The West Virginia Campaign of 1861: An Overlooked Episode of the American Civil War
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- In this video, I examine an often overlooked campaign of the American Civil War. After Virginia seceded from the Union, West Virginia seceded from Virginia and set the first campaign of the war into motion. This campaign saw the command debut of George B. McClellan, William S. Rosecrans, and Robert E. Lee. During this campaign and the other abortive battles of 1861, both sides learned the value of strong command and control structures, logistics, training, and the proper outfitting of soldiers.
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I haven’t watched the whole thing yet but I love the subject, thanks bud. I’m taking a couple days off on the second weekend of July to drive to Gettysburg from Connecticut. Can’t wait!
That sounds like a great trip. I have been to a number of battlefields, but I haven't managed to get to Gettysburg yet. Maybe next summer.
I lived in West Virginia most of my life. Virtually no Civil War Historian can say the name of the town where that first battle took place correctly. In Shakespeare, it is File-lip-pie. In WV, it is is Fill-ip-ee.
Yeah, I’m from West Virginia and I never heard it called anything but Fill-a-pee. Not Fill-a-pie. I crossed the covered bridge there in about 1962, with my dad and uncle to go trout fishing near Franklin.
Would absolutely love more US Civil War videos.
I plan on putting up one more this week and I while I don't have any concrete plans for more Civil War videos after that, it is a definite possibility.
I'll likely dig whichever topic you choose to cover, tbh. Can't wait for the next video. What are your thoughts on McClellan as a commander, by the way? I've seen him get a LOT of hate from people.
I don't really have a strong opinion on McClellan since I haven't studied him in any kind of depth. My impression is that he was an excellent organizer and a solid strategist, but a poor field commander who had trouble adapting to sudden developments or making accurate assessments of the enemy's strength or intentions.
@@ThersitestheHistorian One of his peers (not sure who) is quoted as saying that Mac won every battle he ever fought. On paper. While I give his organizational skills and morale leadership high marks, otherwise he sucked. Bad. He would have been a true hero of the war had the Union had some kind of Recruit Training Command. What more can be said about the man who wasted the opportunity to destroy the ANV twice?
Confederacy: "There is a right to secede and no one can stop us."
West Virginia: "Okay, in that case we've decided to secede from you"
Confederacy: "You aren't allowed to secede and if you try to do it, we're going to stop you."
Most countries in West Virginia were pro confederate tho
@@BobJones-sd8eh You mean counties? No they weren't. They chose to leave the CSA overwhelmingly.
@@TheStapleGunKid Lol no they didn’t overwhelmingly vote to leave the csa, let’s look at the facts:
1. 22,000 west Virginians fought for the csa (including the famous stonewall Jackson), making them the only border state that didn’t supply more troops to the union than the confederacy
2. The vote on statehood was clearly rigged as union soldiers were stationed at the polls, confederate supporters boycotted the referendum and the counties still under csa obviously didn’t vote
3. Yes more counties did vote to succeed from union than state in the union this is just a basic fact
4. Union troops remained stationed in West Virginia until 1869 and unrest didn’t stop until 1868
@@BobJones-sd8eh You have no idea what you are talking about. West Virginia overwhelmingly voted to leave the Confederacy for the same reason they overwhelmingly against secession from the Union in 1861. Because the counties were overwhelmingly pro-Union. The pro-Confederates who boycotted elections have only themselves to blame.
As for your troop numbers, they are way off. Here's how they really went:
_"Historians traditionally placed the number of Union troops enlisted in West Virginia at a much higher figure than Confederates. But more recent studies suggest there were almost as many southern troops as northern.
The real problems lie with scant or non-existent records, multiple registrations and musters, false identifications or enlistments, desertions, and the difficulty in counting accurately the casualties following any Civil War engagement, especially those conducted in remote or lightly administered areas such as was the case for much of West Virginia during the Civil War. Traditional sources placed Union strength as high as 36,000 compared to only 7,000 to 10,000 Confederates. Recent studies have elevated the Southern number to over 20,000 and lowered the Union figure to about the same or maybe slightly higher (low to mid- twenty thousands). Of course, the numbers fluctuated throughout the war, and were typically higher in the earlier years of the conflict."_
So at most, there were roughly even numbers of troops for both sides. Nothing like the 22,000 advantage for the CSA you claim.
@@TheStapleGunKid lol it’s almost like stationing soldiers at polls to intimidate people helped the unionists win 18000 votes for and only 800 against yeah it was clearly rigged and not all counties participated, most counties voted to leave the union and I never claimed they had a 22,000 advantage I claimed they didn’t provide more troops to the union than the confederacy
really cool video Thersites the Historian. I crushed the thumbs up on your video. Keep on up the awesome work.
Another often overlooked campaign is the dept of the northwest.
The one General Pope took over after 2nd Manassas.
The Minnesota Dakota war of 1862.
Followed by the long forgotten battles on the prairies of North Dakota.
Whitestone Hill
Dead Buffalo Lake
Killdeer Mountain
The Badlands campaign.
There was so much going on in America in the 1860s and so much gets overshadowed.
"Country roaaads! West Virgina..."
Mountain mamaaaa
Good video, clear explanation was given
Another interesting point is that Tidewater Virginia cared so little that they misspelled one county name in creating it and likely reversed two. Monongalia on the Monongahela River is the spelling error and it is likely that Pocahontas County and Highland Counties were switched based on local geography of those counties.
It was the people from wheeling that ran out Virginia
Thanks, videos on WVA, MO and KY are pretty rare. One thing I think needs attention though, is your comment that McClellan came to the aid of Rosecrans. According to both an article in "Battles of Leaders (Vol. 1)" and Sears' book, "The Young Napoleon" Little Mac failed to come to the aid of Rosecrans, thinking he'd already been defeated. According to both authors, this was typical of his "leadership" style as he also failed to provide leadership to his corps commanders during the retreat on the peninsula. I wonder where you got your information. Still a darn good lecture. Liked and added to my CW collection.
