1861
The Civil War began when Confederate artillery shelled the Union-held Fort Sumter in
Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
on April 12, 1861. Five days later, leaders of Confederate Virginia decided to capture the United
States Armory and Arsenal
at Harpers Ferry for the southern cause. As southern militia marched toward Harpers Ferry,
Union troops set fire to the armory
and arsenal, preventing the weapons from falling into Confederate hands. With a loud explosion
on the night of April 18, the Civil
War arrived in western Virginia. During the war, Harpers Ferry changed hands numerous times.
The intersection of two major
railroads, the Baltimore and Ohio and the Winchester and Potomac, and its military importance
in the Shenandoah Valley made
Harpers Ferry a key strategic stronghold.
During the first weeks of the war, the Confederate government of Virginia recruited troops in
western Virginia, assigning Colonel
George A. Porterfield to Grafton, which was connected to most of northwest Virginia by the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. As Union
troops under General George B. McClellan advanced, Porterfield drew his forces back to
Philippi. As McClellan neared the region,
he sent Colonel Benjamin F. Kelley and the First Virginia Provisional Regiment (later the First
West Virginia Infantry) as an
advance guard. On the morning of June 3, 1861, Kelley's troops attacked Porterfield's forces at
Philippi, resulting in a Confederate
retreat. This is considered by many to be the first land battle of the Civil War.
To prevent Union troops from advancing further up the Tygart Valley, reinforcements led by
General Robert S. Garnett joined
the retreating Confederates and established strongholds at Laurel Hill in Tucker County and
Rich Mountain in Randolph County.
On July 11, Union General William S. Rosecrans won a decisive battle at Rich Mountain and
days later, the Confederates were
pushed from Laurel Hill. On July 14, the retreating Confederates were routed at their position at
Corrick's Ford and Garnett was
killed. This series of engagements resulted in Union control of northwest Virginia for virtually
the remainder of the war. Control
of the transportation routes made it difficult to supply Confederate units throughout the war.
This also ensured the safety of
West Virginia statehood leaders meeting in Wheeling.
While the Confederates were easily defeated in the northern part of present-day West Virginia,
they mustered a better effort
in the Kanahwa Valley. Former Virginia governor Henry S. Wise, now a general, had
established his forces at the mouth of Scary
Creek in Putnam County. On July 16, Wise pushed back an attack by forces under General Jacob
D. Cox. After the arrival of
reinforcements, Cox's men drove Wise up the valley to Gauley Bridge and eventually into
Greenbrier County. The North suffered
a setback in August as General Rosecrans' advance forces were defeated at Kessler's Cross Lanes
in Nicholas County while
marching toward Gauley Bridge. Another former Virginia governor, General John Floyd,
established his troops on a bluff at nearby
Carnifex Ferry. Union troops attacked Floyd on September 10. Although the Union casualties
totaled 158 compared to 20
Confederate, the larger number of northern forces drove both Floyd and Wise back into
Greenbrier County. A significant factor
leading to the southern defeat was a long-standing political rivalry between Wise and Floyd. The
Battle of Carnifex Ferry placed
the important Kanawha Valley in Union hands for the early part of the war. In only a few short
months, the North had gained control
of northwestern Virginia and the Kanawha Valley.
In August, Robert E. Lee, in his first assignment of the war, set up camp on Valley Mountain in
Pocahontas County. He first hoped
to put more pressure on northwestern Virginia, but overestimated Union strength at the Cheat
Mountain Summit Fort and elected
not to attack. Many feel that Lee's 15,000 men in the area could have re-taken all of
northwestern Virginia had he pushed forward.
In October, Lee again failed to attack Rosecrans' outnumbered force following Carnifex Ferry.
These early disappointments landed
Lee an administrative post in Richmond until later in the war.
1862
In 1862, the Civil War in Virginia revolved around Clarksburg native General Thomas J.
"Stonewall" Jackson's brilliant
campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. His first step was to obstruct Union access to the valley by
cutting off portions of the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad. In January, Jackson captured the town of Romney, an important link on the
B&O. During the war, Romney
is said to have been captured by Union and Confederate troops at least 56 times.
During the spring of 1862, Jackson moved his men swiftly down the valley, outracing Union
troops. At McDowell, Virginia,
Jackson's forces crushed Union troops and pursued General John C. Fremont's retreat into
Pendleton County. Jackson occupied
the county seat of Franklin briefly before continuing his march down the valley. Following his
victory at the Battle of Winchester,
many suspected Jackson would continue on to the nation's capital. Rather than continue chasing
the southern troops, the North
decided to cut off Jackson's retreat with a superior force. Confederates advanced as far as Bolivar
Heights, west of Harpers Ferry,
before retreating. Somehow, Jackson's men managed again to outrace Union forces.
