BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN McCAUSLAND.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN LYNCHBURG DURING THE WAR.
Campaign and Battle
of
Lynchburg, Va.
By CHARLES M. BLACKFORD,
OF THE LYNCHBURG BAR.
Delivered by Request of the Garland-Rodes Camp of ConfederateVeterans of Lynchburg, Virginia,
JUNE 18th, 1901.
PRESS OF
J.P. BELL COMPANY,
LYNCHBURG, VA.
PREFACE.
During the winter of 1901, the Garland-Rodes Camp of ConfederateVeterans of the City of Lynchburg passed a resolution requestingtheir comrade, Captain Chas. M. Blackford, of Company B, SecondVirginia Cavalry, C.S.A., to prepare an address upon the Campaign andBattle of Lynchburg, which was to be delivered on June 18, 1901, thethirty-seventh anniversary of the events of which he was to speak.
Captain Blackford consented to do this work, and did it so much to thesatisfaction of the Camp that it ordered his address to be printed asa valuable contribution to the history of the war and the traditionsof our city. It is now presented to our citizens and to all who areinterested in the details of our great struggle.
The Committee have also added, as a matter of local history, a rosterof the various volunteer companies which left here when the warcommenced. Many names were added afterwards, but it is to be regrettedthat the list cannot be perfected.
Jno. H. Lewis, Chairman,
N.J. Floyd,
R.H. Boatwright,
W. Barbour Jones,
H. Grey Latham,
Committee.
December 10, 1901.
The Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg.
The strategic importance of the city of Lynchburg was very littleunderstood by those directing the military movements of the Federalarmies during the Civil War, or, if understood, there was much lack ofnerve in the endeavor to seize it.
It was the depot for the Army of Northern Virginia for all commissaryand quartermaster stores gathered from the productive territory lyingbetween it and Knoxville, Tennessee, and from all the country tributaryto, and drained by, the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. Here, also, werestored many of the scant medical supplies of the Confederacy, and heremany hospitals gave accommodation to the sick and wounded from themartial lines north and east of it. Lynchburg was, in addition, thekey to the inside line of communication which enabled the Confederatetroops to be moved from our northern to our eastern lines of defence,without exciting the attention of the enemy.
Under these circumstances, it can well be understood that theConfederate authorities were ever on the alert to guard so importanta post. They relied, however, on the facility with which itsgarrison could be reinforced, when threatened, and not on an army ofoccu[Pg 6]pation, for it could not afford to keep so many tro