Appalachian History Series – Cove Mountain, May 10, 1864: Morgan and Averell at Crockett’s Cove
On the afternoon of May 10, 1864, the quiet farms of Crockett’s Cove in Wythe County became the center of a desperate race through the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Brigadier General William W. Averell was trying to force his Union cavalry toward Wytheville and the valuable lead mines beyond it. Somewhere ahead, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan was racing to block him before the Federals reached one of the Confederacy’s most important sources of ammunition.
The engagement that followed has never possessed a single settled name. The Official Records called it the engagement at “Cove Mountain, or Grassy Lick, near Wytheville.” Veterans and local accounts also called it Cove Gap, Cove Mountain Gap, Crockett’s Cove, Crockett’s Gap, and even the Battle of Crockett’s Farm. Whatever name appeared in the record, the fighting centered on the narrow mountain approaches surrounding Crockett’s Cove, where terrain gave a relatively small piece of ground an importance far beyond its size.
For several hours Union and Confederate cavalry fought across ridges, wooded slopes, farm fields, and the mouth of the gap. Averell was wounded, Morgan personally helped work an improvised cannon, and darkness ultimately saved the Federal column from a battle that threatened to become a trap.
Behind the fighting lay something larger. The Confederacy needed the railroad, salt, and lead of Southwest Virginia. The Union intended to destroy them.
Grant’s War Against Southwest Virginia
By the spring of 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant was coordinating Union armies on a scale that had rarely been attempted earlier in the war. While the Army of the Potomac moved against Robert E. Lee in eastern Virginia, other Federal columns were supposed to strike railroads, supply centers, and military resources farther west.
One of those operations targeted the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The line tied Southwest Virginia to the eastern portions of the Confederacy and carried soldiers, food, minerals, and military supplies toward Richmond and Lee’s army.
Brigadier General George Crook led the principal Union column toward Dublin Depot and the great railroad bridge over the New River. Averell commanded a separate mounted column moving farther west. His original objective included the salt works at Saltville, while the lead mines near Wytheville offered another tempting target.
Basil W. Duke, Morgan’s close associate and later historian of his cavalry, understood exactly what was at stake. He wrote that losing either the salt works or lead mines would have been a “great and irreparable disaster.” The railroad was equally important because severing it could interrupt the movement of supplies from Southwest Virginia toward Lee’s armies.
Grant later remembered Crook and Averell crossing the mountains by separate routes as parts of the same larger operation. The Official Records trace the campaign from Crook’s departure on May 2 through Averell’s movement from Logan Court House on May 5, the Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain on May 9, Cove Mountain and New River Bridge on May 10, and the reunion of Crook and Averell at Union on May 15.
Averell Turns Toward Wytheville
Averell left Logan Court House with a mounted force of roughly two thousand officers and men. His division included West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio troops divided principally between commands associated with Colonel James M. Schoonmaker and Brigadier General Alfred N. Duffié.
Moving south through the mountains, the Federals passed through the country around present-day southern West Virginia and entered Virginia. By May 8 they were around Jeffersonville, now Tazewell, where prisoners, captured mail, deserters, and scouts gave Averell increasingly troubling information.
Saltville was not waiting undefended.
Joseph J. Sutton, a veteran of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry who later wrote the regiment’s history, recalled that Averell learned a substantial Confederate force was prepared to meet him there. Rather than ride directly against a fortified objective, Averell changed direction toward Wytheville. If he could reach the town and the nearby lead mines, he could still inflict serious damage while forcing Confederate troops to remain occupied with his column instead of concentrating against Crook.
The decision set Averell and Morgan on intersecting paths.
Morgan had returned to Confederate service after his celebrated escape from the Ohio Penitentiary and had been assigned to Southwest Virginia. By early May he had cavalry available around Saltville, including a brigade under Colonel Henry L. Giltner and mounted men from Morgan’s old command. Several hundred dismounted cavalrymen were sent eastward to reinforce Confederate forces facing Crook, leaving Morgan to deal with Averell.
