and he was intimately familiar with notable personalities. His claim that they were couriers from John McCausland’s cavalry brigade were substantiated by Rowand’s answers to Hoffman’s questions about individuals in MCCausland’s unit. Rowand chose this part of his cover story since he had been within McCausland’s camp recently and knew facts about that unit.

Hoffman and the other interrogator with Townsend made a crucial error that aided the two scouts immensely. The two man were interrogated in the same room and could hear the responses each made to his interrogator and were provided a dispatch by Hoffman that is published in the Official Records and corroborates Rowand’s narrative.

Dave Phillips served in Special Forces in Vietnam, works as an Irregular Warfare adviser with the Defense Department, and is the author of THE JESSIE SCOUTS .