Philippi

Fought on June 3, 1861, near Philippi, Virginia (in present day West Virginia), this clash represented one piece of the broader Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. Federal forces emerged victorious, and though many historians classify the engagement as a minor skirmish rather than a true battle, it stands as the war's first organized land action.

Newspapers loyal to the Union nonetheless portrayed the outcome as a glorious victory. This coverage pushed lawmakers in Congress toward demanding an advance on Richmond, a campaign that would ultimately collapse with the Union loss at First Bull Run that July. The clash also thrust Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan into sudden prominence and marked the occasion of the conflict's earliest amputations performed on a battlefield. Coming as the opening victory in a string of successes that drove Confederate troops from the northwestern part of the state, the fight bolstered the standing of the Union government operating in exile there, a body that would soon give rise to the new state of West Virginia.

Confederate soldiers, most of them lacking real training, abandoned the field with almost no fight put up at all. This prompted Union troops to poke fun at the encounter afterward, dubbing it the Philippi Races.

Background

When fighting erupted at Fort Sumter in April 1861, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan came back into military service, taking charge of the Department of the Ohio on May 13 from his headquarters in Cincinnati. He envisioned pushing into the region now known as West Virginia, then still the northwestern counties of Virginia, hoping this move would eventually open the way toward Richmond, the Confederate capital. For the moment, though, his goals were narrower: securing the area to shield its mostly Unionist inhab

Battle

Gen. Morris gave his blessing to a plan hatched by Col. Kelley upon reaching Grafton on June 1, a scheme built around striking the Confederates at Philippi from two directions at once. Kelley himself would lead the larger force, some 1,600 troops drawn from six companies of his own regiment, nine companies of the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment commanded by Col. Robert H. Milroy, and six companies from the 16th Ohio Infantry. This group boarded a train heading east, a move meant to trick Confederate observers into believing Harpers Ferry was the true target. Once they reached the tiny settlement of Thornton, the soldiers got off and turned south, following a secondary road on the same riverbank as Philippi so they could come up behind the town unnoticed.

At the same time, Col. Ebenezer Dumont took the 7th Indiana toward Webster, a spot roughly 3.5 miles (5.6 km) to the southwest of Grafton. There his men joined forces with the 6th Indiana under Col. Thomas T. Crittenden along with the 14th Ohio led by Col. Steedman. This combined body, numbering 1,400 men altogether and under Dumont's command with help from Col. Frederick W. Lander, a volunteer aide serving Gen. McClellan, pushed straight south from Webster along the turnpike. The intent behind these coordinated movements was to trap the smaller Confederate garrison in a pincer.

Both Union columns began marching toward Philippi on June 2, pressing forward through a night of rain until they converged on the town just before sunrise the next day. Morris intended for a pistol shot to launch a surprise attack under cover of darkness. Inside the town, the inexperienced Confederate recruits had neglected to post sentries around their camp, preferring the shelter of their tents to standing watch in the cold downpour. However, a woman loyal to the Confederate cause, Mrs. Thomas Humphreys, spotted the advancing Federal troops and dispatched her son on horseback to sound the alarm. When Union pickets seized the boy before her eyes, she opened fire on them with a pistol. Though her shots went wide, they had the effect of setting off the assault ahead of schedule.

Union guns opened up, jolting the sleeping Confederates awake. Some managed to grab weapons and get off a few rounds toward the oncoming troops before the entire camp dissolved into panic, with men fleeing south, several still dressed in nightclothes. Reporters covering the engagement for Union newspapers dubbed it the "Races at Philippi" because of this chaotic retreat. Dumont's men pushed into town across the bridge, and Col. Lander's descent down a steep, brush-covered slope on horseback so impressed onlookers that Leslie's Weekly later published an illustrated feature on the feat. Kelley's troops, however, had come in from the north by the wrong route and could not cut off the fleeing Confederates. During the chase, Kelley took a bullet, but Lander managed to run down and capture the shooter. The defeated Confederate force withdrew all the way to Huttonsville, some 45 miles (72 km) farther south.