Eyewitness 1861: First-hand battle report provided from Philippi
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Union troops rushed across this bridge at Philippi on the morning of June 3, 1861, but they were too late to capture rebel troops fleeing south.
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First-hand battle report provided from Philippi
When Union troops captured what was then Philippi, Va., on the morning of June 3, 1861, they found that fleeing Confederates hadn't had time to eat.
"The rebels had doubtless been kept well posted to our movements ... but had not expected our visit quite so early in the morning," a battle observer wrote. His report appeared in the June 11 edition of The Pittsburgh Daily Dispatch.
"Their breakfast was ready and on the table, which our boys took hold of with a good relish, their appetites being sharpened by their forced march of 10 or 12 miles," the anonymous reporter told Pittsburgh readers.
Union forces had attacked what they believed to be about 1,200 Confederates from two directions. The assault began around dawn on June 3. Historians call the brief skirmish at Philippi the first land battle of the Civil War. That designation apparently makes the Confederate siege of Fort Sumter, a federal fort on a small island in the harbor of Charleston, S.C., the first sea battle.
Union Col. Ebenezer Dumont, commanding about 1,400 men, had placed two cannons on a hill to the west above Philippi. Another 1,600 soldiers, led by Col. Benjamin Franklin Kelley, were supposed to cut off the rebels' southern line of retreat. In the darkness, they took the wrong road and attacked from the east.
That error gave the 800 or so Confederates a brief opportunity to skedaddle south toward Beverly, a nearby town friendly to secessionists. The speed and disorder of their retreat, with many soldiers throwing down their equipment or fleeing in their long johns, was the reason the engagement became known as the "Philippi Races." Both towns are now in West Virginia.
First Published June 12, 2011 12:00 am
