The Battle of Cloyd's Mountain occurred in Pulaski County, Virginia, on May 9, 1864, during the American Civil War. The fight has also been called the Battle of Cloyd's Farm. A Union Army division led by Brigadier General George Crook defeated a Confederate Army consisting of three regiments, one battalion, and Confederate Home Guard. The Confederate force was led by Brigadier General Albert G. Jenkins and Colonel John McCausland. Although the intense fighting portion of this battle may have lasted for only one hour, it was southwestern Virginia's largest fight of the Civil War.
The battle was a Confederate attempt to prevent an attack on the Virginia&Tennessee Railroad. That railroad was important to the Confederacy for moving troops and supplies. The fighting occurred about north of the Virginia & Tennessee's Dublin Depot. Additional Confederate forces arrived at a nearby railroad depot after the major portion of the fighting was completed, and they enabled the Confederate fighters to escape.
On the next day, skirmishing erupted at a Virginia&Tennessee Railroad bridge located about east of the Dublin Depot. This fighting was essentially an artillery duel, and its few casualties are included in totals for both sides. Confederate forces eventually fled further east, and the railroad bridge was burned by Crook's force. Even though Union forces burned both the railroad depot and a major railroad bridge, along with destroying portions of the railroad track, the damage was repaired in approximately one month.
Background
During March 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant became commander of all Union armed forces. Grant's strategy in Virginia was to attack the strongest Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, from multiple fronts. The Union's Army of the Potomac would target Lee's army directly, while another Union force would attack Lee and the city of Richmond from the east. In western Virginia, the railroads that supplied Lee's army were Union targets, including the Virginia&Tennessee Railroad and the Virginia Central Railroad. Each of those two railroads also had more mileage within Virginia than any other railroad. Attacking the railroads would cause Lee to send troops west to protect vital railroad infrastructure, resulting in fewer soldiers available to protect the Confederate capitol in Richmond.
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Grant ordered Major General Franz Sigel to advance south in the Shenandoah Valley to Staunton, Virginia. The Virginia Central Railroad ran through Staunton and connected with Richmond. Sigel began his part of the plan on April29, and he departed from Martinsburg, West Virginia. Grant ordered Brigadier General George Crook to attack the Virginia&Tennessee Railroad, including its bridge over the New River. From there, Crook would form a junction with Sigel at Staunton and advance to Lynchburg. Crook began making preparations in Charleston, West Virginia. By the end of April his troops were assembled further south in Fayetteville, and they began moving toward their destination on May3.
Crook took an infantry division and began moving toward the Virginia&Tennessee Railroad's Dublin Depot. He sent a smaller 2,500-man cavalry force, commanded by Brigadier General William W. Averell, to attack further west from Crook's destination. Averell's goal was to disable a salt works located in the town of Saltville. A potential target for Averell was the Austin lead mine located south of Wytheville in Wythe County. The lead mine produced about one-third to one fourth of the lead consumed by the Confederacy.
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad
thumb|upright=2.25|alt=An old map with salt mines, lead mines, railway Depot, and bridge circled in red|Crook's targets along the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad in southwest Virginia
The Virginia&Tennessee Railroad was long and connected Lynchburg, Virginia, to Bristol at the Virginia–Tennessee border. Additional railroads could be used from Lynchburg to move east to Richmond, and railroads connecting to Bristol could be used to move west to Knoxville, Chattanooga, Memphis, and Corinth. The Virginia & Tennessee carried Confederate soldiers and raw materials both east and west. President Abraham Lincoln called the Virginia&Tennessee Railroad the "gut of the Confederacy".
In western Virginia, a branch line of the Virginia & Tennessee ran north from Glade Spring to a salt works in Saltville, Virginia. Further east from Wytheville was the regional Confederate Army headquarters at the Dublin Depot just north of Newbern, Virginia. Dublin was also the home of an instruction camp for Confederate recruits, and it was the commissary and quartermaster center for southwestern Virginia. East of the headquarters was a large railroad bridge across the New River. The bridge was long, and it was constructed with timber on stone pylons. Grant regarded the railroad as "one of the most important lines connecting the Confederate armies".