The Battle of Bunker Hill was a small skirmish near Bunker Hill, West Virginia, on July 15, 1861, as part of the Manassas Campaign of 1861.
In early June and July 1861, Union forces under General Robert Patterson advanced through the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia (modern West Virginia), capturing and occupying towns and villages and skirmishing with local Confederate Militia.
On July 15 a Union force advanced on Bunker Hill and came into contact with a small force of Confederate cavalrymen. In the ensuing skirmish, the Union forces drove the Confederates from the town and occupied the area before proceeding to Charles Town.
The following units were involved in the advance on and skirmish of Bunker Hill.
17th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment - Colonel Francis E. Patterson
21st Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment – Col. John F. Ballier
23rd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment – Col. Charles P. Dare
11th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment – Col. Phaon Jarrett
McMullin's [McMullen's] Company, Pennsylvania Independent Rangers – Capt. William McMullen
1st Rhode Island Battery – Capt. Charles H. Tompkins
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
This page covers Patterson Skirmish (Wayne County). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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