Highland
Historical Society
Highland County, VA
Est. 1847
Settled ca. 1745
P.O. Box 63
McDowell, VA 24458
The Battle of McDowell, the first Confederate victory of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, was fought in Highland County on May 8, 1862. The battlefield is the only Valley Campaign site that looks almost precisely as it did at the time of the Civil War, and it has been designated "100% pristine" by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Today portions of the battlefield are accessible to visitors, and those interested in learning more about the battle and Highland’s place in Civil War history can receive an introduction to the area at the Highland Museum and Heritage Center.
Fighting For Control of the
Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike
In the late summer of 1861, both Confederates and Federals began to
dig in along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, the major transportation
route into western Virginia. The Federals established fortifications
at Cheat Summit, west of what is today Bartow, West Virginia, and the
Confederates dug in at Camp Allegheny, which now straddles the Virginia-West
Virginia line. Held by 1,200 men under Edward Johnson, Camp Allegheny
represented a nearly impregnable position, something Union General Robert
Milroy discovered on December 13, when he led an assault on the fort
and was summarily driven back down the mountain.
As winter set in, both the Federals and Confederates entrenched themselves in these two high elevation forts across the Turnpike, suffering from wind exposure, cold, measles, pneumonia, and treacherous supply routes up mountain roads. First Lt. Shepherd Green Pryor of the 12th Georgia Infantry wrote home from Camp Allegheny in 1861, “I want this fight whipped out here before winter [or] it will be so cold that we cannot stand it.”
Pryor was not to have his wish. Confederates remained at Camp Allegheny till April. George P. Morton, serving with the 31st Virginia, said of his winter on Allegheny Mountain, “Between the measles and the worst climate I have ever seen, I am still dragging out a kind of miserable existence. . . . It rains in torrents nearly every day, and when not raining, we are in the midst of clouds through which one can’t see fifty yards.”
By
early May 1862, the dream of an independent Southern nation appeared
doomed. Defeat after defeat had marked the Confederate efforts for months.
Forts Henry and Donelson, and the rivers they guarded, had been seized
in Tennessee; Roanoke Island, Port Royal, and Fort Pulaski on the Atlantic
coast had fallen to Federal control; and the Stars and Stripes waved
over New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River. Confederate
armies were reeling from defeats at Pea Ridge and Shiloh. Gen. George
McClellan and the largest army ever amassed in the Western Hemisphere
were edging closer to Richmond. But amazingly, a small but bitter
engagement west of Staunton, Virginia, in the mountains of Highland County,
in the tiny village of McDowell, turned the tide of the Civil War in
the theater of Virginia.
The Opening of the Valley Campaign:
The Battle of McDowell
After abandoning Camp Allegheny in April, Johnson’s troops moved east through Monterey and McDowell, Virginia, and occupied a new position atop Shenandoah Mountain. Confederates constructed breast-high trenches here in April 1862, in an effort to defend the city of Staunton and the Turnpike from invasion by Union forces from the west. Remains of these trenches can still be seen on both the north and south side of Route 250 at the Highland County line. Johnson and his men abandoned the breastworks here at the end of April following General Stonewall Jackson’s defeat at Kernstown and joined Jackson at Staunton, a major Confederate supply depot that provided both rail service to Richmond and access to the Valley Pike, now Route 11.
A few days later, Confederates marched back toward
Shenandoah Mountain as Jackson sought to stem Union advances from the
west. The result
was the Battle of McDowell on May 8, 1862. 
Here Confederate forces
positioned on Sitlington Hill above McDowell fended off a Union attack
under Generals Robert Milroy and Robert Schenck.
On the morning of May 8, Confederates under Gen. Johnson deployed along the crest of Sitlington Hill above McDowell. Federals occupied the village below, having established headquarters under Milroy at the Hull House. At about 10 a.m., Brig. Gen. Robert Schenck arrived after a forced march from Franklin and assumed command from headquarters at the Hull House. He deployed his artillery - 18 guns - on Cemetery Hill and near the McDowell Presbyterian Church. He deployed his infantry from McDowell south along the river for about 800 yards.
Schenck and Milroy, hearing that the Confederates were attempting to bring artillery to the crest of the hill, decide to protect the U.S. position in McDowell by attacking up the ravines that cut the western slope of Sitlington Hill. Jackson had been content to hold the crest of the hill while searching for a route for a flanking movement to the north. He declined to send artillery up the hill because of the difficulty of withdrawing the pieces in the face of an attack. Union artillery on Cemetery Hill dug deep trenches for their gun trails and began firing at the Confederates to support the advancing infantry.
As the U.S. forces fought their way up the steep slopes, the conflict grew in ferocity. The 3rd WV tried to turn the CS right; Jackson reinforced the hill with two regiments and covered the turnpike with the 21st Virginia. The 12th Georgia at the advance and center suffered the greatest casualties as the fighting continued for four hours. Union attackers tried to pierce the center of the CS line and to envelope its left flank. Nine CS regiments were engaged, opposing five US regiments. Finally, at dusk, the Union attackers withdrew to McDowell.
At about 2 a.m., Schenck and Milroy ordered a general retreat along the turnpike toward Franklin. Shortly after the Federals retired, the Confederates entered McDowell. For nearly a week, Jackson pursued the retreating Union army almost to Franklin before returning to McDowell and then to the Valley on May 15. McDowell was a hard won victory, the Confederates suffering 498 casualties as compared to the Federals’ 256.
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