 |
| SW Pennsylvania showing cities of Washington, Waynesburg, Uniontown and Somerset West Virginia cities of Morgantown, Fairmont, Grafton and Philippi Maryland-Pennsylvania border LOC |
Washington County and Greene County both shared a border with Virginia (note:the northwestern counties of that state were in transition at time of the invasion threats. Western Virginia had voted to separate from Virginia and join the Union). Fayette County bordered both Virginia and Maryland, while Somerset County shared a border with Maryland.
During the spring of 1863, while the
85th Pennsylvania was just starting their one-year assignment around Charleston, South Carolina, news was percolating back home in about the potential for invasion by Confederate raiders. A Confederate incursion of that
part of the Pennsylvania was thought to be realistic as a pathway to the northern industrial city of Pittsburgh.
Several members of the 85th Pennsylvania
expressed concern about the potential of a southern invasion. Others, like Mark
Gordon of Company G, laughed it off. I will have more on these accounts in upcoming posts.
It was not the
first Confederate invasion scare in Pennsylvania. The south-central part of
the
state had already been subjected to alarm in the late summer and fall of 1862. At that
time, the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee had crossed the Potomac
River into Maryland following a resounding Confederate victory at Second Bull
Run in Virginia. Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin responded by issuing a proclamation on September 4, 1862 calling on the
citizens of his state to militarize. The
emergency seemed to subside later that month after the battle of Antietam, Maryland when
Lee retreated back into Virginia. However, a month later, Confederate J.E.B. Stuart led
a three-day cavalry raid into south central Pennsylvania during which he
confiscated 1,200 horses.
 |
| Burning buildings in Chambersburg, PA 1862 LOC |
During the Jones-Imboden Raid a few months later in 1863,
the people of northwestern Virginia (present-day West Virginia) experienced
battles and confiscation of property. Just across the (West) Virginia state border, the
people of southwestern Pennsylvania did not suffer from physical oe financial loss but from
the terror of what could occur in their towns and counties if the raiders
continued on their northerly course.
When this threat died down and the rebel troops of William "Grumble" Jones and John Imboden withdrew back into
Virginia, the area was again made anxious in June by the path of prominent Confederate raider
John Hunt Morgan. His marauding did not end until his band was stopped in Ohio near the Pennsylvania border in the summer of 1863.
On April 20, 1863,
President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation to accept West Virginia as the
35th state. This event was to officially take effect two months
later on June 20. A convention in the
city of Wheeling in the (West) Virginia panhandle between Pennsylvania and Ohio
had voted for statehood a year earlier. On the last day of 1862, President
Lincoln signed a bill accepting statehood on the provision of gradual
elimination of slavery. West Virginia accepted this stipulation in an amended
state constitution on March 26, 1863.
JONES-IMBODEN RAID
OVERVIEW
The Jones-Imboden
Raid in 1863 lasted for one month. One of its goals was to deny statehood to the
region and to restore western Virginia into the Confederacy. Soon after the
raid began, a newspaper in Imboden’s home town of Staunton, Virginia gloated
that, “Lincoln issued his proclamation admitting Western Virginia as a State
into the United States. Gen’s Jones and Imboden are now issuing a counter
proclamation. It will be seen whether, in this case, the ‘pen is mightier than
the sword.’”
Another goal of the Jones-Imboden Raid was to
disrupt and destroy key parts of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that ran from
Baltimore to Wheeling. This route was a vital link that provided the Union with
men and supplies from the West. Jones
and Imboden also planned to cut telegraph lines at Grafton, (West) Virginia and
generally diminish Union authority in the area.
A third goal was to
capture horses and cattle for Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Lee
had sanctioned the raid during the late winter of 1862-63 to replenish the needs of his troops. With his impending summer invasion of Pennsylvania (that
would include the battle of Gettysburg), Lee hoped that raids would re-stock
food supplies and horses for his army and also do harm to morale above the
Mason-Dixon Line.
Part Two of this
series will explore the beginning of the raid and the occupation of Morgantown,
(West) Virginia near the Pennsylvania border.
 |
| Philadelphia Inquirer April 29, 1863 |