Morgan Races for Wytheville
Morgan quickly recognized what Averell was attempting.
According to Duke, Averell took the more difficult Crab Orchard route toward Wytheville. Morgan refused to simply follow him through terrain where a smaller rear guard might delay the Confederate pursuit. Instead, he chose the shorter route through Burke’s Garden and raced directly toward Wytheville.
It was a decision that probably saved the town and the lead mines from an immediate attack.
Morgan reached Wytheville ahead of much of his command and sent Confederate cavalry already in the vicinity toward the pass connecting Crockett’s Cove with the approaches to town. Duke described these men as a detachment from General William E. “Grumble” Jones’s cavalry under Colonel George B. Crittenden. Other reconstructions place Lieutenant Colonel William L. Graham and elements of the 16th Virginia Cavalry prominently in the initial defense of the gap.
This disagreement is one reason accounts of Cove Mountain can become confusing. The Confederate forces were being assembled from more than one command, and later sources did not always distinguish departmental command from the officers actually directing troops on the battlefield.
What is clear is that Morgan reached Wytheville, recognized the importance of the gap, and hurried troops toward it before Averell could break through.
The people of Wytheville had reason to be frightened. Union cavalry had struck the town the previous summer, and another Federal column was now approaching a community connected directly to one of the Confederacy’s most valuable industrial resources.
Morgan intended to stop it in the mountains.
The Gap at Crockett’s Cove
Crockett’s Cove formed the kind of landscape that repeatedly shaped the Civil War in Appalachia. Mountains narrowed the usable roads, ridges concealed troop movements, and a relatively small force positioned in the right place could delay an enemy several times its size.
To continue toward Wytheville, Averell needed to get through the mountain passage ahead.
Around midday on May 10, his advance encountered Confederates around Cove Gap, or Grassy Lick. Federal cavalry pushed forward while Confederate defenders occupied the heights and approaches surrounding the passage.
Schoonmaker’s men became heavily engaged. The 1st West Virginia Cavalry and 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry were among the Union troops thrown against the Confederate position, while the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry waited for orders that might require an even more dangerous attack.
Colonel William H. Powell of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry was reportedly ordered to prepare his men for a mounted charge into the gap. With sabers drawn, the regiment waited while the Confederate position was examined more carefully.
The reconnaissance changed everything.
Federal soldiers discovered that Confederate reinforcements were pouring into the position. Rather than a weak roadblock that could be scattered by a sudden charge, the gap was becoming a fortified choke point. Howard R. McManus’s reconstruction of the campaign describes Confederate cavalry on the heights and artillery positioned to sweep the approach. A direct mounted charge could have been disastrous.
Averell abandoned the attempt to simply burst through.
Morgan, meanwhile, was coming.
Morgan Comes Onto the Field
Duke placed the beginning of the heavier fighting at about 3:30 in the afternoon. Morgan’s troops moved rapidly from Wytheville toward the sound of firing, and the Confederate position transformed from a blocking force into an offensive one.
Giltner’s brigade and Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Alston’s mounted command moved around the mountain and through the woods in an effort to strike Averell’s flank. The Confederate cavalry dismounted for much of the fighting, allowing the men to use the wooded mountain country more effectively than they could have from horseback.
Averell realized that his original position near the gap had become dangerous and pulled back.
The Federals formed again on higher ground, forcing Morgan’s men to leave some of the protection offered by the gap if they wanted to continue the attack.
They did.
Duke remembered Confederate troops advancing under Federal sharpshooter fire and driving Union skirmishers from one position. Averell’s men fell back about five hundred yards and made another stand around the buildings of the Crockett farm. There the fighting became stubborn and close.
One of the more unusual weapons on the field had come from Wytheville itself.
Morgan had arrived without artillery, but an old six-pounder was available in town. Men with artillery experience volunteered to operate it, and the weapon was brought into the fight. Duke remembered Morgan personally assisting with the piece as it fired against Averell’s positions.
In the confined mountain landscape, even a single cannon could command a road or unsettle troops trying to hold an exposed ridge.
