July, 2022
Washington — Climbing high into the branches of one's family tree and brushing aside foliage can reveal great surprises. I did so recently and found hiding there more than I ever expected to know about the 14th Virginia Cavalry, a Confederate regiment in which two of my (time-removed) cousins served in the Civil War.
I knew my second great-grandfather Peter B. Wimer and his brothers Aaron and Ephraim Wimer had been Confederate infantry soldiers, but not that their first cousins Andrew J. Wimer and Cornelius T. Wimer had been soldiers in the ill-fated 14th Cavalry. The cousins enlisted in 1862 from Highland County, Virginia, which, along with Augusta and Rockbridge counties, provided the men and horses for the regiment's Company C.*
The 14th left a mostly dismal record fighting up and down the Shenandoah Valley, into West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Hundreds of its men and horses were captured in 1862 at Sinking Creek in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, by a small Union force that did not fire a shot. Some of the 14th escaped, but some died in a Union prison. In 1863, at Gettysburg, the 14th provided each soldier only ten rounds, so the regiment soon retreated to the rear of the battle. In 1864, the 14th was unable to prevent the burning of VMI at Lexington by General David Hunter's Union forces. Their presence, however, led a confused Hunter to retreat deep into West Virginia, which opened the Valley to Confederate General Jubal Early's foray into Maryland, Pennsylvania, and almost into Washington, DC. But in the process, drunken soldiers of the 14th burned the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, an act that was opposed by many in the regiment itself, who tried to put the fires out. The 14th fought in 1865 at Appomattox until the cease-fire when Lee surrendered, but only one last soldier from Company C was present at the end. Death, disease, and desertion had greatly reduced the ranks.
Elsewhere among the family tree branches appears another cousin, who actually fought against the 14th throughout the war. David Hunter Strother, also known by his pen name, Porte Crayon, was a Union cartographer and eventually a brevet general, despite his Virginia roots. He is a cousin to me through the Strother line, not the line of Wimers against whom he fought.
But David Hunter Strother's own war record was not what he wanted it to be, according to his widely-read diary. He deplored many of the Union army's actions in the Valley, even while chief of staff to the general who perpetrated them. Although he favored the burning of VMI because it taught treason, he said, he often intervened to stop other burnings and hangings. He was not alone; his Union army colleague General George Crook was of like mind in taking a dim view of General Hunter; both were pleased to see General Philip Sheridan take Hunter's place. Strother spent the rest of the war in Baltimore, glad to be out of it.**
Military records give a glimpse of what brothers Andrew and Cornelius Wimer experienced in Company C of the 14th Cavalry, as privates. In going through records, I came across names from another tree I've been researching, the Vess family, the branches of which overlap with the Wimers during the Civil War. Brothers Samuel A., John T., and William A. Vess were also privates in Company C, from Rockbridge County. Very likely the Wimer brothers and the Vess brothers were well-acquainted.
Apparently all five of them were at Sinking Creek in 1862, because records show that Andrew Wimer and John T. Vess were both captured by the enemy and sent to military prison in Alton, Illinois. Andrew Wimer was later released as part of a prisoner exchange. John T. Vess, however, did not survive a smallpox outbreak at the prison and is buried in the Confederate cemetery at Alton.
Various accounts of the raid at Sinking Creek suggest that all five were captured at first, but twenty-two Union soldiers could not handle the hundreds of Confederates they had taken. The Union tried to march the Confederates through extreme cold and a snow storm, stopping to light bonfires to warm men and horses. All but about 100 escaped. Escapees probably included Cornelius Wimer and Samuel and William Vess.
What else these cavalry privates endured is unknown, except that four of the five survived the war. Samuel and William Vess went back to Rockbridge County and raised families.
Cornelius Wimer is recorded as being AWOL at one time during the war, and Andrew Wimer deserted before coming back. This was not uncommon. Both returned to Highland County after the war and had large families. Cornelius Wimer's son Charles, nephew of my second great grandfather Peter B. Wimer, migrated to Nebraska before 1885, as did his uncle. Charles lived in Ashland, his uncle lived southeast of Ceresco, according to the 1885 Nebraska census.
Some of the Strother family also moved to Nebraska, although spelling errors changed their names to Strawder. Wimers and Strawders, once enemies, lived among each other in Cass and Lancaster counties for several years. We know they socialized, and even intermarried, but we don't know what they talked about.
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* Knowledge of Peter B. Wimer's time in the Confederate army is based on an uncorroborated 1890 census of veterans, when he was living in Nebraska. Documentation is better for Aaron Wimer, who fought in the 62nd Infantry and for Ephraim Wimer, who fought in the 25th Infantry. The 14th Cavalry also attracted my cousins Robert and Jacob Phares from Pendleton County, WV, adjacent to Highland County, VA, but records of their fate with the 14th are too sketchy to draw any conclusions about their time in the cavalry.
** After the war, Strother was adjutant general of Virginia and restored VMI. Crook was sent to Nebraska where he helped the cause of Indian rights in Standing Bear v. Crook, and where his house still stands on the Fort Omaha campus.
