Northwest Academy
Soldiers' Home
From 1861 through 1865, Clarksburg was temporary home to hundreds of Union soldiers. Although many tents and huts were erected to quarter he men, soldiers occupied every public building at one time or another. You are facing the site of one such structure, the Northwest Academy, which was used as a barracks, military prison, and hospital. Besides the school, every church in town sheltered sick soldiers, some of who did a great deal of damage to the buildings.
The soldiers viewed Clarksburg in different ways, Charles Leib, a Union quartermaster stationed here, wrote that the town “lies on the West Fork of the Monongahela River. On all sides loom up wild, desolate-looking hills, covered to their summits with the “forest primeval.” The town itself is only approached by streams before mentioned, and is laid out irregularly, with little regard to artistic taste or beauty. It is a motley collection of rickety frame houses, dirty-looking brick dwellings, and old stone buildings.”
In contrast, a soldier in the 22nd Ohio Infantry described Clarksburg as a “beautiful town…situated on the West Fork of the Monongahela River. The town is surrounded by miniature mountains…It is, we believe one of the oldest towns in West Virginia, not withstanding there are many tasteful residences. The streets are named and laid off regularly, unlike most of our Buckeye towns. The citizens are affable in their manners and generous and hospitable.”
(Sidebar): Gordon Battelle was principal of Northwest Academy from 1843 to 1851. He became an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1847. In October 1861, Governor Francis H. Pierpont of the Restored Government of Virginia appointed him to visit the military camps in the mountain regions of western Virginia, where insufficient clothing, lack of necessary medical doctors, nurses, and medicines had been reported. Battelle examined camps at Philippi, Elkwater, Cheat Mountain, and elsewhere. The next month he became chaplain of the 1st West Virginia Infantry.
Marker is at the intersection of South Second Street and West Pike Street (West Virginia Highway 20) on South Second Street.
Courtesy hmdb.org
