The Battle of Cove Mountain occurred in Wythe County, Virginia, on May 10, 1864, during the American Civil War. A Union cavalry division commanded by Brigadier General William W. Averell was prevented from attacking a lead mine located near Wytheville. Confederate forces commanded by Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan, with a detachment of a brigade of cavalry from the command of Brigadier General William E. "Grumble" Jones, stopped Averell at Cove Gap, adjacent to Crockett's Cove and Cove Mountain.
Averell and a larger force commanded by Brigadier General George Crook were part of a Union plan to damage the Confederate-controlled Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The railroad was used by the Confederacy to transport soldiers and supplies, and served important lead and salt mines. Averell's assignment was to attack the mines, but he was stopped at the cove while attempting to reach the lead mine. After an escape through the mountains during the night, Averell's cavalry was pursued by multiple Confederate forces for five days until his cavalry reunited with Crook's force in Union, West Virginia.
The National Park Service lists the result of this battle as "indecisive". Confederate accounts call the battle a victory for Morgan. Confederate troops prevented Averell from destroying a salt mine, and a lead mine, that were important to the Confederacy for preserving meat and making bullets. However, because of Confederate concern about Averell's intentions, most of the forces commanded by Jones and Morgan could not assist at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain where Crook's 6,000-man legion had a significant victory. Crook was able to complete his objective to destroy a large railroad bridge across the New River, and important Confederate railroad infrastructure was damaged.
During March 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant became commander of all Union armed forces. Grant's strategy in Virginia was to attack the strongest Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, from multiple fronts. Among targets were the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the Virginia Central Railroad, which carried food east from the Shenandoah Valley to help feed Lee's army. Troops also moved between battlefronts on both railroads. The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad helped connect the Confederate capital of Richmond with Tennessee, and was used to move minerals such as salt and lead to Knoxville, Tennessee, and to Virginia factories in Lynchburg, Petersburg, and Richmond.
Brigadier General George Crook was assigned the task of attacking the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. His force was three brigades of infantry and dismounted cavalry, plus two batteries, that totaled 6,155 men. Four hundred more men were added shortly thereafter. Crook sent a smaller force, commanded by Brigadier General William W. Averell, to attack a salt mine further west from Crook. A Union Army commanded by Major General Franz Sigel in the Shenandoah Valley was ordered to move south to Staunton, Virginia, where it could threaten the Virginia Central Railroad—and all three commands would meet at Staunton.
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.
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