M.A. Kleen

Appearing in the Spring 2025 issue of Ohio Valley History, “‘A Kind of Dreamland’: Upshur County, WV at the Dawn of Civil War” is my first academic article to emerge from my research at Spirit of ’61. Join me as I explore this interesting but often overlooked period of Civil War history.

Author Ambrose Bierce, who as an Indiana volunteer accompanied the Union Army on its first campaign, described northwestern Virginia as “a kind of dreamland.”  To the young men who took up arms in the spring and summer of 1861, it must have seemed that way, especially when compared to the carnage that followed.

For Virginians living in the fertile valleys of the Allegheny foothills, in towns like Buckhannon in Upshur County, the secession crisis and outbreak of war was an equal part nightmarish.

For a few weeks in June and July 1861, it became the center of gravity in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s campaign to wrest that region from the Confederacy. Though much has been written about this formative period in West Virginia history, Upshur County’s role has yet to be fully explored.

McClellan’s strategy was markedly different from the Confederacy’s, represented by Robert E. Lee as Virginia’s overall militia commander. McClellan obtained buy-in from northwest Virginia’s unionists and worked with them to passify the region. In contrast, Lee’s hands-off approach, leaving local secessionists to fend for themselves until it was too late to make a difference, led to disaster.

Also in this essay, and for the first time in print, I use newly discovered reports by Lt. Col. Jonathan M. Heck to describe in detail what happened on Heck’s foraging expedition to Buckhannon at the end of June 1861. This expedition resulted in a skirmish with Unionist home guard that, until now, has only been written about as a kind of half-remembered event, more rumor than real.

Using newly published primary sources, as well as letters and diaries, newspapers, and previously un-cited reports, I meticulously pieced together the story of Upshur County in these pivotal months early in the American Civil War.

Apart from famous names like George McClellan and William S. Rosecrans, a host of local figures left their mark on history. There was 61-year-old Henry F. Westfall, who helped organize Union resistance in Upshur County and kept a record of events; George Berlin, Unionist delegate to the Secession Convention, who ultimately sided with his state and was exiled from his home and family; Marcia Phillips, wife of Capt. Sylvester Phillips, whose richly detailed diary opens a window into that place and time; and, finally, 18-year-old John Higginbotham, who left home to fight for the Confederacy and became its youngest general officer, before being killed in 1864. Their stories should be told.

The issue is available on ProjectMUSE! Purchase or read it (with subscription) at this link.