Cheat Mountain

Fought over four days, from September 12 through 15, 1861, the clash at Cheat Mountain unfolded across Pocahontas County and Randolph County, Virginia, in territory that would later become West Virginia. This engagement formed part of the broader Western Virginia Campaign waged during the American Civil War. Notably, it marked Robert E. Lee's debut as a battlefield commander in the conflict. His plan called for encircling the Union troops stationed at the summit fort, yet the assault never materialized. Misleading accounts from captured soldiers, combined with breakdowns in coordination among Confederate units, doomed the operation before it could begin.

Background

In May 1861, troops under Major General George B. McClellan pushed westward from Ohio into the mountainous section of Virginia. This movement served two purposes: shielding Ohio and Pennsylvania against a possible Confederate thrust and bolstering the Union-aligned government based in Wheeling as it struggled against incursions from the eastern part of the state. After his success at Rich Mountain, McClellan moved on to take charge of the Army of the Potomac, and Brigadier General William Rosecrans stepped in to lead the forces remaining in western Virginia. Rosecrans then gathered his troops around the region's key travel routes for protection. Command of the Cheat Mountain district fell to Brigadier General Joseph J. Reynolds, whose job was guarding the Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike using four regiments and roughly 1,800 soldiers. Of these, the 14th Indiana under Colonel Nathan Kimball held Fort Milroy atop Cheat Mountain, and the other three regiments were stationed at Camp Elkwater by the Tygart Valley River, the site Reynolds chose for his headquarters.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis dispatched Gen. Robert E. Lee westward into Virginia so that he might unify the scattered Confederate units there and reclaim territory that had slipped from Southern hands. By late July, Lee had reached the encampments of the Army of the Northwest, led by Brigadier General William W. Loring; though Lee never took Loring's post outright, he did route his commands through him. After scouting the terrain surrounding the Union lines himself, Lee crafted a plan calling for simultaneous strikes, one aimed at Kimball's post atop Cheat Mountain and another against Reynolds's camp. For this operation, Loring's Army of the Northwest was split into six brigades. Brigadier General Henry R. Jackson's men were tasked with staging a diversionary action facing Fort Milroy, while Colonel Albert Rust's brigade carried out the primary assault on the stronghold, and Brigadier General Samuel Anderson's brigade seized the turnpike stretch to the fort's west. Meanwhile, Brigadier General Daniel Donelson together with Col. Jesse S. Burke were to secure the routes lying behind Camp Elkwater, across the valley on Cheat Mountain's western side, with Colonel William Gilham's brigade held back in reserve. During the engagement, command over Burke's and Gilham's brigades was placed under Loring. Lee laid out the entire operation for his commanders through Special Order No. 27, yet it bore Rust's signature rather than his own, a decision meant to credit Rust for the design and bolster his authority among the men serving beneath him. Under this design, three separate columns, Anderson's approaching from the west, Rust's from the east side of the mountain, and Jackson's from directly east, were meant to arrive together and strike the Union fort on the summit simultaneously, a maneuver that proved demanding for officers with little seasoning. Rust's force was to open the fighting with volleys against the fort, a signal that would send the other two columns forward as well, while Donelson's column across the valley moved against the Union defenders at Elkwater.

Battle

None of the three Confederate brigades managed to coordinate their movements. Fog hung over the mountains, rain fell steadily, and thick woods cut sight lines down to almost nothing, so the units sent against Cheat Summit Fort ended up operating on their own, never linking up with one another. Getting to Cheat Mountain proved a slog in itself, made worse by the wet conditions. Meanwhile the Federal soldiers holding Cheat Summit knew every trail and ridge of the ground they occupied.

As Rust's column pushed forward, it ran into two Union sentries who bolted. Confederate fire cut both men down, but the shots gave away the position to other pickets nearby, and skirmishing broke out once the rebels had lost any hope of surprise. Rust's men then rounded up additional prisoners and questioned them. Those captives inflated the numbers of the Union camp, and Rust took their claims at face value. Two probing assaults launched from the fort hit hard enough that both Rust and Anderson, commanding roughly 1,500 Confederates apiece on the mountain, became convinced they faced a much larger enemy force. Without ever signaling his men to attack, Rust chose to pull back down the slope. Down at Elkwater, Reynolds's brigade stood against three additional Confederate brigades and held firm in entrenchments prepared well in advance, refusing to yield ground.

The Confederates abandoned any further push after Col. John A. Washington, serving on Lee's staff, fell during a scouting mission along the Union right flank. Washington was the great-grandnephew of George Washington and had been the last private owner of Mount Vernon, the first president's estate. Reynolds grew bold in the face of the enemy's hesitation, sending two of his regiments up the mountain road from Elk Water to relieve a garrison he believed under siege, though it turned out reinforcement was not actually needed. Lee, after some further maneuvering nearby, called off the offensive and pulled his troops back to Valley Mountain by September 17. Reynolds, for his part, began planning a strike of his own against Confederate positions along the Greenbrier River.

Aftermath

Casualties on Reynolds's side totaled 88, comprising 10 dead, 14 wounded, and 64 taken prisoner. No official figures survive for the Confederate side, though Reynolds and Kimball insisted that a hundred Confederates had died and another twenty had been seized. Neither the wider campaign nor the war itself was much altered by the engagement, since each army ended up holding roughly the same ground it had occupied beforehand. By October, Lee moved his men away from Cheat Mountain toward Sewell Mountain in West Virginia's Kanawha River valley, bringing along the units under John B. Floyd and Henry Wise. Once there, dwindling supplies and harsh weather forced him to abandon the offensive he had intended to launch. Having accomplished little during his time in western Virginia, Lee was summoned back to Richmond on October 30.