Western Virginia campaign

Western Virginia campaign
Part of the American Civil War
Date May to December, 1861 Location Western Virginia (now West Virginia) Result Union victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	Confederate States (Confederacy)
Commanders and leaders
Abraham Lincoln Simon Cameron George B. McClellan Thomas M. Harris Isaac Duval William S. Rosecrans Thomas A. Morris	Jefferson Davis LeRoy Pope Walker (until September) Robert E. Lee Robert S. Garnett † Henry A. Wise John B. Floyd John Pegram (POW)

The western Virginia campaign, also known as operations in western Virginia or the Rich Mountain campaign, occurred from May to December 1861 during the American Civil War. Union forces under Major General George B. McClellan invaded the western portion of Virginia to prevent Confederate occupation; this area later became the state of West Virginia. West Virginians on both sides would fight in the campaign while a Unionist convention in Wheeling would appoint their choice for a Unionist governor for Virginia, Francis H. Pierpont, and promote the creation of a new state in western Virginia. Large scale Confederate forces would gradually abandon the region, leaving it to small local brigades to maintain hold on southern and eastern sections for much of the war.

Western Virginia was an important source of minerals the Confederates needed for the production of arms and ammunition. It also contained several roads and turnpikes which would grant the Union access to Tennessee, North Carolina, and the Shenandoah Valley, while the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the northern part of the area connected the eastern Union states to the Midwest.^[1]