An Encyclopedia of Early Civil War Virginia
Maneuvers and battles in Virginia prior to the Battle of First Manassas, July 21, 1861, were centered around control of major waterways. Virginia had three main waterways that defined its antebellum borders: the Ohio, Potomac, and Chesapeake rivers. While the men who fought in the Civil War wouldn’t have recognized these as “fronts” or used…
Continue reading ➞ Map of Virginia’s Military Fronts, Spring-Summer 1861
You may have noticed that clashes between North and South featured on this website aren't all referred to as "battles". There's the Action at Philippi, Engagement at Gloucester Point, and Battle of Blackburn’s Ford to name a few. Others are called skirmishes. What do these terms mean? Though somewhat arbitrary, these terms do have a…
Continue reading ➞ Action, Skirmish, Engagement or Battle – What Does it All Mean?
The Skirmish at Glenville was fought on July 7-8, 1861 in present-day Gilmer County, West Virginia. The dramatic episode proved to be a sideshow in the larger campaign of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan to wrest control of Northwestern Virginia from the Confederacy. It's often forgotten against the backdrop of the Battle of Rich…
Continue reading ➞ What Confederate Unit was Engaged in the Skirmish at Glenville?
Largely forgotten today, Thornsbury Bailey Brown was among the first Union casualties of the Civil War.
I'm proud to announce our first official map--depicting the actions around Romney, Virginia (today, West Virginia) in June 1861, which pitted Lew Wallace's Indiana zouaves against a variety of Confederate forces sent to secure the area. Romney was a hotbed of secessionist support and Confederate forces there threatened the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which Lew…
Continue reading ➞ Map of June 1861 Actions around Romney, Virginia
A few days ago, we looked at a variety of sources to help orient our map of the Battle of Belington/Laurel Hill. Since then, I learned that most of these sources repeat, by second or third hand, information from the diary of a soldier in the 7th Indiana Regiment named William "Billy" Davis. His diary…
The following descriptions, taken from a variety of sources, help identify major landmarks related to the Battle of Belington/Laurel Hill. Since there are few reliable maps of Camp Laurel Hill and none of unit positions, we have to rely on these written descriptions to tell us where the battle unfolded. The numbers correspond to areas…
The Battle of Belington (Laurel Hill) was fought from Sunday, July 7 to Thursday, July 11, 1861 between Union forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Morris and Confederate forces commanded by Brig. Gen. Robert S. Garnett in what is today Barbour County, West Virginia. It involved around 8,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. I created…
An accurate accounting of Civil War casualties is often difficult, especially when record keeping was spotty at best. Newspaper articles, personal reminisces, and official reports are exaggerated and unreliable. This seems particularly true for the Action at Righter’s House, which was among the first deadly exchanges in the Civil War. On Friday, June 21, 1861,…
Continue reading ➞ Who Died at Righter’s House? An Early Civil War Mystery
Yesterday, I shared a re-created map of Laurel Hill Camp drawn by a Union spy named William Fletcher. The Confederate Army of Northwestern Virginia occupied this position from June 16 to July 11, 1861. The camp didn't leave much in the way of physical remnants except for a small cemetery, so identifying its boundaries is…
Spirit of '61 