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Explore Charleston's share of Civil War Trails Markers which detail the people and conflicts that defined the war in southern West Virginia.

In July 1861, this area swarmed with retreating Confederate troops and pursuing Federal forces. Union Gen. George B. McClelland had ordered Gen. Jacob Cox to march his 3,000 raw Ohio recruits into western Virginia from Gallipolis, Ohio, to drive Confederate Gen. Henry A. Wise and equally raw troops from the Kanawha Valley. Wise marched downriver from Charleston to confront the Federals. By July 13, Wise's men had erected fortifications west of here on Tyler Mountain and on the Littlepage farm to command the junction of the road to Ripley with the valley road leading to Charleston.Cox launched a three-pronged drive up the Kanawha River Valley on July 11 to envelop Wise. Two wings marched overland while the third came upriver on four steamboats. Soon the Federal forces began to converge on Wise's position, and on July 17, they fought at Scary Creek, fifteen miles downriver from here. During a Union charge, the untested Confederates panicked and began falling back. Capt. George Patton tried to rally them, but his frightened mount bolted to the rear and the men fled faster. Capt. Albert G. Jenkins assumed command. His horse also bolted, and the retreat gathered speed. It stopped, however, when Wayne County's Sandy Rangers, called the Blood Tubs for their red shirts, joined the line, singing "Bullets and Steel." and turned the tide. Despite their victory, the Confederates retreated east to avoid being cut off by a superior Union force. They retreated eastward, pouring by here with the Federals in pursuit. The strategic Kanawha Valley was firmly in Union hands six weeks later."I saw, I think, the first puff of powder smoke and a bullet hit the stump on which I sat. A large beech tree was opportunely near me and I immediately sought the protection of its trunk. As the puffs of smoke increased, the beech tree seemed to wonderfully decrease in size. But for personal reasons, I stuck to it. Captain Albert G. Jenkins came up... and called for someone to go and get his horse. He did not like King Richard, promised a kingdom for his horse, but I was thinking of the kingdom to come, and a chance to dodge it. So I left the beech tree, and ran... over the hill and mounted the horse."-Sgt. Levi Welch, 22nd Virginia Infantry

This marker denotes the site of an early Civil War Battle for control of Kanawha Valley. A multipronged Union attack initially drove untested Confederate soldiers back. However, Confederate forces rallied and claimed a victory, though they continued their retreat out of southern West Virginia and into Virginia and Kentucky. 

