Civil War Reenactors at Camp Allegheny

Bugles, drums and canon fire were heard on Top of Allegheny Mountain for the first time in 148 years.

Pridgeon's Shenandoah Legion of more than 300 Civil War Reenactors, some from as far away as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, relived the battle that occurred here on December 13, 1861.

Confederate forces, mostly Virginians and Georgians under the command of Colonel Edward "Allegheny" Johnson had occupied the summit of Allegheny Mountain since the previous summer. This location was considered strategically significant for the defense of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, a key transportation route from the upper Shenandoah Valley to the Ohio River.

Maintaining this defensive position for so many months did not come without a price.

At 4,400 feet, the weather on Allegheny Mountain is harsh under the best of circumstances, and can be cruelly fickle in an average year. Under-provisioned and poorly sheltered, the conditions under which the soldiers labored were hardly ideal, and the weather anything but average. Winter arrived in September and stayed through March.

Before any shots were fired, far too many lives--of soldiers and of the Yeager family, on whose land the soldiers camped--had been claimed by disease. According to the diary of a soldier who lived through it, those that survived to see that frigid December morning felt they had so little left to lose that they were more than willing to risk it all in fighting.

A Union force under Brigadier General Robert Milroy attacked Johnson shortly after 7 am.

The first canon blasts--both in history and in the reenactment--occurred very close to the Brightside Acres gate, as Union troops encountered Confederate pickets determined to discourage the Federals from an assault on the fort at Camp Allegheny, nearly three miles further up the Pike. Fighting continued for much of the morning as each side maneuvered on the rugged, steep terrain, struggling to gain the advantage. Finally, Milroy’s troops were repulsed, and he retreated to his camps near Cheat Mountain.

At year’s end, Edward Johnson remained at Camp Allegheny with five regiments. The last of the Confederates pulled out in April, 1862 and went on to fight at the Battle of McDowell.

Estimated battlefield casualties were 137 Federals and 146 Confederates. As a result of his performance on Allegheny Mountain, Johnson was elevated to the rank of Brigadier General.