Thank you for this. I've been working on my Thompson/Tracy W.Va , Pocahontas county lines for awhile, but information is about as scarce as hens teeth and now my Poppa is gone so there is nobody left to tell me things.
Great job bud!
I love this documentary! Our family's handed down stories tell about how the majority of men were ,survivalist in today's terms, marksmen and changed some outcomes.
Could you do a documentary on the Civil War battle at Corricks ford, Parsons W.Va. seems it always gets put on the back burner and hardly ever mentioned I live there and theres a lot of history if you dig into it. Ive been yet to find a good lengthy video documentary on it. It would be greatly appreciated by others and myself. Thanks again for the great documentary on our Wild and Wonderful State.
There's also camp Hannasville, Rowlesburg Terra Alta, Kingwood which was huge for the Railroad, a very important strategy for both sides, all this resides within a few miles of Parsons and Phillipi, and Elkins..
@@hmmme8162 I will look into that. I am open to making a video on this topic, but it will largely depend on what I can find.
Check out the parsons library, there are several local history books, Maxwell's is about the best just my opinion...but if you need any help with phone numbers maybe a few contacts feel free to ask anytime
Would love to hear and see a video of the BANK ROBBERY in WESTON BANK that helped found the seceding from Virginia. Plus what did the soldier of WV do at Gettysburg battle field.... LOVE YOU HISTORY STORIES - KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!!!!
Any books on the 1861campaign and battles would be very interesting
Hey TTH, here's a little nugget of civil war facts, in my family cemetery we have CSA soldier named George Pickens he died in June of 1862 this is near Rainelle, Wv. He may have been stationed near Lewisburg Wv . Our neighbor sold the famous horse named Traveler to a Gen Rob E Lee.
One of the best treatments on YT. Thank you. BTW: How many channels do you have?
It would have been insane trying to move large massive land armies over the mountains I think thats one reason why the CSA never made a full on push back into the state
Also it just wasn’t really that important a region strategically, the confederacy struggled to hold far more important areas throughout the war
I grew up in WV still live there its a ass place wont lie drugs are BAD but the state has a really interesting history dating back to the ice age. And people still forget its a state and ask what part of Virginia I'm from lol really wish people learned more about our state.
Congratulations, you present a very clear narrative.
Economically, hill / mountainous land is the worse type of land to establish a society.
The poor society of WV severing ties with the rich area of VA was economically a very poor decision.
The U.S. government supported the secession because of the value of the railroad across WV.
Virginia had been ignoring those counties for decades. They had nothing to lose by leaving VA behind.
How about aj lightburns action at Charleston
This is about the rise of Robert E. Lee, nothing else. There is an entire story regarding the formation of West Virginia the person who created this video should learn about.
Remember to the 1821 Missouri Compomise! Massachusets was divided into 2 states as Maine state was found for being Missouri slavery system state!
Phillipi has a Long E sound at the end. This guy glosses over a lot. A few claims in the early video are misleading.
Thanks for sharing the truth.
Rosecrans blew it pretty well at Chicamauga
Can you do Cuba in WW2
Perhaps. I have never looked into the involvement of any New World countries outside of the U.S. and Canada, so that could be interesting.
West Virginia now has regular AND unleaded.
👍👍👍
Kanawha is pronounced Ka-nah. The w and the last a are silent.
Phillippi is pronounced Phi- llil- pee
He didn't know how to pronounce Philiipi either. There's a lot of crap going on here.
The Little Kanawha is pronounced Little Kanawhee in some areas.
I don't get this kind of comment you have to pronounce this words quite clearly different than in the written form and you just know this if you are a local, i'm quite sure the maker of the video don't is, and after this people have to go make snarky and pretencious comments about this in the video. If it's an E in the end why just change the word to E instead of I?
I think you are minimizing the importance of WVa at this time. You discount the ability that Va would have had at sealing off a significant part of the Ohio river. The Panhandle could have been used as a base of operations to strike into the central portion of Ohio, and that could have also been significant because there was a lot of sympathy in Southern Ohio for the South with the Copperheads.
And how do they get to the panhandle? There is no major logistics connection up to it from Virginia
Like he says near the start the area is just far more connected to Ohio and Pennsylvania, the panhandle would have been taken by the Union at the start of the war no matter what.
Also copperhead sympathy is not pro-confederate sympathy, merely anti-war.
All of my people was confederate and I have my grate grandad Springfield 69 cal 1853
Thersites, i have an idea! What about some music in the background in your videos? To add some atmosphere.
please no
Omar Omokhodion why?
The current presentation is clean and professional.
There is no reason for embellishments.
RoniiNN A. Do u watch game theory? He always has music in the background and we can always hear what he says.
RoniiNN A. And why are u acting so hostile?
COUNTRY ROOO-HOOOOOAADS
(Philli-pee)
Isn‘t Lee kind of overrated to begin with?
Yes, and part of the reason is that this campaign rarely comes up as a part of his career.
Totally ignores the slaves in the salt industry of the Kanawha Valley, the slave auctions in Virginia's 4th largest city of Wheeling. The entire Eastern Panhandle going to the Supreme Court trying to rejoin Virginia after the Civil War. Of all the Border States, WV is the only one that sent half her men to the Confederacy. Both General Lee and Jefferson Davis realized the importance of the B&O Railroad Bridge at Rowlesburg in Preston County. Don't forget the whole part of West Virginia succeeding in the middle of an "illegal " war about the right to secede. The ONLY reason the Union cared about WV was because of the B&O Railroad.