Charleston's Civil War Trails Markers: Baptism By Fire

Outnumbered two-to-one, and having determined that he could not make a stand against Confederate General William Loring's oncoming troops from his present positions in Charleston, Union Colonel Joseph Lightburn instructed loyal Union citizens to evacuate, then set fire to government buildings and his military stores. Unfortunately, the quartermaster's office had been set up in Asbury Chapel, the burning of which led to a later claim that the cold-hearted Federals had intentionally burned a house of worship. Other unintended buildings were caught up in the blaze, as well, causing considerable damage in what is now downtown Charleston.Lightburn quickly withdrew his troops across the Elk River, where under heavy fire from the Confederates they cut the cables of the suspension bridge to prevent the enemy from crossing in pursuit. Loring's Confederates searched vainly for a usable ford or enough boats to cross, but discovered nothing and discontentedly settled into Charleston. Thus began Lightburn's 50-mile trek northwest from Charleston to Point Pleasant, on the Ohio River.The Union commander's work was cut out for him. His 13-mile supply train consisted of 700 wagons laden with provisions and ammunition, and he had only 3,500 men to fight a long rearguard action against 10,000 pursuing Confederates. To complicate matters, the road and Kanawha River were choked with refugees from Charleston, including large numbers of runaway slaves who feared the consequences of recapture. The diary of Victoria Teays, who witnessed the column near the mouth of the Coal River, remarks: "Such a sight I never saw before or expect to see again....the river as far as you could see up and down was full of boats of all kinds...a person could have almost crossed the river by jumping from one boat to another." Lightburn's luck held. General Loring had meant for the retreating Union forces to be caught between the pincers of his main body and a large cavalry force under Colonel A.G. Jenkins, who had conducted a daring raid through exposed Union territory and was lying in wait westward of Charleston, in Barboursville. But on the night of Sept. 8, 1862, the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry Regiment caught Jenkins by surprise in a night attack on his camp and put him to route. By the time Jenkins reorganized his command and commenced the offensive several days later, the 2nd West Virginia had rejoined the retreating column and Lightburn's available forces kept vigilant guard over their vulnerable wagon train.The destruction of the bridge over the Elk River hampered effective Confederate pursuit, so it was up to Jenkins to harass Lightburn's withdrawing Yankees. He lacked sufficient numbers for a concerted attack, and was forced to content himself with shadowing their line of retreat--though his presence continued to be a cause of concern for the Federals.Lightburn managed to conduct the withdrawal with no major setbacks, passing through Sissonville and Ripley before many of his troops embarked upon steamships in Ravenswood and were conveyed to Point Pleasant on the Ohio River. Many of the civilians made their way to nearby Gallipolis. Lightburn consolidated his forces and fortified Point Pleasant, waiting for what he thought was an inevitable Confederate attack. It never came.AftermathAlarmed by a string of dramatic defeats in Virginia and Tennessee, the news of the loss of the Kanawha Valley prompted military leadership in Washington D.C. to send new commanders to Point Pleasant and relieve Lightburn. The former Union commander, General J.D. Cox, soon resumed command of the region and in October 1862 advanced on Charleston. Loring's troops evacuated the city and retreated. They had held Charleston for a mere six weeks.PerspectivesLightburn's Retreat has received both criticism and praise in the decades since. Historians and contemporary accounts have commended Colonel Lightburn for successfully withdrawing a large body of troops, supplies and civilians in the face of overwhelming enemy force.  Others have cast the retreat as a barely-controlled panic, typified by confusion and a failure to destroy key installations such as the salt works near Charleston (salted meat was an essential military supply at the time, and Lightburn's failure to destroy the salt works allowed the Confederates to extend the life of their rations significantly).A brief analysis of the episode by General J.D. Cox seems to straddle both sides of the argument. He postulates that Lightburn was precipitous to have fallen back to Charleston from his initial positions in Fayette County, arguing that encampments there were so strong as to have denied Loring access to West Virginia altogether. Cox goes on to defend Lightburn, however, pointing out that administrative mistakes at headquarters in Washington had left the Kanawha region with no overall commander whatsoever. Lightburn, he claims, did his best in a bad situation with no strategic oversight from ranking officers who might have had knowledge of the larger situation.It is notable that Lightburn appears to have possessed no knowledge of Jenkins' destructive raid through the countryside north and west of him. Colonel Jenkins had cut all the way across West Virginia and into Ohio, then positioned himself neatly upon Lightburn's exposed line of retreat, in an audacious display worthy of Confederate cavalry's well-earned reputation.Controversy surrounding the Retreat was alive and well into the 1990s, when a Charleston Daily Mail article resurfaced in The West Virginia Hillbilly entitled, "The Sad Saga of Lightburn's Retreat From Kanawha Valley." The article criticized Lightburn's leadership, and Lightburn's descendants responded with a letter in 1994 to the Director of West Virginia Archives and History, citing contemporary accounts and letters to refute the article's claims. A collection of these items resides at the West Virginia and Regional History Center in Morgantown.

As Confederate forces closed in on Charleston in 1862, Union commander Colonel Joseph Lightburn recognized he was outnumbered and needed to extract his troops or face destruction. After a brief fight in the city, Lightburn's troops successfully withdrew across the Elk River and destroyed the bridge to prevent pursuit, setting the stage for a 50-mile retreat to Point Pleasant while guarding refugees and a supply train 700 wagons long.

