The Battle of Kanawha Gap, also known as the Battle of Chapmanville, was a Civil War battle fought near Chapmanville, West Virginia on September 25, 1861, as part of the Western Virginia campaign. A column of Union soldiers from the Kanawha Brigade commanded by Col. Piatt and Col. Enyart, set out on an expedition from Camp Enyart to attack a Confederate camp near Chapmanville and drive Confederate forces from the Kanawha valley.
Throughout the summer of 1861, Union forces under General Rosecrans had been fighting to gain control of the vital Kanawha Valley along western Virginia's border with Kentucky. The Kanawha valley was home to many southern sympathizers and secessionists and the Union wanted to take and hold the areas in Kanawha County around Charleston.
At the Battle of Scary Creek and Carnifex Ferry, Union forces had defeated the Confederates, and wanting to aid the operations of Jacob D. Cox, Colonel Abram Piatt decided to launch an expedition to attack the Confederate positions at Chapmanville.
On September 22, 1861, Col. Piatt left Camp Enyart commanding 500 men of the 34th Ohio Infantry, while Lt-Col. Enyart commanded 300 men of the 1st Kentucky Infantry and 100 Loyal Home Guards from western Virginia. The column marched together until they reached Peytona, when the force was split in two, Col. Piatt's men continuing south while Lt-Col. Enyart's men marched along the Cole River but found no enemy forces. On September 24, the two columns reunited along the Kanawha River and encamped at Boone Court House.
The next day, September 25, the Union forces proceeded 16 miles towards Chapmanville when they encountered Confederate pickets and skirmishers at the Trace Fork Creek. The skirmishers were driven back towards Chapmanville, joining the main Confederate body, commanded by Col. J. Lucius Davis, in their fortifications and entrenchments in the Kanawha Gap just outside the town. While the main Confederate body, consisting of the Logan County Militia, was preparing their entrenchments at Kanawha Gap, Lt-Col. Enyart's men began to attack the militia on the outskirts of the town. The 1st Kentucky poured a deadly fire into the Confederates, completely routing the force in the town and killing or capturing over 50 men.
As the 1st Kentucky defeated the militia in the town, Col. Piatt's men marched towards the fortifications located on the side of a mountain at Kanawha Gap. The Confederate militia that managed to escape capture by the Kentuckians ran to the fortifications and the whole force opened fire when the Union column was approximately 80 yards from the foot of the mountain.
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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