Saltville

Fought over two days, December 20 and 21, 1864, the second engagement at Saltville took place near that Virginia town as part of the American Civil War. Federal forces emerged victorious, bringing to a close what became known as Stoneman's raid into Southwest Virginia, sometimes called Stoneman's 1864 raid. Union commanders sought control of a saltworks at this location because it supplied more than half of all the salt the Confederacy relied on for preserving meat, including provisions destined for the Army of Northern Virginia.

Earlier that year, Brevet Major General Stephen G. Burbridge had led an unsuccessful campaign against this same target, an engagement now remembered as the First Battle of Saltville. Following that setback, Major General George Stoneman assembled a new Union force to finish what Burbridge had started. His command combined Burbridge's Division with a brigade led by Brigadier General Alvan C. Gillem. The campaign began in Tennessee before pushing into southwestern Virginia. Along the way, on December 17 and 18, Stoneman's men clashed with Confederate forces at the Battle of Marion, routing troops under Major General John C. Breckinridge.

Fresh from that victory, Stoneman's column pressed onward toward Saltville itself. Breckinridge himself was absent from this next fight, though he had left behind roughly 500 men under Colonel Robert Preston to defend the town. Gillem's brigade opened the Union assault, striking first, with Burbridge's forces joining the battle soon after. Together these two Federal columns proved too much for the town's defenders, overwhelming their positions. Preston gave the order to withdraw, allowing Stoneman's troops to occupy Saltville and inflict heavy damage on the saltworks, thereby fulfilling the raid's central purpose. In the aftermath, Union forces withdrew toward Kentucky and Tennessee, though the retreat exacted its own toll through bitter cold weather and continued harassment from a Confederate brigade under Brigadier General Basil W. Duke.