General William W. Loring, C.S.A. Commander of Confederate forces in the Kanawha Valley in 1862. After the war, he went on to serve in Egypt with about 50 Civil War veterans, working to modernize the Egyptian Army. National Archives.

[Charleston's Civil War Trails Markers] Lightburn's Retreat

MILITARY OCCUPATION MarkerCharleston resident James MacFarland, a prominent citizen who stayed in the city even in its darkest days during the Civil War, wrote to a friend in Washington in 1862:<blockquote>"You are doubtless aware of the sad destruction of property here on the advent of the Southern forces on the 13th of Sept. . . . . The Federals on their retreat set fire to their large commissary warehouse, the fire taking in its range the Bank of Virginia Building, the Kanawha House, William A. Whitteker's large store, the warehouse, Southern Methodist Church, Academy, etc., myself being by far the greatest sufferer. The walls of the Kanawha House present a ghastly appearance. In the former building but very little and in the latter not a particle of furniture was saved."1</blockquote>He later added in a letter to Arthur Boreman, the first Governor of West Virginia:<blockquote>"During all this period the Kanawha Valley has been in the occupancy of alternating armed forces."1</blockquote>Indeed over the course of the war Charleston changed hands several times. Only once was a pitched battle ever fought within the city, which went on to cause the damage MacFarland described. But the constant movement of troops also churned up streets and consumed resources. A year after the Battle of Charleston, MacFarland noted there were still no fence-rails to be found anywhere in town — they had been carried off for use in the soldiers' fortifications.Occupying troops were a common sight. When the Confederates briefly seized the city in 1862, their commander General Loring commandeered the local printing press to mass-produce proclamations, broadsides, and circulars. When Union troops retook Charleston in October of that year, they established camps within the city itself and across the river atop present-day Fort Hill.For the occupying forces, not all the fighting happened on battlefields. Much of the warfare in West Virginia was waged by partisans. From Charleston southward, much of the future state was pro-Confederacy, and Federal patrols were often ambushed and sniped at by unseen assailants commonly referred to as "bushwhackers."<blockquote>"If there was one thing more than another that the Second [West] Virginia Cavalry hated, it was the detestable bush-whackers (sic). We did not object to being shot at on general principles, but to have some unprincipled scoundrel who was too cowardly to join the army and fight as a man, sneak around like a thief in the night and shoot from behind a tree or from some inaccessible position, was more than we could patiently stand."2</blockquote>This made some of the most routine soldierly duties dangerous, since "in a mountainous country like western Virginia, [soldiers were] constantly exposed..."2  Union troops were usually safe in more urban areas like Charleston, but as soon as they ventured out they were vulnerable to ambush.Espionage was also not uncommon. A Union spy had worked his way into the good graces of Charleston native Colonel George S. Patton early in the war, then escaped before being caught. A story also persists that later in the war, while future President Rutherford B. Hayes was serving as an officer in the garrison guarding Charleston, two female Confederate spies were caught and executed by firing squad. A gravestone exists for the two women across the river. The story is not a far fetched one, as illustrated by dangerous Confederate spy Nancy Hart, who several times escaped Union custody and was known to assist the Moccasin Rangers, a particularly savage group of Confederate bushwhackers. PRESIDENTIAL PRESENCE MarkerAcross the river from this marker lay Camp White, built after Union forces retook Charleston in October 1862. Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes, 23rd Ohio Infantry, was based here in March 1863 and ordered fortifications and artillery to be placed on present-day Fort Hill (then called Fort Scammon), keeping watch over the intersection of the Kanawha and Elk Rivers. A battery of 12 cannons occupied the fort, though their only recorded firing was in salute to the Union's victory at Vicksburg in July 1863. Hayes wrote to his uncle shortly upon bivouacking at Camp White:<blockquote>"You can get on a steamer at Cincinnati and land at our camp, and be safely and comfortably housed here. Lucy and the boys, after a most happy time, went home yesterday...We seem intended for a permanent garrison here."3</blockquote>Another future President, John McKinley, served under Hayes in the 23rd Ohio for the duration of the war, and too was stationed at Camp White. Hayes noted of McKinley in his letters:<blockquote>"...an exceedingly bright, intelligent, and gentlemanly young officer. He promises to be one of our best..."3</blockquote>

