Western Virginia Campaign

Part of the American Civil War

Date	May to December, 1861
Location	Western Virginia (modern West Virginia)
Result	Union victory

Belligerents

United States (Union)

CSA (Confederacy)

Commanders and leaders

George B. McClellan
William S. Rosecrans

Robert E. Lee
Robert S. Garnett †

The Western Virginia Campaign, also known as Operations in Western Virginia or the Rich Mountain Campaign, occurred from May to December 1861 during the American Civil War. Union forces under Major General George B. McClellan invaded the western portion of Virginia; this area occupied by the Union later became the state of West Virginia. Although Confederate forces would make several raids into the area throughout the remainder of the war, they would be unable to reoccupy the state.

Western Virginia was an important source of minerals the Confederates needed for the production of arms and ammunition. It also contained several roads and turnpikes which would grant the Union access to Tennessee, North Carolina, and the Shenandoah Valley, while the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the northern part of the area connected the eastern Union states to the Midwest.

In April 1861 a Virginia state convention voted to secede and join the Confederacy. However, there was much opposition to this action from the western counties of the state, which were economically tied closer to western Pennsylvania and Ohio than to eastern Virginia. Following the secession vote in Richmond, John Carlile, a Unionist leader from northwest Virginia, led a meeting at Clarksburg which called for a convention to meet at Wheeling the next month for determining what steps "the people of Northwest Virginia should take in the present emergency." To organize Union forces in the area, George B. McClellan was appointed commander of the Department of the Ohio, covering Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, western Pennsylvania, and western Virginia. He gathered several regiments raised in Ohio, Indiana, and western Virginia and moved into Virginia in early May, moving along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Kanawha River.

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Wikipedia