Four Hours Under Fire
The battle stretched toward evening.
Federal cavalry repeatedly established new positions as Confederate forces pressed against them. The 2nd West Virginia Cavalry became particularly important in keeping Averell’s line together during the withdrawal.
A bullet grazed Averell across the forehead during the fighting. The wound was not fatal, but it bled heavily and temporarily disrupted his ability to direct the battle. Colonel Powell consequently assumed an important role in controlling the Federal line.
The 2nd West Virginia withdrew in carefully controlled stages rather than collapsing into flight. Averell later praised the regiment’s movement under fire, comparing its precision to a dress parade.
Other portions of the Federal line had more difficulty. The 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry was temporarily driven from its position, but reserves helped close the opening and the regiment reformed. For several hours Morgan’s men came on while Averell’s cavalry gave ground without allowing the Confederate attacks to turn the retreat into a rout.
Duke, writing from the Confederate perspective, admitted that the Federal troops were well trained and that their officers behaved with gallantry. His account nevertheless presents the action as a Confederate victory in which Morgan repeatedly dislodged Averell from his positions.
By darkness, the Federals had been pushed back substantially but remained intact.
The battle had lasted roughly four hours.
Duke estimated Morgan’s casualties at about fifty killed and wounded. Federal reports placed Averell’s losses at approximately 114 officers and men, although surviving accounts do not always divide those losses consistently between killed, wounded, captured, and missing.
What mattered most that evening was that Averell had not reached Wytheville.
He was also in considerable danger of not escaping at all.
Night Saves Averell’s Command
Morgan believed more daylight might have allowed him to finish the battle.
Averell understood the same thing from the opposite perspective. Remaining in Crockett’s Cove until morning risked another Confederate attack after Morgan had time to reorganize and bring additional forces into position.
The Federals therefore prepared to disappear.
Accounts of the withdrawal describe campfires and other measures intended to convince the Confederates that Averell remained in position. Then, under cover of darkness, Federal cavalry began moving along a difficult route through the mountains instead of attempting another passage through the defended gap.
The National Register documentation for Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church preserves an especially important piece of local memory. According to the account included in the nomination, an enslaved man remembered as “Uncle Peter” guided the Union troops out of the Cove by way of Crab Orchard and across Little Walker Mountain.
It was an exhausting escape. Men led horses through steep country that was poorly suited to the passage of an organized cavalry division, particularly at night and after hours of fighting.
By the time Morgan realized Averell had gone, the opportunity to destroy the Federal column at Crockett’s Cove had passed.
Averell continued toward Dublin and the New River country. Crook had already fought and won the bloody Battle of Cloyd’s Mountain on May 9 and subsequently struck the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and New River Bridge. The two Union columns eventually reunited at Union on May 15 after days of fighting, rain, difficult river crossings, and Confederate pursuit.
The Wounded at Crockett’s Cove Church
Not everyone could make the journey out.
Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church had been completed only a few years before the war, in 1858. During the aftermath of the battle, the simple brick church became a hospital for wounded Federal soldiers.
The National Register nomination reproduces a later memorial inscription stating that seventeen wounded Union soldiers were left at the church, where local families found them and cared for their injuries. The building consequently became one of the most tangible surviving connections to the battle.
Confederate loss also touched the church.
Major Nathan Parker of the 4th Kentucky Cavalry was killed during the fighting. According to documentation preserved in the National Register nomination, his funeral was held at Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church the following day, May 11. He was initially buried near the place where he fell before his remains were later moved to Kentucky.
Stories about Union graves in the Cove require more caution.
The same nomination preserves a later recollection that 117 Union soldiers were buried there on the morning after the battle. That tradition was attributed to William Graham, whose father had commanded Confederate troops at the gap. Yet the claim cannot be reconciled easily with the Federal casualty figures, which place total Union losses for the engagement at roughly 114 rather than 117 dead alone.
The supposed burial of 117 Union soldiers should therefore be understood as a local tradition rather than established casualty data. The hospital use of the church is well documented, but the scale of the burial story remains uncertain.
Was Morgan or Jones in Command?