Two markers on the north bank of the Kanawha River near downtown Charleston discuss aspects of military occupation during the Civil War. Notable during 1863 was the presence in Charleston of future U.S. presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley, both of whom served in the Union Army's 23rd Ohio Infantry Regiment, which was bivouacked across the river at Camp White. The former location of Camp White is visible from the marker.

[Charleston's Civil War Trails Markers x2] Military Occupation & Presidential Presence

The end of August 1862 brought despair to the Union cause, as a series of defeats and setbacks rocked the morale of the Union's Army of the Potomac and put it on the defensive around Washington. In a disastrous three day battle on Aug. 28-30, General John Pope's Union army was badly defeated at the Battle of Second Bull Run. Around the same time, General Don Carlos Buell was forced out of Tennessee by Confederate General Braxton Bragg. And a Confederate force under General Kirby Smith was moving virtually unopposed toward Cincinnati.To make matters worse, a Confederate cavalry raid just before 2nd Bull Run had captured General Pope's dispatch book, revealing to Confederate General-in-chief Robert E. Lee that more than half of the Union troops guarding the Kanawha Valley and western Virginia had been ordered northward to deal with these various crises, leaving an almost token force of 3,500 men in scattered garrisons under Colonel Joseph Lightburn to guard a line of defense from Fayetteville all the way west to the Ohio River.Seizing the opportunity, Lee ordered General William W. Loring to cross into what is now West Virginia with a sizable force, destroy or capture the Union garrison, then march northward. He was to secure the countryside along the way and prepare to rendezvous with more Confederate troops in the Shenandoah Valley. In capturing the Kanawha Valley, Loring would secure significant military supplies and perhaps even the salt-works near Charleston. Salt was an essential military item of the era, since without refrigeration it was the only way to preserve meat long enough to reach the fighting men at the front.Loring began his movement on September 6. He attacked a Union detachment near Fayetteville four days later with a force of at least 5,000 men — some estimates have placed it his numbers closer to 10,000. One thing is certain--it was the largest single Confederate force to invade West Virginia during the war.Federals were able to hold their positions near Fayetteville for a day then pulled back to Gauley Bridge, rendezvousing with other detachments along the way. From there, Lightburn's men conducted a fighting withdrawal up the banks of the Kanawha River, burning supplies as they went. The speed of the retreat meant that Lightburn had to split his forces, with columns traveling up both sides of the river. The Confederates followed suit, with sharp skirmishing all the way to Charleston.The majority of Lightburn's troops arrived in Charleston by the evening of September 12. But Loring's Confederates came close on their heels, and early on the morning of the 13th, Confederate artillery opened fire on Lightburn's positions near the town. Union surgeon Thomas H. Barton remembers,"The tale of rout and disaster is always the same. Intense excitement prevailed in the city. The streets were thronged with people, many of whom were preparing to follow our army, or leave the town, for the feared the battle of Charleston was about to be fought over their heads."1Union cannons attempted to answer, but were heavily outmatched. Loring's troops advanced up both banks of the Kanawha River. A brigade under General McCausland included the 22nd Virginia Infantry regiment, whose Company I were known as the Kanawha Riflemen. They were largely Charleston natives, and took part in some of the sharpest fighting near the present day Capitol Complex. Incidentally,<a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22808" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36)"> </a><a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22808" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Kanawha Riflemen Memorial Park</a> lies not far from where the action took place.Lightburn's troops were pushed steadily back through town, holding their ground briefly near present-day downtown Charleston to set fire to a number of buildings that held military supplies. The fire spread to unintended targets and caused the town much damage. Still more destruction was visited upon Charleston in the form of artillery fire, including a cannonball fired by a Confederate battery that passed through the roof of the the<a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22680" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36)"> </a><a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22680" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">MacFarland-Hubbard House</a> (owned at the time, ironically enough, by Confederate John C. Ruby II, who was serving in the Kanawha Riflemen).Lightburn had wisely pushed the many wagons of his supply train across the Elk River the previous day, and so after setting fire to the abandoned supplies his troops withdrew quickly across the suspension bridge. Under heavy shellfire, they cut the bridge's support cables and collapsed it into the river. The advancing Confederates restlessly prowled the banks looking for boats or a usable ford, but there was no way across. Musket and cannon fire still flew hotly across the Kanawha and Elk Rivers, but the engagement was effectively over.Lightburn's 700-wagon supply train had already begun the trek northward toward Point Pleasant (intense Rebel artillery fire had kept them from taking the westward route toward the Ohio River). Lighturn kept a rearguard dug in at the Elk until evening, when they extracted themselves and followed in the wake of the weary army. The Battle of Charleston had ended and<a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22836" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(32, 33, 36)"> </a><a href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=22836" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Lightburn's Retreat</a>, in many ways more famous than the battle itself, had begun.Lightburn's destruction of the bridge over the Elk had preempted effective Confederate pursuit. Back in Maryland, the tide of Confederate victories was stemmed at Antietam only three days later--Loring was never called northward to join forces with Lee. Six weeks after the Battle of Charleston, Union reinforcements advanced southward and took the city without a fight, as the Rebels backpedaled to the positions they'd occupied before the Kanawha Valley campaign began.

