Battle of Rich Mountain, 1861: the fight that made McClellan

In the first summer of the Civil War, the mountain counties of western Virginia, beyond the Alleghenies, were contested ground. Their fate would decide whether the region stayed with the Confederacy or became, as it did two years later, the separate state of West Virginia. In June 1861 Major General George B. McClellan took command of the Union forces there, and on 3 June his troops had already beaten a Confederate force at Philippi, in a clash that the American Battlefield Trust puts at just 4 Union and 26 Confederate casualties. Rich Mountain, five weeks later, was the first real test.²

Two mountain passes

After Philippi, the Confederate commander, Brigadier General Robert S. Garnett, fortified two passes on the roads into the Shenandoah Valley. Expecting McClellan's 20,000 men to strike the weaker of them, at Laurel Hill, he took 3,200 men there and left Lieutenant Colonel John Pegram with about 1,300 to hold Rich Mountain, according to the West Virginia Encyclopedia. Pegram's position, Camp Garnett, was a line of earth and log entrenchments overlooking the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike just west of the town of Beverly.³

McClellan did the opposite of what Garnett expected. He sent Brigadier General Thomas A. Morris's brigade from Philippi to make a show in front of Laurel Hill, while he marched south from Clarksburg on 27 June with three brigades of Ohio and Indiana troops against Pegram. They reached the foot of Rich Mountain on 9 July.⁴

The mountain path

A frontal attack on Camp Garnett would have been costly, so the Union commanders looked for a way around. They found it in David Hart, a local Unionist who knew the mountain. On 11 July Brigadier General William S. Rosecrans led a reinforced brigade along a mountain path, with Hart as guide, to seize the turnpike behind Pegram, while McClellan held his position in front of the Confederate camp to close the trap from the other side.⁵

When Rosecrans's men reached the turnpike, a sharp fight of about two hours followed. The Union troops won it, and Pegram's command was cut in two. About half of the defenders escaped toward Beverly. The rest, with Pegram, were cut off and surrendered on 13 July. The American Battlefield Trust estimates casualties at about 46 Union and 300 Confederate, out of some 5,000 and 1,300 men engaged.⁶

Garnett's retreat

Hearing that Rich Mountain had fallen, Garnett abandoned Laurel Hill. False reports convinced him that his line of retreat along the turnpike was already cut, so he took a long, hard road through the mountains toward Red House in Maryland. The Union troops followed, and on 13 July, in a rear-guard action at Corrick's Ford on the Cheat River, Garnett was shot and killed. The West Virginia Encyclopedia notes that he was the first general to die in the Civil War. The Trust puts losses in that action at about 50 Union and 620 Confederate, and with it the Confederate hold on the region collapsed.⁷

What Rich Mountain decided

The West Virginia Encyclopedia stresses that the battle had two important results despite the small number of troops involved. The first concerned McClellan. On 22 July, the day after the Union defeat at Bull Run, he was ordered to Washington, and Rosecrans took over in western Virginia. The American Battlefield Trust calls the victory instrumental in raising McClellan to command of the Army of the Potomac, which he led for the next two years, through the Seven Days and Antietam.⁸

The second result was more lasting. In the words of the West Virginia Encyclopedia, trans-Allegheny Virginia was to all intents and purposes lost to the Southern cause, which helped clear the way for the new state of West Virginia, admitted to the Union on 20 June 1863. The battlefield was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.⁹ › Battle of Greenbrier River, 1861