Camp Allegheny

In late November 1861, Confederate forces at Camp Bartow moved southeast to a strong position on Allegheny Mountain overlooking the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, where Colonel Edward Johnson of the 12th Georgia Infantry took command of the garrison with orders to guard the mountain pass for the winter. At daybreak on December 13, 1861, Union forces under General Robert H. Milroy attacked Johnson’s Confederate flank along the ridge, while a simultaneous attack on the left flank failed to materialize when Colonel Gideon Moody’s force arrived late. The delay allowed Johnson to repel both advances in turn, and Milroy and Moody retired after losing an opportunity to open the turnpike to the Shenandoah Valley. Johnson’s conduct in the fighting earned him a general’s star and the nickname “Allegheny.” At 4,400 feet, the wind-swept summit of Allegheny Mountain was the highest elevation of any Civil War fortification in the east, and during the winter of 1861-62 more soldiers died from exposure and disease there than were killed in the battle.

West Virginia · United States