Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

3. Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina

3 : Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina W hile military operations unfolded in the corridor between Washington, D.C., and Manassas, Union forces also launched successful efforts deep in the western counties of Virginia and along the coastline of North Carolina. Field fortifications were used by both sides as the Federals achieved limited but important victories in these two regions. Western Virginia The first sustained, deep penetration of Confederate territory began in northwestern Virginia in June 1861. Situated across the Ohio River from free territory, this area was a vulnerable shoulder of the Confederacy. Union troops entered it initially to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and then enlarged their presence on Virginia soil to the degree that they were engaging in an invasion. Within the first year of the war, they would secure the first large section of Confederate territory liberated from the secessionists. George McClellan gained his first public fame by commanding the troops that initially crossed the Ohio. Acting on reports that the railroad bridges were being destroyed by Confederate troops, he rushed several regiments into Virginia on May 27 and easily chased the Rebels away from the railroad. Col. Benjamin F. Kelley, who had recently organized a Union regiment at Wheeling, planned and led a strike against those Confederates who had fallen back to Philippi, thirty miles from the railroad at Grafton. The resulting engagement on June 3 sent the Confederates fleeing southward. McClellan believed that the best line of advance into western Virginia was not here but farther south, along the Great Kanawha River Valley. Charleston and Gauley Bridge were key locations along that route. Yet he felt it was necessary to postpone an advance along that line in order to personally take charge of the growing Union concentration already operating along the line of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, which connected Grafton and Philippi . This pike was the major road through the northern portion of the Virginia mountains. It started at Staunton in the middle range of the Shenandoah Valley and ran to McDowell, then crossed Alleghany Mountain and Cheat Mountain and headed northward up the valley of Tygart’s River Tyler’s Mountain Top of Alleghany Big Sewell Mountain Cheat Mountain Meadow Bluff Rich Mountain Laurel Mountain PENNSYLVANIA Camp Elkwater Cheat Summit Fort Camp Bartow N Carnifex Ferry Ohio R i v e r M o n o n g a h e l a R i v e r L i t t l e K a nawha R i v e r Great Kanawha River Gauley River G r e e n b r i e r River North F o r k o f S h e n a ndoah R i v e r P otom ac River Tygart’s Valley River Meadow River A l l e g h a n y M o u n t a i n S h e n a n d o a h M o u n t a i n B l u e R i d g e Parkersburg Grafton Huttonsville Charleston Lexington McDowell Chapmansville Philippi Huntersville Lewisburg Staunton Harrisonburg West Union Beverly Cross Lanes Covington Monterey Gauley Bridge Baltimore and Ohio Railroad N e w R i ver MARYLAND P a r kersburg Turnpike Western Virginia, 1861 Western Virginia and Eastern North Carolina 49 between Cheat Mountain and Rich Mountain to Beverly. It then forked; one branch headed northwestward to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at West Union before going west to Parkersburg on the Ohio River, and the other branch led northward from Beverly to Philippi and Grafton.∞ The Confederates were compelled to react. Gen. Robert E. Lee moved two columns into the region, advancing Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise into the Great Kanawha River Valley and Brig. Gen. Robert S. Garnett up the StauntonParkersburg Turnpike. Garnett led 6,000 men to Rich Mountain northwest of Beverly, believing this to be the best place to stop the Union drive along the thoroughfare. The pike passed through a saddle of Rich Mountain; just to the west, Garnett deployed 1,300 men behind a fortification called Camp Garnett. It was made of log breastworks, as the thin soil of the mountain did not allow for a lot of digging. Trees were cut down for 150 yards in front to form an abatis and open a field of fire. Garnett similarly fortified the point where the...