Carnifex Ferry was a Civil War engagement fought in West Virginia, 1861. It was a Union victory.
Learning of Col. Erastus Tyler's rout at Kessler's Cross Lanes, Brig. Gen. William S. Rosecrans moved three brigades south from Clarksburg to support him. On the afternoon of September 10, he advanced against Brig. Gen. John Floyd's camps at Carnifex Ferry. Darkness halted several hours' fighting. The strength of the Union artillery convinced Floyd to retreat during the night. Floyd blamed his defeat on his co-commander Brig. Gen. Henry Wise, contributing to further dissension in the Confederate ranks.
On September 10, 1861, Union and Confederate forces clashed in Nicholas County, Virginia, in territory that would later become West Virginia, in an engagement known as the Battle of Carnifex Ferry. This action formed part of the broader Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. Federal troops emerged with a strategic victory, one that helped push Confederate forces out of western Virginia and set the stage for the region's split into the new State of West Virginia two years afterward.
The engagement's name derived from a onetime settlement, itself christened after the Carnefix family who had lived in the area.
Toward the end of August 1861, troops under Confederate Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd forded the Gauley River and caught Col. Erastus Tyler's 7th Ohio Infantry off guard at Kessler's Cross Lanes. Facing superior numbers, Tyler's green soldiers scattered in disorder, and Floyd settled his forces near Carnifex Ferry. There, on the Henry Patteson farm, perched along the rim of the Gauley River Canyon close to Summersville, the Confederates set about digging in.
Worried that Floyd meant to push back into the Kanawha Valley, Union Brig. Gen. William S. Rosecrans marched three infantry brigades south out of Clarksburg to reinforce what remained of Tyler's shattered command. By the afternoon of September 10, Rosecrans had maneuvered his men into place and launched an assault on Floyd's camp. The Confederate defenses held firm against these assaults, inflicting casualties on the Union side far exceeding their own losses. Even so, the weight of Rosecrans's artillery made Floyd's position untenable, and that night he chose to pull his men back across the ferry to the Gauley's southern bank. From there he shifted east toward Meadow Bluff, near Lewisburg.
Rather than accept fault for the setback, Floyd shifted the blame onto his fellow commander, Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise, deepening the discord already plaguing the Confederate command structure in western Virginia.
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