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Battle Of Summit Point

Intro

The Battle of Summit Point occurred in Shenandoah Valley on August 21, 1864. Prior to the Battle of Summit Point in Jefferson County, West Virginia, in 1864 the Civil War had been going on for three years. Before the Battle of Summit Point the Unionist and Confederates fought in the Battles of Shenandoah Valley. These battles are often referred to as the Valley campaigns of 1864 with three battles occurring in Shenandoah Valley. These battles occurred in Virginia from May of 1864 to October of 1864. Even though there were three separate battles, many people group them together since they were all in close proximity making the battles interact with each other in various ways. The goal of the Valley campaigns was for the Unionists to attack the confederacy from multiple directions to the 'heart of the Confederacy'.

Shenandoah at War

The first Battle of the Valley campaigns was the Battle of New Market occurred on May 15, 1864. Confederate Major General John C. Breckinridge's men and some cadets from the Virginia Military Institute with four thousand troops intercepted Union Major General Franz Sigel and his army of the Shenandoah. They made contact in New Market in the morning and Breckinridge attempted to lure the Union into attacking them. They Confederates, however, stayed in place until about noon when Breckrinridge attempted to attack on Sigel's army pushing them too retreat to the rest of their troops. As Sigel prepared to force counterattack he yelled orders in his native language of German leaving his troops confused on what to do. After Sigel's men attempted a counter attack, they realized they weren't any match for the Confederate force at the time. The Confederates forced the Union soldiers to retreat abandoning five cannons in the process. The Union lost 841 soldiers in the battle with 520 soldiers wounded, while the Confederates only lost a mere 43 soldiers with 474 wounded.

The Battle of Piedmont occurred on June 15, 1864 in Augusta County, Virginia. The Union was led by David Hunter, while the Confederacy William E. Jones. Hunter was stationed in Staunton, Virginia. He ordered an attack on the Confederate troops in Lexington, Virginia and ended up making the Union soldiers retreat to the mountains. The Confederacy ended up stealing the statue of George Washington and burned John Letcher's home in the process. Even though the Confederates made the Union, at first, retreat back to the mountains, the Confederates eventually ended up retreating from the fight after the Union launched an attack on them. The war was won by the Union where they only suffered 875 losses; however, the Confederates had 1,500 casualties with 1,000 soldiers captured.

The Battle of Lynchburg was led by Unionist David Hunter and Confederate Jubal Early. The battle started on June 17, 1864. Hunter planned an attack on the Confederates while setting up base in the Sandusky House in Lynchburg, Virginia. The people in the city of Lynchburg were heard screaming and the people had bands play to make the Confederate army seem bigger than it actually was; however, Hunter still sent an attack on the Confederates. On the other hand, the Confederates were smarter and ended up making them feel they were outnumbered forcing them to retreat. The Confederates won with only 6 casualties, while the Union lost with 800 casualties.

During the Battle

The campaign that occurred in the Shenandoah Valley would be initially be divided into three separate campaigns by historians but all three yielded great wealth regarding the outcome of the war. The battle followed the first failed campaign of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant when a planned invasion of Sigel resulted in the fall of an important railroad center that was stationed in Lynchburg, Virgina. Sigel was mainly intercepted by the Confederate forces who were under the command of Major General John C. Breckinridge who later was defeated. The loss causes the forces to later retreat further back from Virginia into Strasburg and was later told to give up command to Major General David Hunter. General Robert E Lee was quite concerned about the advancement of the Union in the Valley during 1864, which threatened a very important railroad systems that provided connections for the Confederate forces that were stationed in Virginia. In result of the threat, General Robert E Lee sent Jubal Early's Second Corps and renamed it Army of the Valley, who was commanded to sweep the Union forces from the Shenandoah Valley. The attempt was made to try to burn Washington, DC and try and make the Union forces become hopeless and give up the long driven out fight and cause Grant to weaken his forces against General Lee in Virginia.

Grant was outraged and responded by placing Major General Philip Sheridan in command over the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Sheridan's army was concentrated near Charles Town, while Lieutenant General Jubal Early and Major General Richard Anderson planned and attacked the Northern army later on with the tactic of converging columns. Converging columns means that the offensive forces will create a wall around the target in hopes of suffocating them. Anderson and company attacked from the North against the Union forces that were stationed at Summit Point. The Union forces held there ground and effectively delayed any actions and then proceeded to retreat to nearby Haltown the next day. Sheridan was later ordered to place himself South of the enemy and follow him to the death. Just two months later the members of the Union and Sheridans army, delivered many blows that would waste away any Confederate control that they had over the region. This would further weaken any other opportunities to sustain and hold any further Confederate offensive operations. Although a small and more forgotten campaign between the North and South it is definitely considered of the most important and impactful. Sheridans operations that occurred in the Valley would cause a lot of military and political impacts that would rise back up in the future and even in the end the battle was still considered indecisive.

Aftermath

The Battle of Summit Point resulted in at least 1,000 casualties. After finishing the job of neutralizing Early as well as suppressing the Valley's military-related economy and supplies. Sheridan returned to assist Grant and his group during the Siege of Petersburg. Most of the troops of Early's corps rejoined Lee at Petersburg later at the end of the year, while Early remained to command a skeleton force. His final job was as commander at the defeat of the Battle of Waynesboro on March 2nd of 1865. After the loss, Lee removed him from his command, because the Confederate command had lost confidence in him. He was also losing support from his troops and the people of the Confederacy. This was a bad start to Sheridan’s Valley Campaign. By mid-September of the same year, a victory over Early at the battle of Winchester would start to turn the tide in the Shenandoah. Sporadic fighting in the Shenandoah would continue until the end of the war. The Shenandoah Valley, runs north to south between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains. The Confederacy would use its transportation advantages during the conflicts until the area would be known as “the valley of humiliation” for the Union. The Shenandoah Valley was used as a natural corridor by the Confederacy in order to threaten the North. The Shenandoah was used by the Confederate army throughout the war to move armies northward toward Washington, D.C. When a Confederate army could cross the Potomac where it met the Shenandoah River, it could cut across the Baltimore and Ohio Railroads and be only about sixty miles from Washington. Therefore, when a Confederate army arrived in the Shenandoah Valley, it was enough reason to pull Union troops from other areas or campaigns to provide security for Washington. Late in the war, the Union army took complete control of the Shenandoah region. A month after General George Custer defeated General Jubal Early’s troops at Waynesboro on March 2, 1865, the Confederacy would collapse, and Confederate General Robert E. Lee would surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia on April 9, 1865. Today, a lot of work has been done to preserve the Summit Point battleground for current and future generations to see. Summit Point is one of four battlegrounds in Jefferson County, West Virginia, to be designated by the American Battleground Protection Program as a significant resource. Several sites that were part of the battleground are still intact but are vulnerable to development. In February 2019, it was announced that 280 acres of the battlefield would be acquired through a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program. Consideration for battlefield acquisition grants is given to battlefields listed in the National Park Service’s 1993 “Report on the Nation’s Civil War Battlefields” and the 2007 “Report to Congress on the Historic Preservation of Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Sites in the United States.” Currently, the Summit Point Battle Friends Group interprets the battle for visitors. The Richwood Hall mansion, built around 1825, still stands at the place where Confederate battle lines formed in 1864. A marker stands to commemorate the John and Lucy Packette House on Locust Hill, which marked the position of the Union lines.