Appalachian History Series – The Stand at Greenland Gap: A Church, a Mountain Pass, and the Jones-Imboden Raid
On April 25, 1863, a small group of Union soldiers stood in the road of a much larger Confederate raid at Greenland Gap. The fight took place in what was then Hardy County, Virginia. Today, the site is in Grant County, West Virginia, a detail that matters because Grant County was not created until 1866.
The men who held the gap were not part of a grand battlefield line. They were a detachment from Company G of the Twenty-third Illinois Infantry under Captain Martin Wallace, later joined by men from Company A of the Fourteenth West Virginia Infantry under Captain Smith. Together, they numbered fewer than ninety soldiers. Against them came Confederate cavalry under Brigadier General William E. Jones, whose column was moving through the mountains during the opening phase of the Jones-Imboden Raid.
For several hours, Wallace and his men fought from a church and nearby log buildings. The mountain pass narrowed the battle. The Confederates could not simply ride around them. The little Union force held until darkness, until the church roof burned above them, and until further resistance meant death rather than duty.
A Narrow Gap in Present-Day Grant County
Greenland Gap is a place where geography explains the history. The North Fork of Patterson Creek cuts through steep walls of stone and timber, making a narrow road passage through the mountains. Modern descriptions often call it one of West Virginia’s striking natural landmarks, with high sandstone cliffs and a creek running through the gap.
In 1863, that same landscape turned a small Union detachment into a serious obstacle. A larger mounted force could move quickly along open roads, but at Greenland Gap the road and watercourse were squeezed between the slopes. Captain Wallace understood that the pass could be defended by a few determined men if they had strong cover and steady nerves.
The official wartime records often place the fight in Hardy County, Virginia. That was accurate in 1863. Grant County, West Virginia, did not yet exist. For a modern article, the clearest wording is that the stand took place at Greenland Gap in present-day Grant County, West Virginia.
Jones and Imboden Move Toward the Railroad
The skirmish at Greenland Gap was part of the larger Jones-Imboden Raid, a Confederate operation through western Virginia in the spring of 1863. The raid had several purposes. Confederate leaders wanted to threaten the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, seize supplies and horses, interrupt Federal communication, and damage Union control in the region that was moving toward West Virginia statehood.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was more than a set of tracks. It was a strategic lifeline between the eastern and western parts of the Union war effort. Bridges, tunnels, telegraph lines, depots, and livestock all mattered. A successful raid could force the Union to divert troops and resources into the mountains.
General William E. Jones led one Confederate column, while General John D. Imboden led another. Their movements are often discussed together, but the stand at Greenland Gap belongs most directly to Jones’s route. Jones’s men were trying to pass through the gap and continue toward larger objectives. Instead, they found Captain Wallace waiting.
Captain Wallace Takes the Church
Captain Martin Wallace left New Creek with Lieutenant Fletcher and fifty-two men of Company G, Twenty-third Illinois Infantry. They reached Greenland Gap before the Confederate column arrived and prepared a defensive position. The strongest shelter available was a church near the road, along with nearby log houses.
Captain Smith and thirty-four men of Company A, Fourteenth West Virginia Infantry, reached the area as well. Smith’s men held one of the log buildings while Wallace’s Illinois men occupied the church. Their combined force was small, but their position was well chosen.
They were not defending a city or a fort. They were defending time. Every hour that Jones spent trying to clear Greenland Gap was an hour lost from the raid’s larger timetable. Every charge repulsed at the gap delayed the Confederate advance toward more important railroad targets.
The Fight at Greenland Gap
On April 25, word reached Wallace that a large Confederate force was approaching. Soon the skirmish turned into a hard fight. Jones’s men pressed the Union position, but the defenders used the buildings and the constricted ground to their advantage.
The Confederates charged more than once. The Union soldiers waited behind timber, walls, and improvised firing positions. The church and log houses became a mountain stronghold. In official reports, Brigadier General Benjamin F. Kelley later described how Wallace’s men in the church and Smith’s detachment in the log house held against repeated attacks.
The fighting lasted from late afternoon until after dark. The gap magnified the resistance. A small number of men could make a large column pay for every yard. The defenders could not defeat Jones’s entire command, but they could slow it, wound it, and force it to fight when it wanted to move.
