Arrival of Gen. Rosecrans and Staff
December 5, 1861
Brigadier Gen. Wm. S. Rosecrans, commanding all the forces in Western Virginia, together with the following officers of his Staff arrived in the city yesterday morning and took temporary lodgings at the McLure House. They came up on the steamer Prima Donna and left Camp Tompkins on the Kanawha on Sunday last.
Capt. Geo. S. Hartsuff, Assistant Adjutant General and chief of Staff; Major J. W. Crawford, Acting Inspector General; Capt. J. G. Chandler, Chief Quartermaster; Capt. C. N. Goulding, Assistant Quartermaster; Francis Darr, Assistant Commissary subsistence; Dr. H. R. Wirtz, Assistant Surgeon and Medical Director; Capt. W. F. Reynolds, Topographical Engineer; Major Joseph Darr Jr., Provost Marshal.
We believe that the headquarters of the General and his staff have not been definitely determined upon yet. The houses of C. W. Russell and E. H. Fitzhugh are under examination. One or the other of them will be appropriated, we presume. The house of Dr. Stanton, now in Mississippi, was also talked of by the General, and he seemed to prefer it. Several difficulties, however, were presented to him, arising out of attachments that had been made on the furniture, &c., of the house.
General Rosecrans will make Wheeling his headquarters this winter - will most likely bring his family here. He chooses it as a middle and convenient point for his tours of inspection and direction among the different camps. He was waited on yesterday by numbers of our citizens who were glad to welcome him to our midst. He has commenced setting things in order already. The late manager at the Hospital, Dr. Griswold, against whom there were many complaints, has been superceded. Other business is put under way by the General. He seems to be a man of stirring energy, with very little of the red tape about him.
His room for the present is a 141 McLure House.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: December 1861