Civil War, the New River Valley, 1861-1865: 3 One-Day Driving Tours

Since many Civil War campaigns were staged through the New River Valley and major tributaries like the Greenbrier and Gauley rivers, an abundance of battle sites, headquarters buildings, entrenchment remnants and cemeteries can be found within a day's drive of Charleston.

Each driving route has clear maps and directions, and accompanied by a narrative on the events. At sites where engagements took place, diagrams charting troop movements are provided to help understand how the battles took shape.

The first route, covering 155 miles, covers sites to control the James River and Kanawha Turnpike between Lewisburg and Charleston. It makes nine stops in Fayette and Nicholas counties, including Kanawha Falls, site of Fort Reynolds, where Union officers and future Presidents Rutherford Hayes and William McKinley were stationed.

Also on the route is Carnifex Ferry and Sewell Mountain, where Gen. Robert E. Lee obtained his famous horse, Traveler. According to Bard, Sewell Mountain could have become a major battle had torrential rains not intervened, since 9,000 Confederate troops were facing 8,200 Union troops just before the deluge began. Both sides decided to withdraw in light of the bad weather and poor supply lines.

The second route covers 220 miles and takes in 10 sites involved in raids. The tour begins at Meadow Bluff, 3 miles off the Sam Black Church exit of Interstate 64. As many as 3,000 Southern troops were encamped in pastures where more than 100 huts were built.

Other stops include Tuckwiller's Hill, a knoll that carries U.S. 60 over the path of the James River and Kanawha Turnpike a few miles west of Lewisburg. A red brick farmhouse at Valley View Farm at the base of the knoll was Tuckwiller's Tavern in 1863, when 700 Union troops approached Lewisburg to seize the town from the 250 Confederate soldiers who occupied it.

The outnumbered Confederates ambushed the approaching Federals by barricading the road. Union horses bore the brunt of the ensuing 20-minute firefight: 28 steeds were killed, along with six Union soldiers. The Confederates, who lost no troops in the skirmish, granted a truce of several hours and sent two surgeons to help tend to the Union wounded. The Federal force retreated to Charleston.

The final war-related stop on Bard's second day-trip is Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park, probably the most fratricidal battle of the war in West Virginia. Among the 5,500 combatants in the struggle were at least 80 West Virginia men who fought against relatives or former neighbors.

The third day-trip takes visitors to sites where Union and Confederate forces clashed from 1862 to 1864 to gain control of the southwestern side of the New River.

From positions in high grass on a hill called Pigeon Roost, the Confederates killed 14 of the Germans and wounded 46 more. The site of the Battle of Pigeon Roost is one of the first stops on the third day of the tour, which ends at Saltville, where two black cavalry units were among Union forces that overwhelmed a Confederate force guarding a salt works.

The day after the battle, armed Confederates entered a field hospital where wounded black soldiers from the Union cavalry units were being treated, dragged 10 of them off their cots and killed them in an incident known as the Saltville Massacre.

While battles fought in the New River Valley played only a minor role in the outcome of the war, strategic and tactical lessons learned in fighting the campaign "played a vital role in the logistical warfare that eventually determined the military outcome of the Civil War," Bard wrote.

By teaching Federal commanders how to man, supply and equip long-range raids, Bard wrote, "Union successes in the New River Valley played a vital role in the defeat of the Confederacy."

Rick Steelhammer, Charleston Gazette