Another question has followed Cove Mountain into modern histories.
Who commanded the Confederates?
The present National Park Service battle database identifies Brigadier General William E. “Grumble” Jones as the principal Confederate commander and classifies the result as indecisive. The database, however, also lists no troop strength or casualty figures for the battle, and its brief entry does not capture the complexity found in participant accounts.
Basil Duke’s account gives Morgan a central and unmistakable role. Morgan recognized Averell’s movement toward Wytheville, raced ahead by the shorter route, ordered troops into the gap, brought Giltner and Alston onto the field, employed the improvised artillery, and personally participated in the fighting. Duke also distinguishes the cavalry already belonging to Jones’s command from Morgan’s own arriving troops.
Later research by Howard R. McManus likewise places Morgan at the heart of the action while identifying elements of Jones’s command, including Virginia cavalry, as important participants in the initial defense.
The most reasonable description is therefore that Morgan directed the principal Confederate response at Crockett’s Cove while troops associated with Jones’s command also fought there. The confusing command structure explains why one modern reference may call the battle Averell against Jones while another describes it as Averell against Morgan.
The distinction matters because Cove Mountain represented one of Morgan’s final significant successes before his death in Tennessee four months later.
Who Won the Battle of Cove Mountain?
The National Park Service calls Cove Mountain indecisive, and there is a reasonable military argument for that classification. Averell’s command was not destroyed, Morgan did not capture the Federal division, and the larger Union operation against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad continued.
Yet the battle looks different when measured against the immediate objectives of the two commanders.
Averell wanted access to Wytheville and the valuable lead mines. He did not get it.
Morgan wanted to prevent that destruction. He succeeded.
From that narrow tactical perspective, the Confederates accomplished their purpose. Duke understandably treated the engagement as an important Confederate success, and Morgan’s cavalry had good reason to celebrate keeping Averell away from the mines.
The wider campaign complicates the verdict.
While Confederate troops concentrated against Averell, Crook was fighting farther east. His victory at Cloyd’s Mountain opened the way toward Dublin and the New River Bridge, allowing Federal troops to inflict serious damage on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. Averell later argued that holding a superior Confederate force near Wytheville helped prevent overwhelming reinforcements from being turned against Crook.
That argument gave the Federals a way to view Cove Mountain as something more than a failed attack.
The Confederates had saved Wytheville and the lead mines, but they had not saved the railroad from Crook.
Cove Mountain was therefore both a Confederate tactical success and part of a larger Union operation that achieved significant results elsewhere. Calling the engagement indecisive captures part of that ambiguity, but it can obscure the simple fact that Morgan accomplished the most immediate purpose for which he fought that afternoon.
Averell never reached the mines.
Why the Lead Mines Mattered
That failure mattered far beyond Wythe County.
The lead mines in the region supplied material needed for Confederate ammunition at a time when the South faced increasingly serious shortages. Saltville was similarly important because salt was essential for preserving enormous quantities of meat needed by armies in the field.
Southwest Virginia had consequently become an industrial battlefield.
Mountains that appeared remote from Richmond or Atlanta contained resources without which armies could not function. Railroads through communities such as Wytheville, Dublin, and Christiansburg connected those resources with Confederate manufacturing centers and military depots.
Robert C. Whisonant’s work on the geology and military history of Southwest Virginia has emphasized how closely the region’s mineral wealth shaped wartime strategy. The campaign that brought Averell and Morgan into Crockett’s Cove was not an accidental clash between wandering cavalry forces. The men were there because the mountains contained resources that helped keep the Confederacy fighting.
The same targets would draw Union troops back before the year ended.
Cove Mountain in the Larger War
For Morgan, Cove Mountain came during the final months of an extraordinary and increasingly troubled military career. He soon returned to Kentucky for another raid, suffered severe losses, and was killed at Greeneville, Tennessee, on September 4, 1864.
William E. Jones died even sooner, falling at the Battle of Piedmont on June 5.
Averell continued campaigning through the Shenandoah Valley before his own relationship with Federal commanders deteriorated later that year. Colonel Powell, whose controlled movements helped preserve the Federal line at Cove Mountain, would rise to higher command.
The resources Morgan protected on May 10 did not remain safe forever. Union raiders returned to Southwest Virginia in December 1864 during operations associated with Major General George Stoneman. The lead mines and Saltville again became targets, and Confederate control of the region weakened further as the war moved toward its final spring.
Cove Mountain therefore bought time rather than permanent security.
In May 1864, however, time still mattered.
The Battle Left on the Landscape
Today the battlefield does not resemble the popular image of a great Civil War field covered with monuments and cannon.
Crockett’s Cove remains a mountain landscape of farms, roads, ridges, and scattered historic places. Its geography still explains the battle more effectively than almost anything else. The narrow approaches, enclosing mountains, and difficult routes make it easy to understand why Averell could not simply ride around Morgan’s position without sacrificing precious time.
Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church remains the most recognizable surviving landmark connected with the aftermath. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources lists the church on both the Virginia Landmarks Register and National Register of Historic Places and recognizes its connection to the 1864 battle.
Its association with wounded soldiers gives the building a different kind of importance from the ridges where cavalrymen exchanged fire. Battles did not end when shooting stopped. They continued inside churches and farmhouses where wounded men waited, among families suddenly responsible for strangers in blue or gray, and along dark mountain paths where exhausted soldiers tried to escape before daylight.
Why Cove Mountain Matters
Cove Mountain is easy to overlook beside the much larger battles of 1864. There were no armies numbering in the tens of thousands, no famous photograph of the field, and no single moment that decided the fate of the Confederacy.
Yet the engagement reveals how the Civil War operated in Appalachia.
National strategy reached deep into mountain coves because railroads, salt, lead, roads, and gaps made seemingly isolated communities militarily valuable. Generals could plan campaigns on maps in Richmond or Washington, but those campaigns eventually narrowed into places like Crockett’s Cove, where one mountain passage determined whether a column of two thousand cavalrymen could reach its target.
On May 10, 1864, Averell reached that passage and found Morgan waiting.
The Federals fought for hours, survived the Confederate attacks, and escaped through the mountains after dark. Morgan kept them from Wytheville and preserved the lead mines for another seven months. At the same time, Crook tore into the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad farther east, ensuring that the larger Union campaign was not a failure.
That mixture of success and failure explains why Cove Mountain can be called indecisive while both sides found reasons to claim something from it.
More than 160 years later, the brick church, narrow roads, and surrounding ridges remain reminders that the industrial lifelines of the Confederacy were defended not only in great cities or famous battles, but in Appalachian gaps where a few hours of daylight could decide whether an army reached the resources hidden beyond the next mountain.
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. 37, pt. 1. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891. https://collections.library.cornell.edu/moa_new/waro.html
Averell, William W. “Report of the Expedition Against the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, May 5–19, 1864.” In The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, vol. 37, pt. 1, especially 41–48. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1891. https://archive.org/details/cu31924077728289
Morgan, John Hunt. Telegram to Mrs. John Hunt Morgan. Glade Springs, Virginia, May 10, 1864. American Civil War Documents, Manuscripts, Letters and Diaries Collection, Box 8, Item 86.40.11. Chicago Public Library. https://www.chipublib.org/fa-american-civil-war-documents-manuscripts-letters-and-diaries-and-grand-army-of-the-republic-collection/
New York State Library. “William Woods Averell Papers, 1836–1910.” Manuscripts and Special Collections, SC12349. Albany: New York State Library. https://nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc12349
Averell, William Woods. Ten Years in the Saddle: The Memoir of William Woods Averell. Edited by Edward K. Eckert and Nicholas J. Amato. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1978. https://openlibrary.org/books/OL4561563M/Ten_years_in_the_saddle
Duke, Basil W. History of Morgan’s Cavalry. Cincinnati: Miami Printing and Publishing Company, 1867. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31232
Mosgrove, George Dallas. Kentucky Cavaliers in Dixie; or, The Reminiscences of a Confederate Cavalryman. Louisville: Courier-Journal Job Printing Company, 1895. Especially chap. 23, “General Morgan Defeats Averill, Major Parker Killed, May 10, 1864.” https://archive.org/details/kentuckycavaliers00mosg
Sutton, Joseph J. History of the Second Regiment, West Virginia Cavalry Volunteers, During the War of the Rebellion. Portsmouth, OH, 1892. Especially 114–117. https://archive.org/details/historyofsecondr00sutton
Slease, William Davis. The Fourteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Civil War: A History of the Fourteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry from Its Organization until the Close of the Civil War, 1861–1865. Pittsburgh: Art Engraving and Printing Company, 1915. Especially 128–131. https://www.pacivilwar.org/2017/05/08/14th-regiment-pennsylvania-cavalry-bibliography-history/
Heaton, Lynda Rees, ed. “War Experiences of Samuel Wheeler, Private in the First West Virginia Cavalry Regiment, Part II.” West Virginia History 8, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 65–88.
“From Gen. Morgan’s Command.” Richmond Enquirer, Semi-Weekly Edition, May 20, 1864, 2. https://www.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica/lccn/sn84024735/1864-05-20/ed-1/seq-2/
Lynchburg Daily Virginian. May 23–30, 1864, especially May 30. Contemporary coverage of the Cove Mountain and Virginia and Tennessee Railroad operations.
Barnes, D. M. “Gen. Averill’s Operations; Spirited Account of the Great Southern Virginia Raid.” New York Times, June 10, 1864. https://www.nytimes.com/1864/06/10/archives/gen-averills-operations-spirited-account-of-the-great-southern.html
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. “Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church.” Virginia Landmarks Register No. 098-0027. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/098-0027/
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church, Wythe County, Virginia. NRHP No. 92001373. 1992. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/VLR_to_transfer/PDFNoms/098-0027_Crockett%27s_Cove_Presbyterian_Church_1992_Final_Nomination.pdf
McManus, Howard Rollins. The Battle of Cloyds Mountain: The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad Raid, April 29–May 19, 1864. Lynchburg, VA: H. E. Howard, 1989. https://archive.org/details/battleofcloydsmo0000mcma
Duncan, Richard R. Lee’s Endangered Left: The Civil War in Western Virginia, Spring of 1864. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998.
Whisonant, Robert C. “Geology and the Civil War in Southwestern Virginia: Union Raiders in the New River Valley, May 1864.” Virginia Minerals 43, no. 4 (November 1997): 29–39. https://energy.virginia.gov/commercedocs/VAMIN_VOL43_NO04.pdf
Whisonant, Robert C. “Geology and the Civil War in Southwest Virginia: The Wythe County Lead Mines.” Virginia Minerals 42, no. 2 (May 1996): 13–20.
Whisonant, Robert C. Arming the Confederacy: How Virginia’s Minerals Forged the Rebel War Machine. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2015. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-14508-2
Ramage, James A. Rebel Raider: The Life of General John Hunt Morgan. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986.
McKnight, Brian D. Contested Borderland: The Civil War in Appalachian Kentucky and Virginia. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006. https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813123899/contested-borderland/
Salmon, John S. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001. The Cove Mountain discussion appears around page 386. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/pdf_files/notes_on_va/Notes_on_VA_2001_no.45.pdf
National Park Service. “Battle Detail: Cove Mountain.” Civil War Sites Advisory Commission Reference VA109. https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battles-detail.htm?battleCode=va109
Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Virginia Tech. “Wytheville.” Virginia Civil War Driving Tour. This is particularly useful for connecting Cove Mountain with Wytheville, the lead mines, and the wider Southwest Virginia campaign. https://civilwar.vt.edu/programs/drivingtour/wytheville.html
Author Note: Cove Mountain interested me because a relatively small battle in one Appalachian cove became tied to the Confederacy’s railroads, lead mines, and larger struggle to hold Southwest Virginia. I also wanted to separate what the surviving military records establish from later local traditions that became attached to Crockett’s Cove.