Princeton Court House, West Virginia Jackson’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign (1862)
Date(s): May 15-17, 1862
By early May 1862 Union forces in today’s West Virginia were positioned to breach the Alleghenies and debouch into Virginia’s Great Valley at two points more than 100 miles apart.
Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s column, its axis of march the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, advanced from Cheat Mountain and occupied in succession Camp Allegheny, Monteray, McDowell, and Shenandoah Mountain.
Retreating before the oncoming Federals, Confederate Brig. Gen. Edward Johnson pulled back to Westview, six miles west of Staunton.
Union soldiers of Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox’s District of Kanawha threatened the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad. The Federals by mid-May, although ousted from Pearisburg, held Mercer County and braced for a lunge at the railroad. Confederate Brig. Gen. Humphery Marshall arrived from Abingdon, Virginia, with the Army of East Kentucky. Boldly seizing the initiative, Marshall bested Cox’s two brigades during three days of fighting, May 15-17, in Mercer County centering on Princeton Courthouse.
Breaking contact with the Confederates on the night of the 17-18, Cox withdrew 20 miles to Camp Flat Top. Col. George Crook, commanding Cox’s 3rd brigade, marched via the James and Kanawha Turnpike and occupied Lewisburg, where on May 23 he defeated Brig. Gen. Henry Heth’s brigade.
Upon learning that Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson’s army had routed Maj. Gen. N.P. Banks’ division at Winchester (March 25) and driven it across the Potomac, Crook evacuated Lewisburg and pulled back to Meadow Bluff.
Principal Commanders: Brig. Gen. Jacob D. Cox [US];
Brig. Gen. Humphery Marshall [CS]
Forces Engaged: District of the Kanawha [US]; Army of East Kentucky and Col. Gabriel C. Wharton’s Brigade, Department of Southwest Virginia [CS}
Estimated Casualties:129 total (US 23k/69w/21m; CS incomplete, Marshall 4k/12w, Wharton no report)
Location: Mercer County
Result(s): Confederate victory
Sources: U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Library of Congress.
Here are some women who spied during the American Civil War
(1) Nancy Hart, Civil War Spy
(2) Belle Boyd, a ruthless teenaged spy
(3) Rose O'Neale Greenhow, Civil War Spy
(4) Anderson Fain, a Confederate Woman in East TN - Civil War-era diaries (history of Southern women and the Civil War)
(5) Loreta Janeta Velazquez, she dressed herself like a man and enlisted and fought for the Confederacy, sometimes this lady spy for the Confederacy.
(6)
Laura Ratcliffe, was a devoted Confederate who aided both Colonel John Singleton Mosby and General James Ewell Brown Stuart.
(7) Antonia Forc,
Some were captured and imprisoned or sentenced to hang for being a spy, some escaped detection.
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