160th Anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg
By Keith Harvey, Museum Experience Leader
On this 160th anniversary of the Battle of Lynchburg, we reflect on the event and its significance in local history.
Why Lynchburg?
During the American Civil War, the city of Lynchburg was a major logistical center and manufacturing hub in the eastern theater. The Hill City boasted three railroads, a canal, dozens of military hospitals, and even an extension of the Confederate States Ordnance Department. If Lynchburg fell into Union hands, the damage done to the Confederacy would be irreparable.
Union Major General David Hunter, from a wartime portrait engraving. Hunter was relieved of command after his failed Lynchburg Raid. He ended his military career presiding over the trial of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination conspirators.
Lynchburg Museum System, 87.63.45
In the summer of 1864, some 18,000 Union soldiers under the command of David Hunter moved from the Shenandoah Valley toward Lynchburg, with orders to capture the city. Hunter’s large-scale raid was a key component in General Ulysses S. Grant’s strategy to end the Civil War by striking the Confederacy on multiple fronts simultaneously. With Lynchburg threatened, Confederate General Robert E. Lee dispatched Jubal Early with some 10,000 soldiers to meet the threat.
The Battle
The fighting began on June 17, when Hunter’s vanguard clashed with a smaller Confederate force entrenched around the Quaker Meeting House along the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike (present day Fort Avenue/Timberlake Road). The Confederates there were mostly cavalry and artillery from the commands of John Imboden and John McCausland. Having been on active campaign for the last few months, these troops were ragged and stretched thin; they could only seek to delay Hunter’s advance while Early arrived with his reinforcements.
An undated photo of the South River Quaker Meeting House with Quaker Memorial Presbyterian Church in the background. Confederates entrenched here on June 17, 1864, which delayed the Union drive on Lynchburg. Several Union soldiers are still buried on the property.
Lynchburg Museum System, 86.32.108
Late that afternoon, Union cavalry deployed on the opposite ridge to the southwest, near where Heritage High School now stands. Before the attack began, William Watson, a soldier in the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry recalled, “Many of the Boys with pencils wrote their names, Company and Regiment and that of a parent or relative [on a piece of paper]. By this means, should the worst happen they would not fill a nameless grave.”
When the Union advance neared the Quaker Meeting House, the Confederates opened up an intense small-arms and artillery fire. Federal infantry ultimately joined the attack, and the combined force successfully drove the Confederates to Lynchburg’s inner defenses (along what is now College Hill). During the brief engagement, dozens of soldiers between both sides were killed and wounded, and over 70 Confederates were captured. Union surgeons established a field hospital at nearby Sandusky, where General Hunter established his headquarters. At the same time, Jubal Early and his force began arriving into the city by rail. Early hastily moved his troops to a new defensive position around ready-made earthwork now known as “Fort Early.”
Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Anderson Early, photographed during the war. Early is buried in Spring Hill cemetery, overlooking the site of the Battle of Lynchburg.
Lynchburg Museum System, 87.63.22
During the night, it is rumored that Early had empty trains running back and forth from the city to give the appearance of a superior Confederate force arriving to reinforce Lynchburg. Though this may have occurred on a limited basis, very real Confederate reinforcements were arriving by rail during the night. Regardless, the noise surely concerned Hunter, who heard “repeated cheers and the beating of drums.”
Even a Union private recalled hearing “the screeching of locomotives and the rumbling of cars as they were rolled into the city.”
On the morning of June 18, Hunter cautiously sent a body of infantry on a flanking march to the east of Lynchburg, but the movement was spoiled when Confederate artillery began shelling the Union lines. At times, the fire between the two sides became quite intense. “The roar of their artillery & the bursting of shells as they tore thru the woods breaking off limbs which fell among us in showers was deafening,” remembered one Union soldier.
As the bombardment slackened off that afternoon, Early followed up with an infantry assault. As the Confederate foot soldiers charged up the Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike along present day Fort Avenue, they once again came under the fire of Union artillery, falling back to their previous position. As the Confederates fled back to Fort Early, Union forces attempted their own charge. Several brave clusters of Union troops managed to briefly penetrate the Confederate defenses, but were thrown back with heavy loss. During the counterattack, 21-year old John W. Mostoller of the 54th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry “led a charge on a Confederate Battery,” earning him the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1916.
The Aftermath
On the afternoon of June 18, Hunter ordered his forces to begin withdrawing from the front lines at nightfall. Running low on food and ammunition, and now facing an unknown enemy strength, the risk of another fight was too great for the cautious general. Making matters worse, Hunter learned that a cavalry force he sent from the west along on the Forest Road had failed to make any headway. All roads to Lynchburg were blocked.
Over the course of the next week, Hunter’s army made the long and gloomy retreat back to the safety of West Virginia. Skirmishes were fought at Liberty (Bedford) and Hanging Rock (Salem), but the campaign’s most desperate fighting was over. With the Shenandoah Valley back under Confederate control, Jubal Early marched his force northward, raiding Maryland, Washington D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Completed in 1808, Sandusky served as David Hunter’s headquarters during the Battle of Lynchburg. Tours of Historic Sandusky are available by appointment. More information can be found by emailing info@historicsandusky.org or calling (434) 832-0162.
Lynchburg Museum System, 69.45.16
With the exception of a few artillery shells falling within city limits, Lynchburg itself had largely been spared the ravages of war. The surrounding countryside however, was in a deplorable state. Ada Hutter of Sandusky recalled the plantation being in a state of “desolation” while others recalled finding soldiers' bodies in roads, gardens, and farm fields.
Despite the ugly reality of war, a positive outcome came in the form of freedom for an unknown number of enslaved persons in Bedford and Campbell Counties, who followed the Union army to safety on the banks of the Ohio River. One such case is that of Philip Pleasant Whiteley, who self-emancipated from a Bedford County plantation and eventually joined the 43rd United States Colored Troops.
Less than a year after the Battle of Lynchburg, Robert E. Lee would surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, less than 30 miles away.
A rare post-war engraving showing the 18th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the retreat from Lynchburg to West Virginia. Note the poor condition of their uniforms and unkempt facial hair– all indicators of the severity of their campaign.
Public Domain