West of the Alleghenies, two future United States presidents were fighting in what is now
southern West Virginia. On May 1, as
Union troops neared, Confederates set fire to the town of Princeton. Union troops under Colonel
Rutherford B. Hayes, including
Lieutenant William McKinley, managed to save part of the town. Earlier in the year, Union
forces had burned the courthouses of
Boone and Logan counties.
Another significant skirmish occurred in southern Virginia in May, as Confederates under
General Henry Heth attacked Union troops
under Colonel George Crook occupying Lewisburg. After initial success on May 23, the
Confederates were driven south into Monroe
County. Crook later gained notoriety for capturing the Chiricahua chief Geronimo.
Although Confederates were unable to control signficant regions of western Virginia for
considerable periods of time during the war,
they were successful in conducting destructive raids. In August 1862, Cabell County's Albert
Gallatin Jenkins led 550 men from
Monroe County on the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike to the Ohio River in Jackson County,
capturing the towns of Buckhannon,
Weston, Glenville, Spencer, and Ripley on the way. Supposedly, Jenkins was the first military
leader to carry the Confederate flag
into the state of Ohio. Jenkins' raid revealed Union weaknesses in the Kanawha Valley caused
by the transfer of 5,000 troops to
eastern Virginia prior to the Second Battle of Bull Run.
On September 11, Confederates under General William Loring overran General Joseph A. J.
Lightburn at Fayetteville, driving his
Union forces back to Charleston. Two days later, Loring defeated Lightburn at Charleston,
beginning a brief Confederate occupation.
For six weeks, southern forces confiscated salt supplies and destroyed virtually all of the
Kanawha Vally salt works.
Meanwhile, in the east, General Robert E. Lee, now in command of the Army of Northern
Virginia, planned an invasion of Maryland.
Lee divided his forces, sending one of four units to cut off General McClellan's lines of
communication. Stonewall Jackson captured
the town of Martinsburg and then prepared to move on General Dixon Miles' 12,000-man force
at Harpers Ferry. Jackson devised
a three-pronged attacked, dispatching General John G. Walker to occupy Loudoun Heights and
General Lafayette McLaws to
capture Maryland Heights, both overlooking Harpers Ferry. On September 15, with the support
of McLaws' artillery bombardment,
Jackson and General A. P. Hill captured Miles' entire army. Only at Bataan and Corregidor
during World War II have larger United
States armies been forced to surrender. Two days later the bloodiest one-day battle in the history
of the North American continent
was fought at Antietam Creek, Maryland. After the Battle of Antietam, numerous small
skirmishes occurred in the present-day
Eastern Panhandle.
1863
With Union troops in control of western Virginia, Confederate leaders chose to harrass Union
troops and confiscate supplies. In
the spring, General John D. Imboden designed a raid to destroy portions of the B&O
Railroad and break up the Restored
Government of Virginia in session in Wheeling. With a force of 3,400 men, Imboden marched
out from Staunton, Virginia, on
April 20. General William E. Jones led a group of 1,300 from Lacey Springs, Virginia, the
following day. Imboden's men marched
through Beverly and captured the town of Buckhannon on April 29. Jones joined Imboden at
Buckhannon after failing to destroy
the B&O line at Rowlesburg in Preston County, capturing Morgantown, and destroying the
railroad bridge at Fairmont. On
May 6, Jones' troops marched from Weston through West Union and Cairo. Three days later, he
destroyed 150,000 barrels of
oil and the oil works at Burning Springs in Wirt County. On May 14, Jones joined Imboden at
Summersville before retreating into
Virginia. Although it succeeded in destroying property and industry, driving away livestock, and
occupying the attention of Union
troops which might have been used elsewhere, the Jones-Imboden Raid failed to destroy
significant portions of the B&O or
break up the Restored Government of Virginia.
On October 13, Confederate troops again tried to gain control of transportation routes by
attacking a Union fort at Bulltown in
Braxton County. Southern troops under Colonel William L. "Mudwall" Jackson
charged the fort under the command
of Captain William Mattingly. Outnumbered, Mattingly refused to surrender on the first day of
the battle. On the second day, Union
reinforcements arrived and the Confederates were forced to retreat.
In November, the North won a decisive victory at Droop Mountain in Pocahontas County.
