Battle of Philippi (West Virginia)
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The Battle of Philippi, also called The Philippi Races, was fought on June 3, 1861, in and around Philippi, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of the Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War. It was the first organized land action in the Eastern Theater of the war, but is often treated dismissively as a skirmish rather than a significant battle.[1]
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[edit] Background
After the commencement of hostilities at Fort Sumter in April 1861, Major General George B. McClellan rejoined the Army and was headquartered in Cincinnati. He planned an offensive into western Virginia (modern West Virginia, but then still part of the state of Virginia) that he optimistically hoped would eventuate in a campaign for 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.
[edit] Battle
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 journalists 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.
[edit] Aftermath
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.
The celebrated short-story writer and satirist Ambrose Bierce was a raw recruit present at the Battle of Philippi. Twenty years later, he wrote, in an autobiographical fragment he called On a Mountain:
We gave ourselves, this aristocracy of service, no end of military airs; some of us even going to the extreme of keeping our jackets buttoned and our hair combed. We had been in action, too; had shot off a Confederate leg at Philippi, "the first battle of the war," and had lost as many as a dozen men at Laurel Hill and Carrick's Ford, whither the enemy had fled in trying, Heaven knows why, to get away from us.
The quotation marks indicate the wryness with which Bierce and his fellow veterans, who were to undergo far more harrowing experiences, must have regarded the designation of "first battle."
[edit] See also
- Philippi Covered Bridge, used by both sides during the battle.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Notes
- ^ 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.
[edit] Further reading
- Carnes, Eva Margaret, The Tygarts Valley Line, June-July 1861, "Published by the First Land Battle of the Civil War Centennial Commemoration, Inc. Philippi, West Virginia", 1961. (Reprinted 1988, 2003; McClain Printing Company, Parsons, West Virginia) ISBN 0-87012-703-9.
[edit] External links
- Battle of Philippi (West Virginia) is at coordinates Coordinates:
