Civil War Marker at a West Virginia Rest Stop

At the West Virginia Welcome Center along northbound I-81 there's a Civil War Trails marker for the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee's army passed through this area on their way to Maryland and Pennsylvania. You can read the sign's text below the photo.

Actually, the area was traversed numerous times by troops on both sides during the war. (See our field trip Into Virginia from the North in 1861.)

See also our Gettysburg Campaign Tour.

Gettysburg Campaign
Invasion and Retreat

After stunning victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Virginia, early in May 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee carried the war through Maryland, across the Mason and Dixon Line and into Pennsylvania. His infantry marched north through the Shenandoah Valley and western Maryland as his cavalry, led by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, harassed Union supply lines to the east. Union Gen. Joseph Hooker, replaced on June 28 by Gen. George G. Meade, led the Army of the Potomac from the Washington defenses in pursuit. The Federals collided with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 1, starting a battle neither side had intended to fight there. Three days later, the defeated Confederates began retreating through Maryland, retracing their steps to the Potomac River and crossing into Virginia on July 14 into what only a month earlier had been Virginia. On June 20, after Lee crossed the river heading north, the Union had admitted West Virginia—the only state to secede from a seceded state.

P.S. I added a site feed on my Civil War Field Trips homepage to display recent posts on this blog that have the label Civil War. You'll have to scroll down the page to see it though.