Confederate forces, previously under
the command of William Loring and now led by General John Echols, had controlled the
Greenbrier Valley for most of the war.
Following the northern defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga in Georgia, the North hoped to
break up the Virginia and Tennessee
Railroad in southeastern Virginia. In the first phase, the Union sent General William Averell
from Beverly and General Alfred Duffie
from Charleston to remove the Confederates from the Greenbrier Valley. On November 6, both
columns converged on Echols on
the summit of Droop Mountain. The Confederates retreated, allowing General Averell to
conduct a raid on the Virginia and
Tennessee depot at Salem, Virginia, in December.
During 1863, the North continued its hold on western Virginia, withstanding several raids. In
addition to the Jones-Imboden Raid
and the Battle of Droop Mountain, several other skirmishes occurred, including Hurricane
Bridge in Putnam County, the first use
of indirect artillery fire at Fayetteville, General John Morgan's raid through Jackson and Wood
counties, White Sulphur Springs,
and a variety of encounters in the Eastern Panhandle following the Battle of Gettysburg. Western
Virginia soldiers played significant
roles on other fronts as members of the 4th West Virginia Infantry took part in the siege of
Vicksburg, Mississippi.
1864-1865
The year 1864 in West Virginia's Civil War history is best remembered by the actions of Mason
County's John McCausland.
During the summer, General McCausland battled Union leader David Hunter in southern
Virginia. Hunter led a raid on the Virginia
and Tennessee Railroad. He was stopped at Lynchburg, but not before destroying much of the
town of Lexington. In retaliation,
McCausland later rode his cavalry into the town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and demanded
a ransom. When the people
refused to pay, McCausland burned the town.
Nationally, 1864 marked the year Confederate cavalry rode to the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
After a series of victories in the
Shenandoah Valley, Jubal Early's Confederate troops attacked Union positions on Bolivar
Heights near Harpers Ferry on July 4.
The northern troops were forced to abandon Harpers Ferry for the first time since September
1862. However, following the surrender
of Dixon Miles' army, the Union had improved its fortifications overlooking this strategic area.
After three days of fighting, the North
was able to re-take and hold Harpers Ferry for the remainder of the war. Southern forces later
won an important battle at Monocacy
Creek in Maryland prior to being stopped at Washington. John McCausland was one of the few
Confederate military leaders who
could brag that he stood within the city limits of the nation's capital during the Civil War.
As northern control of western Virginia strengthened later in the war, southern military
support was found more often in
the form of irregulars, troops never mustered into the Confederate service. West Virginia's first
governor, Arthur Boreman,
considered these irregulars the most serious threat to the new state. West Virginia's most famous
band of these guerrillas
was McNeill's Rangers, organized in Hardy County. During 1863 and 1864, they wreaked havoc
on the B&O Railroad
in the Eastern Panhandle, seizing numerous Union supplies. However, on February 21, 1865, the
rangers executed their most
daring raid. A small group of men rode into Cumberland, Maryland, kidnapped generals Crook
and Kelley, and delivered them to
General Jubal Early. At the end of the war, McNeill's Rangers surrendered to Union troops under
General Rutherford B. Hayes
on May 8, one month after Appomattox.
Conclusion
The Civil War has often been referred to as a war of brother against brother and father against
son. No other state serves as a
better example of this than West Virginia, where there was relatively equal support for the
northern and southern causes. Often
families were split down the middle over their beliefs on the war. There are many instances of
divided loyalties and even of
individuals fighting for both sides. During the Battle of Scary Creek, a Confederate soldier
supposedly saw his brothers fighting
on the other battle lines, decided he was in the wrong place, and changed sides on the spot.
While many historians have traditionally placed the number of Union troops enlisted in West
Virginia at a much higher figure
than Confederates, more recent studies suggest there were almost as many southern troops as
northern. Traditional sources
have placed Union strength as high as 36,000 compared to only 7,000 to 10,000 Confederates.
At least one recent study has
raised the southern number to over 20,000 and lowered the Union figure to about the same. Part
of the problem with early studies
is they ignored numerous southern sympathizers who fought in militias or as irregulars.
The divisions caused by the Civil War lasted long afterward. These were usually fought out in
political arenas but occasionally
developed into violence. Military service in the Civil War became a badge of honor, as both
Union and Confederate veterans
attended reunions and participated in parades well into the twentieth century. West Virginia was
the only state to send relatively
the same number of Union and Confederate veterans to the Battle of Gettysburg reunion, another
symbol of the divided state
created by the Civil War.