Is Camp Allegheny Battlefield a Significant Historic Site?

In their September 11, 2009, response to the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s August 26, 2009 “Order,” Lenhart Obenshain, one of the law firms representing Highland New Wind Development (HNWD), asserts that Camp Allegheny is more than two miles from the wind utility. The law firm further insists that there are no archaeological sites of historic significance within 1.5 miles of HNWD’s 40-story turbines.

WHERE IS CAMP ALLEGHENY?

US Route 250 (known to history as the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, now a National Scenic Byway) meets the West Virginia state line approximately 15 miles northwest of Monterey, Virginia and 7 miles southeast of Bartow, West Virginia.

At the state line, a 12-mile portion of the original Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike (avoided by the modern highway because of its winding remoteness) diverges from US 250 to the west. Maps and road signs call this road the “Old Pike” or “County Route 3”. The National Scenic Byways Program of the Federal Highway Administration calls it the “Camp Allegheny Backway.”

A sign indicates that Camp Allegheny is two miles down this winding road. Indeed, it is a little farther than that to the picnic table by the US Forest Service interpretive sign and adjacent to the small parking lot.

TAKE A TOUR WITH ME.

Standing at the interpretive sign, a visitor begins to absorb a rare, beautiful, and unforgiving landscape—site of a deadly nine-month Confederate encampment and a key early Confederate victory on December 13, 1861. A place that has remained largely unchanged in nearly 150 years.

This is the place where more than 300 battlefield casualties one December day were overshadowed by many hundreds dead of disease over an endless winter. Where the Yeager family, on whose land the men were encamped, lost John Yeager and his pioneer-father Jacob, to camp fever. They, along with John’s wife Margaret, who died before the War’s end, are buried in a tiny plot east of the parking lot.

Look straight ahead. That knoll at the far end of the pasture, more than a half-mile away, is the site of the Camp Allegheny fort. The ridges criscrossing the hillside are thousands of feet of hand-dug trenches, most still three feet deep. The two bulges nearer the top of the knoll are gun emplacements, the walls of which are still seven feet high.

A line-of-sight measurement from the lower gun emplacement puts it 2 miles from HNWD's Turbine 1.

The rock piles at the base of the hill are the remnants of Confederate cabins, positioned near the headwaters of a stream called Block Run, where the Yeager family had a sawmill. The remains of many more cabins can be found along the uphill (north) side of the road, between the parking lot and the fort.

Without moving from the sign, turn to your right (north). A Brethren church, built by Jacob Yeager, was located just across the road, and used as an infirmary during the encampment. The graves of three Yeager children lie just beyond the church site.

Now cross the road, walk past a small campsite on your left and take the trail that winds to the northeast through the dense pine woods. Keep going until you come to a cattle gate. It is closed but not locked.

This is the site of most of the battlefield casualties, as fighting went on for two hours among trees and fallen timbers. This is where West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan’s ancestor, Captain William Harrison Mollohan, died a hero while rallying his troops. He is buried here.

This site is 7,875 feet, or 1.5 miles from Turbine 1.

Keep walking out this pasture bald. Eventually you will arrive at a cemetery, with an impressive center obelisk, known locally as the “Varner Monument.” Near this site, Confederate Pickets from Hansborough’s Battalion first encountered Union troops on that early December morning.

The “Varner Monument” is 6,060 feet, or 1.1 miles from Turbine 1, and over-browed by Tamarack Ridge.

Nearby foundation and chimney stones are all that remains of the Varner family home, which was used as a hospital after the battle.

IS IT REALLY HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT?

The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, which didn’t follow US 250 precisely in the 1860s, but went the Camp Allegheny route, up and over Top of Allegheny and down to Traveler’s Repose at Bartow, was THE transportation route from the Upper Shenandoah Valley to the Ohio River. Controlling the highest point on the Turnpike, which is Camp Allegheny at about 4,300 feet, was essential to the Confederate Army’s Mountain Campaign.

Virginia and Georgia regiments suffered almost unimaginable deprivation in a cold, wet winter that began in August, 1861 and lasted through March, 1862. The winter of 1861 on Top of Allegheny was every bit as bad as Valley Forge. The many unmarked graves on the mountain are testimony to this grim fact. Just about the time weather improved, the surviving troops were moved out to the Battle of McDowell.

Colonel Edward Johnson earned both the nickname “Allegheny” and a promotion to Brigadier General after leading his troops to victory and forcing a Union retreat back to their fort on Cheat Mountain.

Promoted to Major General after being severely wounded at the Battle of McDowell, Allegheny Johnson was tapped by Robert E. Lee to command the “Stonewall Division” after Jackson’s death. Lee called him back from medical leave to take command.

Camp Allegheny is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Is Camp Allegheny historically important? You decide.