The Second Battle of Saltville (December 20–21, 1864), was fought near the town of Saltville, Virginia, during the American Civil War. The battle was a Union victory, and marked the end of a Union excursion known as Stoneman's 1864 raid or Stoneman's raid into Southwest Virginia. The Union objective at Saltville was to destroy a salt works that produced over half of the salt used by the Confederacy to preserve meat—including that used to supply the Army of Northern Virginia.
After the defeat of Brevet Major General Stephen G. Burbridge's expedition against Saltville (First Battle of Saltville) earlier in the year, Union Major General George Stoneman reassembled a force to again try to destroy the saltworks there. Stoneman's force included Burbridge's Division and a brigade under Brigadier General Alvan C. Gillem. Starting in Tennessee and moving to Southwestern Virginia, Stoneman defeated a Confederate force in Virginia's Battle of Marion on the December 17–18. In that battle, Union forces drove away a Confederate force commanded by Major General John C. Breckinridge.
After the action at Marion, Stoneman's force advanced to Saltville. Breckinridge was not present, but he had 500 men at Saltville under the command of Colonel Robert Preston. Union Brigadier General Gillem led the Union advance and attacked first. Burbridge joined the fight shortly afterwards, and the two Federal columns overwhelmed the town's defenses. Colonel Preston ordered a retreat, and Stoneman's troops entered the town and severely damanged the saltworks, accomplishing the objective of the Union raid. After the fight, Union troops returned to Kentucky and Tennessee while suffering losses from severe cold and harassment by a brigade commanded by Brigadier General Basil W. Duke.
The Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 107 acres (0.43 km2) of the Saltville battlefields.
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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