An Encyclopedia of Early Civil War Virginia
I almost wrote this one off. For a long time, I questioned whether the Skirmish at Bowman’s Place, which is listed in The War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. II and elsewhere by simply a name and date, even happened. The usual sources revealed few other details besides the Union regiments involved and a…
Continue reading ➞ Page Added for the Skirmish at Bowman’s Place
Thomas Jonathan Jackson (1824-1863) was born in what is today Clarksburg, West Virginia and graduated from West Point in 1846. He fought in the Mexican War, then taught at the Virginia Military Institute from 1851 to 1861. He was a devout Presbyterian and owned six slaves, mostly acquired through marriage. He established a Sunday school…
In early spring 1861, events were at a boiling point in the United States. By February, six Southern states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, had seceded and formed the Confederate States of America. It was an act newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln's administration, and many others, saw as illegal and a…
Continue reading ➞ 160 Years Ago Today: Gosport Navy Yard Captured
President Abraham Lincoln’s call on April 15, 1861 for 75,000 volunteers to “suppress the rebellion” in six Southern states inflamed passions in states like Virginia, which had, until that time, resisted calls to secede and join the nascent Confederacy. On April 17, the Virginia Secession Convention voted in favor of secession, subject to a popular…
Continue reading ➞ 160 Years Ago Today: Robert E. Lee Resigns from the U.S. Army
First Lieutenant Roger Jones, a cousin of Robert E. Lee, was on recruiting duty at Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania when ordered to take a small force south through Maryland to protect the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, a small mountain town nested at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. Though Virginia had…
Continue reading ➞ 160 Years Ago Today: Harpers Ferry Armory Burned
160 years ago today, Wednesday, April 17, 1861, 143 delegates from across the Commonwealth of Virginia crowded into the neoclassical Capitol of Virginia at 10:00am to debate secession from the United States. Six Southern states had already seceded. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas formed the Confederate States of America on February…
Continue reading ➞ 160 Years Ago Today: Virginia Adopts Ordinance of Secession
Yesterday, I posted about a mystery skirmish mentioned in Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's July 5, 1861 report to Assistant Adjutant-General E. D. Townsend that supposedly took place around present-day Ravenswood, West Virginia along the Ohio River in early July 1861. The engagement is not listed in any source that I am aware of.…
Just when I thought I'd found every early Civil War skirmish in Virginia and West Virginia, I came across several references to an engagement near what is today Ravenswood, West Virginia along the Ohio River in Jackson County. Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan mentions it in his July 5, 1861 report to Assistant Adjutant-General…
Henry Alexander Wise (1806–1876) was a Virginia lawyer and politician, serving as a U.S. Representative from 1833 to 1843 and Governor of Virginia from 1856 to 1860. As governor, Wise oversaw the imprisonment, trial, and execution of John Brown for his attack on the Harpers Ferry arsenal. Ironically, Wise organized an armed seizure of Harpers…
The Confederate Army of the Kanawha was formed on June 6, 1861 under the commander of former Virginia governor Henry A. Wise. Its mission was to defend the Kanawha River Valley in what was then western Virginia (today the state of West Virginia). Despite its name, the Army of the Kanawha was never more than…
Spirit of '61 