Tag: Battle of Cheat Mountain

Sept. 12, 1861: The Battle of Cheat Mountain is Fought Near the Randolph-Pocahontas County Line

On September 12, 1861, the Battle of Cheat Mountain was fought near the Randolph-Pocahontas County line. Taking place just five months into the Civil War, the battle was a significant loss for the Confederacy.

General Robert E. Lee—at the time commander of the Department of Northwestern Virginia—was trying to protect railroad lines in Western Virginia while keeping what would become northern West Virginia in Confederate hands, thereby thwarting the young statehood movement.

Before the battle, Lee’s subordinate, William Loring, gathered his forces on Valley Mountain. Brigadier General Joseph Reynolds, commander of the U.S. forces, had his headquarters at Elkwater and a strongly fortified post atop Cheat Mountain in Randolph County.

Continual rainfall bogged down the Confederate attack, which was foiled further by the discovery of Southern troops by Union pickets. Lee abandoned his original plan and ordered an advance against Elkwater. The Confederate troops, who were described as being “too wet and too hungry to fight,” were easily repelled.

Colonel John A. Washington, Lee’s aide-de-camp and the last owner of Mount Vernon, was killed while scouting for Lee at Elkwater.

October 29, 1861: General Lee Ends Three-Month Campaign

On October 29, 1861, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee departed present-day West Virginia, near the end of his ill-fated western Virginia campaign. The rest of his Civil War career would rank Lee among the greatest generals in history. However, his first campaign was a total calamity.

He had been dispatched to the region to regain territory for the Confederacy. His plans came to a head in September 1861 atop Cheat Mountain in Pocahontas County. Lee’s attack, though, fell apart. His troops made a hasty retreat, and he soon abandoned the effort.

Lee’s three months in what would become West Virginia were marked by flooding rains, muddy quagmires, inexperienced officers, and diseases among the troops. An editorial in the Richmond Examiner said that Lee had been “outwitted, outmaneuvered, and outgeneraled.” Another newspaper mocked him with the nickname “Granny Lee.”

But there was one upside for Lee during his disastrous adventure. While at Sewell Mountain in Fayette County, he first set eyes on a grey American Saddlebred that would become his faithful companion. He later acquired the horse, which he would name Traveller and ride throughout the war.

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