Camp Bartow
Battle of Greenbrier River
In August 1861, Confederate soldiers under Gen. Henry R. Jackson of Georgia erected Camp Bartow here. Fortifications on these hills guarded a disputed "middle ground" between Union and Confederate forces on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike. The defenses were named in honor of a Georgian killed at First Manassas.
Confederates stationed at Camp Bartow took part in Gen. Robert E. Lee's failed September assault of the fortress on Cheat Mountain, 12 miles west.
On October 3, 1861, nearly 5,000 Union troops under Gen. Joseph Reynolds attacked 1,800 Confederates here in the Battle of Greenbrier River. Reynolds retreated to Cheat Mountain after a spirited artillery duel. Gen. Jackson's defenders received a commendation from the Confederate War Department for their victory.
Confederates at Camp Bartow suffered greatly from disease. By late November, the Southern army abandoned these workds and withdrew nine miles east to Camp Allegheny, where they endured a horrible winter in the mountains.
"I can't describe my feelings when the battle began. I could but think of you at home so far away & me here in the fight with the balls flying around... thinking that the next moment one might get me."
-Shepherd Pryor, 12th Georgia Infantry, C.S.A., to his wife.
Marker is at the intersection of Old Pike Road (County Route 3) and West Virginia Highway 28, on the right when traveling west on Old Pike Road.
Courtesy hmdb.org
