Appalachian History Series
Why the cove mattered
In the spring of 1864 Ulysses S. Grant pushed on all fronts in Virginia. One prong sent Brigadier General George Crook to wreck the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad at Dublin Depot and to burn the big railroad bridge over the New River at Central Depot, today’s Radford. A cooperating prong under Averell moved on the salt works at Saltville and the lead mines south of Wytheville, both lifelines for Confederate armies. Those mineral sites and the railroad that served them are the reason fighting reached the pastures of Crockett’s Cove.
Confederate mounted forces reacted fast. William E. “Grumble” Jones held the district. The raider Morgan was sent to Southwest Virginia with his reorganized cavalry in early May. Basil W. Duke, Morgan’s brother-in-law and staff officer, later summarized this phase of the war as Morgan’s “assignment to command in Southwestern Virginia” and a “fight with Averell” before the action at Dublin Depot. Duke’s wartime memoir is a first-hand Confederate perspective that places Morgan opposite Averell in this theater.
The ground
Crockett’s Cove is a narrow basin west of Wytheville, closed at the north by the gap under Cove Mountain. A single road climbs out through that throat. Period mapping in the Atlas to Accompany the Official Records shows the same rail and road net that framed the campaign around Cloyd’s Mountain, Dublin Depot, and the New River crossing. Those plates are a reliable guide to the line of march and the steep country Averell had to negotiate.
The meeting at the gap
On May 10, 1864 Averell’s column reached the gap and found it occupied by Confederate cavalry. Morgan’s troopers and detachments from Jones’s command extended across the wooded slopes. Skirmishing grew into several hours of hard fighting as Averell’s regiments probed the pass, then formed across the mouth of the cove to draw the Confederates out into the open. Contemporary Federal and Confederate accounts agree that the Federals were checked short of Wytheville, and that darkness ended the engagement with the lines still close. The National Park Service lists the outcome as indecisive.
Union regimental histories supply color from the line. The 2nd West Virginia Cavalry recalled the regiment waiting with sabers drawn for an assault at the gap, the line falling back by platoons under heavy fire, and the long afternoon contest that finally slackened at dusk. Sutton’s 1892 History of the Second Regiment West Virginia Cavalry places the cove fight within the May raid and prints Averell’s report in its narrative.
A near-contemporary newspaper from the region also took notice. Point Pleasant’s Weekly Register of June 9, 1864 reported on “Cove Mountain Gap, on the 10th inst.” and said the Confederate force was compelled to fall back, a brief but useful snapshot of how the fight was described to readers along the Ohio in the weeks after it happened.
Slipping the trap and the larger raid
After dark Averell broke contact and threaded his division out of the cove through the mountains. He avoided a renewed daylight clash with Morgan, then pushed east to connect with Crook’s column. Crook burned the long railroad bridge over the New River on May 10 and moved toward Blacksburg the next day, having already defeated Confederate forces at Cloyd’s Mountain on May 9. The railroad was cut and the district’s logistics were shaken even though the cove fight had barred Averell from the mines.
Losses and claims
Averell’s official report listed roughly one hundred fourteen officers and men killed, wounded, or missing. Confederate losses in contemporary and later accounts range from about forty to sixty. That spread matches what local and national summaries report today, and it helps explain why modern battlefield catalogs file Cove Mountain as neither a clean victory nor a rout.
Aftermath on the ground
As Averell withdrew through the cove he left his most seriously hurt behind. Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church on the south end of the basin became an immediate hospital. The National Register nomination, compiled from local testimony and period paperwork, records that seventeen Union wounded were left at the church and tended there, a detail later echoed on commemorative plaques. The nomination also preserves local memory of women of the cove carrying food and water to the wounded.
Historic roadside markers around Wytheville point visitors to the gap and the church. They summarize the action as an all-day stand that ended at nightfall, with Averell slipping away and medical care beginning within hours at the brick church that still stands.
What the sources say
The Official Records remain the backbone. Volume XXXVII of Series I contains the Union and Confederate reports and correspondence that frame Averell’s movement and the May 10 engagement near Wytheville, arranged by theater with Union reports followed by Confederate responses. These papers are the base layer for any narrative of the fight and the larger raid.
From the Confederate side, Basil W. Duke’s History of Morgan’s Cavalry offers an insider’s account of Morgan’s 1864 assignment to Southwest Virginia and his “fight with Averell,” written within two years of the war’s end. From the Union side, J. J. Sutton’s regimental history of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry traces the regiment’s role under Averell in May 1864 and preserves details later mined by historians. Both are freely available.
For concise orientation, the National Park Service battle file identifies location, commanders, and outcome. The Virginia Tech Center for Civil War Studies provides driving-tour treatments of Cloyd’s Mountain and the New River Bridge, which place the cove fight inside the two-day sequence that cut the railroad on May 10. Period mapping in the War of the Rebellion Atlas helps visualize the terrain that made the Cove Mountain gap such a stubborn choke point.
Visiting today
Crockett’s Cove remains a pastoral place. The Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church is listed on the National Register and retains the setting described in the early 1860s. Respect private property, read the markers, and remember that this quiet ground once echoed with mounted men and close-range fire.
Sources and further reading
The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol. XXXVII, Parts I–II. Union and Confederate after-action reports and correspondence for May 1864 operations in the region. Cornell University’s index with Hathi links. collections.library.cornell.edu
Basil W. Duke, History of Morgan’s Cavalry (Cincinnati, 1867). Chapter XVI notes Morgan’s assignment to Southwest Virginia and the “fight with Averell.” Free full text. Project Gutenberg
J. J. Sutton, History of the Second Regiment West Virginia Cavalry Volunteers (1892). Union regimental narrative that includes the May 1864 raid and Averell’s report. Free scan. ir.ua.edu
Weekly Register (Point Pleasant, WV), June 9, 1864. Short report referencing “Cove Mountain Gap” on the 10th. Virginia Chronicle. virginiachronicle.com
National Register of Historic Places nomination, Crockett’s Cove Presbyterian Church (1991–1992). Notes the church’s use as a hospital and records seventeen Union wounded left there. dhr.virginia.gov
War of the Rebellion Atlas. Plates for the Cloyd’s Mountain and New River Bridge area used to visualize the campaign terrain. Baylor University Digital Collections. Internet Archive
National Park Service, “Battle Detail — Cove Mountain,” Civil War Sites Advisory Commission database. Concise summary and result. National Park Service
Virginia Tech, Center for Civil War Studies, driving-tour pages for Cloyd’s Mountain and New River Bridge (Radford), which bracket the Cove Mountain action. civilwar.vt.edu+1
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Crockett’s Cove Church registry page and documentation links. dhr.virginia.gov
Historical markers near the gap and church for on-site orientation. HMDB