By July 14th George McClellan had established his headquarters at Huttonsville and on the 16th ordered the construction of the Cheat Mountain Summit Fort on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike. General Lee had placed Brigadier General Henry Jackson in temporary command of the Army of the Northwest on the 14th. Jackson had under his command the 12th GA, 44th VA and the 6th NC, a total of about 2,500 men, at Monterey, VA. The army that limped back there from Rich Mountain was in taters and to make matters worse ammunition and supplies that were intended for him were sent to “Stonewall Jackson” by mistake! On the 19th he moved his forces over Allegheny Mountain to the Greenbrier River on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike.

On July 22nd Brigadier General William Wing Loring arrived in Monterey to assume command of Confederate forces. Loring had lost his left arm in the Mexican-American War. Lee also assigned to Loring the troops of Brigadier Generals John B. Floyd and Henry Wise, both political generals and former governors of Virginia, former political rivals they despised each other. Lee ordered Loring to hold Cheat Mountain pass without realizing the Union were already there in force with six companies of the 14th IN, the 15th IN, 3rd OH, the Coldwater Battery and a company of Ohio cavalry.

McClellan also had plans for the Kanawha River valley. Confederate General Wise had taken Charleston and was advancing west toward the Ohio River in late June. In response McClellan sent Brigadier General Jacob Cox to Point Pleasant near the mouth of the Kanawha on the Ohio River. On July 22nd the day after the first battle of Bull Run McClellan was called to Washington to assume command of the Army of the Potomac. On July 24th General William Rosecrans assumed command of forces in Western Virginia. He would move south to reinforce Cox leaving Brigadier General Joseph J. Reynolds in charge at Cheat Mountain and Camp Elkwater, 8 miles south of the mountain. Reynolds set up his headquarters at the Camp at Cheat Mountain Pass seen in the map below. The camp was at the apex of a triangle and was about equidistant between Camp Elkwater and the Cheat Summit Fort. It is located approximately where the Huttonsville Correctional Center is today.

Camp at Cheat Mountain Pass– location 38.6944825, -79.9746906

On July 28th Robert E. Lee was sent to western Virginia by Jefferson Davis to inspect and consult on the plan of the campaign. Lee traveled with two aides Lieutenant Colonels Walter Taylor and John A. Washington. By July 30th Loring was at Huntersville with his main force. Lee arrived at Loring’s headquarters much to Loring’s surprise on August 3rd. Loring planned to march north on the Huntersville-Huttonsville Pike and get behind Reynolds on Cheat Mountain, but his slow movement had given Union forces time to establish Camp Elkwater and block the road. On August 12th Loring moved his command to Valley Mountain, just south of Camp Elkwater.

Camp Elkwater

Lee spent his time personally scouting possible approaches to Cheat Mountain. Several potential routes were identified. Colonel Albert Rust found a path that was south of the fort. Lee developed a very complicated plan involving an assault of five columns on Cheat Mountain and Camp Elkwater. Brigadier General Daniel Donelson and Colonel Jesse Burks would approach Camp Elkwater from opposite sides of the Tygart’s Valley River. They would then await the attack on Cheat Mountain to begin their assault. Three columns were to converge on the Cheat Mountain Summit Fort. Brigadier General Samuel Anderson was to cut off the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike west of the fort, Henry Jackson would march west from Camp Bartow toward the fort while Colonel Rust moved through the wilderness west of the summit up a narrow path and attack the fort at daybreak (all shown below).

The columns started out on September 9th and 10th and were all to reach their respective points by dawn on the 12th. Surprisingly, they all were in position by the 12th and then things started to unravel. Rust’s men were wet from the rains and tired after two days of marching with no shelter and no food. About a half mile from the fort they came across several lightly guarded Union supply wagons and could not control themselves. The element of surprise was now lost. In addition, the captured Federal soldiers managed to convince the inexperienced Rust that he was vastly outnumbered. The Union had about 3,000 men in the vicinity (14th IN, 24th and 25th OH) commanded by Colonel Nathan Kimball. When Kimball was informed about the attack on the wagons he sent 200 men from the 14th IN to investigate what he thought was a Rebel scouting party. The dense woods prevented either side to know the exact size of the other. Kimball’s 200 men surprised and completely routed Rust’s force of 1,600 who retreated in a panic. The other columns were awaiting the sounds of a battle which never came, and they sat and waited in the cold and rain. There was minor skirmishing east and west of the fort but the day ended without a major assault. Union scouts at Camp Elkwater discovered the threat and Federal forces in both locations were now prepared.

Cheat Mountain Summit Fort

From the overlook views of the fort

From the base of the road leading up to the peak

On the 13th Lee sent his son William “Rooney” Lee and his aide Lieutenant Colonel John A. Washington to scout Federal positions near the Elkwater bridge. Washington, the great grand-nephew of George Washington, was killed by Federal pickets. Lee ordered the Confederates back to their camps on the 14th. Lee’s first attempt at field command had been a dismal failure. He wrote his wife, “I cannot tell you my regret and mortification at the untoward events that caused the failure of the plan.”

He had devised an extraordinarily complex plan in which the key component was dependent on an inexperienced Colonel. He would now focus his efforts on the Kanawha River Valley while still guarding the passes to the east on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike. Confederate forces withdrew east to Camp Bartow where the Turnpike crossed the Greenbrier River. Robert E. Lee headed south to see if he could do any better in the Kanawha region with the feuding former Virginia Governors, now Generals, Henry Wise and John Floyd.

Sources

Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided by W. Hunter Lesser.

Blue and Gray Magazine August 1993 Northwestern Virginia Campaign of 1861 by Martin K. Fleming.