Battle of Philippi Races
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- For the Roman Civil War battle, see Battle of Philippi.
| Operations in Western Virginia |
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| Philippi – Rich Mountain – Kessler's Cross Lanes – Carnifex Ferry – Cheat Mountain – Greenbrier River – Camp Alleghany |
The Battle of Philippi or The Philippi Races was fought on June 3, 1861, near what is now Philippi, West Virginia, as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the first organized land action in the Eastern Theater of the war, but historians disagree on whether it was primarily a skirmish or a significant battle.Eicher, Longest Night, p. 75, wrote "Although this minor skirmish was glorified in the press ... it had little significance." The [National Park Service battle description] concludes, "Although a small affair, this was considered the first major land action in the Eastern Theater." The other contender for first battle in the East is Big Bethel, on June 10.
After the war started at Fort Sumter, Major General George B. McClellan rejoined the army and was headquartered in Cincinnati. He planned an offensive into Western Virginia (in 1861, still part of the original state of Virginia) that he hoped would eventually end up at the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. His immediate objectives, however, were twofold: seize territory to protect the predominantly pro-Union populace of the area, and keep open the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line, which was a critical supply line for the Union. On May 26, McClellan ordered 3,000 troops under Brigadier General Thomas A. Morris into western Virginia in a two-pronged advance.
The principal advance was by 1,600 men under Brig. Gen. Benjamin Franklin Kelley, which pushed toward the town of Grafton and occupied it on May 30. The other advance, of 1,400 men under Brig. Gen. Ebenezer Dumont, took Webster, several miles to the west. On June 2, the two forces departed by train to converge on Philippi—Kelley from the south and Dumont from the north—to execute a double envelopment of the 800 recruits commanded by Confederate Colonel George A. Porterfield. Both columns arrived at Philippi before dawn on June 3.
Morris planned a predawn assault that would be signaled by a pistol shot. The untrained Confederate troops had failed to establish picket lines to provide perimeter security, choosing instead to escape the cold rain that fell at morning and stay inside their tents. A Confederate sympathizer, Mrs. Thomas Humphreys, saw the approaching Union troops and sent her young son on horseback to warn the Confederates. While Mrs. Humphreys watched, a Union outpost captured the boy and she fired her pistol at the Union soldiers. Although she missed, her shots started the attack prematurely.
The Union forces began firing their artillery, which awakened the sleeping Confederates. After firing a few shots at the advancing Union troops, the Southerners broke lines and began running frantically to the south, some still in their bed clothes, which caused critics to refer to the battle as the "Races at Philippi". Dumont's troops entered the town from the north, but Kelley's arrived late and were unable to block the Confederate escape. Kelley himself was shot while chasing some of the retreating Confederates. There were two significant Confederate casualties, one of whom was a VMI cadet, Fauntleroy Daingerfield. Both were treated with battlefield amputations, believed to be the first such operations of the war. The remaining Confederate troops retreated to Huttonsville.
The Union victory in a relatively bloodless battle propelled the young General McClellan into the national spotlight, and he would soon be given command of all Union armies. The battle also inspired more vocal protests in the western part of Virginia against secession. A few days later in Wheeling, the Wheeling Convention nullified the Virginia ordinance of secession and named Francis H. Pierpont governor.
References
- [National Park Service battle description]
- Eicher, John H., & Eicher, David J., Civil War High Commands, Stanford University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
- Eicher, David J., The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, Simon & Schuster, 2001, ISBN 0-684-84944-5.
- Hattaway, Herman, and Jones, Archer, How the North Won: A Military History of the Civil War, University of Illinois Press, 1983, ISBN 0-252-00918-5.
Notes
External links
- [Battle of Philippi Bridge]
- [Maps and aerial photos]
- * Street map from [Google Maps] or [Yahoo! Maps]
- * Topographic map from [TopoZone]
- * Aerial image or topographic map from [TerraServer-USA]
- * Satellite image from [Google Maps] or [Microsoft Virtual Earth]
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