Cheat Summit Fort, also called Fort Milroy, was built by Federal troops in the summer of 1861 to control the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, with initial work carried out by six companies of the 14th Indiana Infantry Regiment under Colonel Nathan Kimball. At 4,000 feet, it is the highest known Union fortification in the east. In September 1861, General Robert E. Lee directed the Confederate Army of the Northwest to isolate and attack Cheat Summit Fort and Camp Elkwater, about 8 miles west. On September 12, a Confederate brigade under Colonel Albert Rust fought Federal skirmishers in dense woods west of the fort, but, unaware his men outnumbered the enemy, Rust retreated and failed to signal a broader attack. Additional Confederate setbacks near Camp Elkwater on September 13-14 ended Lee’s offensive. The fort later served as a Federal staging area for the October 3 attack at Camp Bartow and the December 13 assault at Camp Allegheny before being abandoned in 1862 as the armies moved east. Life there was harsh for the 3,000 soldiers stationed at the post, with uncommonly cold and wet weather, snow falling on August 13, constant mud and guerrilla activity, and disease that killed many men; veterans later remembered the campaign there as the severest of the war.