The Burning Roof
When repeated attacks failed to quickly clear the position, the Confederates turned to fire. The church roof was set ablaze. The men inside continued to resist while smoke, flame, and falling debris made the building impossible to hold.
Wallace’s report is the most important Union account of the fight. It describes the arrival of the detachments, the demand for surrender, the truce, and the moment when the burning roof forced the defenders to give up the position. They did not surrender because the road was lost at the first charge. They surrendered only when the building itself was being consumed.
The casualty figures vary slightly by source. Kelley’s official report gave two Union soldiers killed and four wounded. Later reliable summaries often give two Union killed and six wounded. Confederate losses are generally reported as seven killed and thirty-five wounded, although wartime and postwar accounts sometimes gave higher numbers. Kelley also reported dead horses around the scene, evidence of how costly the narrow fight had been for mounted troops.
A Stand Worth Remembering
The stand at Greenland Gap did not stop the Jones-Imboden Raid. Jones’s men continued through the mountains, and the raid went on to damage railroad property, seize horses and supplies, and alarm Union commanders across the region.
Still, the fight mattered. Kelley praised the defenders, and higher Union officers considered the action worthy of special recognition. The reason was clear. A small group of soldiers, posted in a church and log buildings in a mountain gap, had delayed a much larger Confederate column and protected the road toward New Creek for precious hours.
The story also shows how Appalachian terrain shaped the Civil War. In the mountains, a narrow pass could matter as much as a fortified line. A church could become a blockhouse. A few companies could delay a brigade. Local roads, creeks, ridges, and gaps shaped decisions made by generals and captains alike.
After the Smoke
A near-contemporary letter from Private Jesse W. Shaw of the 126th Ohio Infantry helps show how the scene looked soon after the fight. Shaw was not one of Wallace’s defenders, so his letter should not be used as the final authority on numbers. But it is valuable as immediate soldier testimony. He wrote from New Creek in May 1863 and described reaching Greenland Gap after the Confederates had gone. He had heard of the hard fight there, saw signs of the violence, and noted dead horses, graves, and wounded men in the area.
That kind of testimony matters because it shows how quickly the stand entered soldier memory. Greenland Gap was not just a line in an official report. It was a place men saw, marched through, and talked about afterward. The burned church, the graves, and the narrow road through the cliffs became part of how the war was remembered in the mountains.
Greenland Gap Today
Today, Greenland Gap is remembered both as a natural landmark and as a Civil War site. The landscape still explains the battle. The creek, cliffs, and confined passage help visitors understand why a small Union force could hold out so long against Jones’s cavalry.
For Grant County, the story is especially important because the fight happened before the county officially existed. In the records of 1863, it belonged to Hardy County, Virginia. In modern Appalachian memory, it belongs to present-day Grant County, West Virginia. That shift tells its own story about the Civil War, statehood, and the making of county identity in the Allegheny highlands.
Why the Stand at Greenland Gap Matters
The Stand at Greenland Gap was not one of the largest battles of the Civil War. It did not decide the Jones-Imboden Raid by itself. It did not produce thousands of casualties or become a household name.
Its importance is found in scale, place, and resistance. Fewer than ninety Union soldiers used the land around them, held a church until it burned, and forced a larger Confederate command to spend time and lives in a narrow mountain pass. The action shows how local geography could change military plans and how small places in Appalachia could become important for a few decisive hours.
Greenland Gap deserves to be remembered because it was a stand of ordinary soldiers in an extraordinary position. In a church at the foot of the cliffs, in a county that had not yet been formed, they turned a mountain road into a battlefield.