Between September 6th and September 13th, 1862, Confederate forces pushed into the Kanawha Valley from western Virginia. When outnumbered Union troops pulled back from defensive positions near Fayetteville, a 10,000-strong Confederate force followed hot on the heels of the Federal retreat up the Kanawha Valley to Charleston. A brief but fierce fight took place throughout the city. Union troops withdrew across the Elk River and retreated north to Point Pleasant, but not before a large section of Charleston was burned to destroy military supplies. From the position of this marker, an observer would have been near the Union headquarters, and looked across the river toward attacking Confederate artillery. 

This historic marker located on the Kanawha River tells the story of the Battle of Charleston

[Charleston's Civil War Trails Markers] Downtown Battlefield

The Craik-Patton House, a Confederate home and the Ruffner Log Cabin, utilized by Union forces, now stand near one another in Daniel Boone Park.Craik Patton House"Built in 1834 as "Elm Grove" by James Craik, grandson of Geo. Washington's personal physician. Sold to George Smith Patton, 1858, and retained by family until end of Civil War. Born here was father of noted World War II general Geo. S. Patton. Moved to Lee St. from original Virginia St. location in 1906. Acquired by City of Charleston in 1968 and leased to Colonial Dames. Moved to park in 1973."George S. Patton lived in what is now the Craik-Patton house from 1858 until the Civil War was nearly over. Patton helped to organize the “Kanawha Riflemen” in 1856. They joined the Confederacy as Company H of the 22nd Virginia Infantry. Under Patton’s command, they saw their first battle at Scary Creek in July of 1861. The Kanawha Riflemen were also present at Carnifex Ferry, Lewisburg, Fayetteville, White Sulphur Springs and Droop Mountain. Patton rose to the rank of colonel and commanded the 22nd Virginia Infantry Regiment at Third Winchester in September of 1864, where he was mortally wounded.

The Craik-Patton House and the Ruffner Log Cabin, two significant dwellings that played a role in the area's Civil War heritage, have been moved to Daniel Boone Park.

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Charleston Civil War Trails Markers

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