There was no organized body of Confederate soldiers from Wetzel, Marshall, or Tyler counties. About fifty men in all entered the service from Wetzel, but in doing so they were compelled to run the blockade, and scattered to the four winds. Some of them were afterward found in Louisiana and Tennessee regiments. Some did not get through at all and were sent to Federal prisons. One party of five included Mordecai Yarnell, who became a member of Company G, Twenty-seventh Virginia, and was promoted to lieutenant; Ephraim Wells, promoted to captain of a cavalry company; Friend C. Cox, who became a staff officer with Gen. W. H. F. Lee; and Robert McEldowney, a member of the Shriver Grays, of Wheeling.
The Shriver Grays, organized at Wheeling, with about 80 men, was organized in May, 1861, with Daniel Shriver, captain; John W. Mitchell, first lieutenant; John B. Leadley, second lieutenant; Pryor Boyd, junior second lieutenant. The company left Wheeling on the 2ist or 22d of May, 1861, and went to Harper's Ferry, reporting to Col. T. J. Jackson. It was mustered in as Company G, Twenty-seventh Virginia infantry, of the Stonewall brigade. It served faithfully in that regiment until about May, 1863, when most of the survivors of the original company were transferred to the Thirty- sixth Virginia cavalry battalion, commanded by Maj. James Sweeney, of Wheeling. The battalion participated in the East Tennessee campaign as a part of Longstreet's command, was at the burning of Chambersburg, and in the rear guard after Gettysburg. Captain Shriver was succeeded in command, in the fall of 1862, by Robert McEldowney, previously orderly-sergeant. Captain McEldowney was the last remaining commissioned officer with the Twenty-seventh, on March 25, 1865, when the assault was made on Fort Stedman, and he was there wounded and disabled.
Randolph county contributed the following companies