Sources & Further Reading
United States War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Vol. 25, Part 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889. https://archive.org/details/cu31924077699704
Kelley, Benjamin F. “Report of Brigadier General Benjamin F. Kelley, U.S. Army, of Skirmish at Greenland Gap.” In The War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. 25, Part 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889. https://www.civilwar.com/battles/911-official-record/series/volume/campaign/chancellorsville-part-i/185183-107-series-i-volume-xxv-i-serial-39-chancellorsville-part-i.html
Wallace, Martin. “Report of Captain Martin Wallace, Twenty-third Illinois Infantry, of Skirmish at Greenland Gap.” In The War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. 25, Part 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889. https://www.civilwar.com/battles/911-official-record/series/volume/campaign/chancellorsville-part-i/185184-108-series-i-volume-xxv-i-serial-39-chancellorsville-part-i.html
National Park Service. “23rd Regiment, Illinois Infantry.” The Civil War: Soldiers and Sailors System. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UIL0023RI
National Park Service. “14th Regiment, West Virginia Infantry.” The Civil War: Soldiers and Sailors System. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UWV0014RI
National Park Service. “West Virginia Civil War Battles.” The Civil War. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/westvirginia.htm
Shaw, Jesse W. “1863: Jesse W. Shaw to His Cousin.” Spared & Shared 23. October 1, 2024. https://sparedshared23.com/2024/10/01/1863-jesse-w-shaw-to-his-cousin/
Illinois Secretary of State. “Regimental and Unit Histories.” Illinois State Archives. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.ilsos.gov/content/dam/departments/archives/databases/reghist.pdf
Bartgis, Rodney. “Greenland Gap.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. Last revised February 8, 2024. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/37
Powell, Bob. “April 25, 1863: Confederate Soldiers Advance Through Greenland Gap.” West Virginia Public Broadcasting. April 25, 2017. https://wvpublic.org/story/radio/april-25-1863-confederate-soldiers-advance-through-greenland-gap/
Skoch, George. “‘To the Last Crust and Cartridge.’” HistoryNet. September 5, 2018. https://historynet.com/last-crust-cartridge/
Maul, David T. “Five Butternut Yankees.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 56, no. 2, 1963. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40190636
Gilot, Jon-Erik. “Worth to Us an Army: The Jones-Imboden Raid.” American Battlefield Trust. Updated November 20, 2023. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/worth-us-army-jones-imboden-raid
Collins, Darrell L. “The Jones-Imboden Raid.” Essential Civil War Curriculum, Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-jones-imboden-raid.html
Collins, Darrell L. The Jones-Imboden Raid: The Confederate Attempt to Destroy the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and Retake West Virginia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. https://www.amazon.com/Jones-Imboden-Raid-Confederate-Baltimore-Railroad/dp/0786430702
French, Stephen. “The Jones-Imboden Raid Against the B & O Railroad at Rowlesburg, Virginia, April 1863.” The Papers of the Blue and Gray Education Society, no. 10. March 31, 2001. https://blueandgrayeducation.org/book-store/monographs/the-jones-imboden-raid/
Boehm, Robert B. “The Jones-Imboden Raid Through West Virginia.” Civil War Times Illustrated 3, no. 2, May 1964. https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/assets/files/pdf/ECWCTOPICJonesImbodenRaidResources.pdf
Summers, Festus P. “The Imboden Raid and Its Effects.” West Virginia History 47, 1988. https://books.google.com/books/about/West_Virginia_History.html?id=o71KAQAAMAAJ
McDonald, William N. A History of the Laurel Brigade, Originally the Ashby Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia and Chew’s Battery. Baltimore: Sun Job Printing Office, 1907. https://archive.org/details/historyoflaurelb00mcdo
Goldsborough, W. W. The Maryland Line in the Confederate Army, 1861–1865. Baltimore: Guggenheimer, Weil & Co., 1900. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/58632/58632-h/58632-h.htm
The Nature Conservancy. “Greenland Gap Preserve.” Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/greenland-gap-preserve/
West Virginia History OnView. “Greenland Gap and Village, Grant County, W. Va.” West Virginia & Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries. Accessed June 15, 2026. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/016060
Historical Marker Database. “Greenland Gap Engagement.” Accessed June 15, 2026. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=252268
The Clio. “Skirmish at Greenland Gap during the Jones-Imboden Raid.” October 5, 2019. https://theclio.com/entry/86153
Author Note: This article remembers a small Civil War stand in the mountains of present-day Grant County, where local geography shaped the fight. Because the 1863 records place the site in Hardy County, Virginia, I have used both the wartime and modern county context carefully.