Book Review: A History of Putnam County, West Virginia in the Civil War
A History of Putnam County, West Virginia in the Civil War. By Philip Hatfield. Charleston, WV: 35th Star Publishing, 2023. 299pp. $26.95.
Reviewed by Jon-Erik Gilot
As a border county in a border state, Putnam County, West Virginia was certain to become contested ground during the Civil War. Located north and west of West Virginia’s modern capital at Charleston, Putnam was a transportation corridor astride the Kanawha River, James River & Kanawha Turnpike, and the Midland Trail. Both Union and Confederate forces routinely occupied or passed through the region, leaving scars upon the landscape, and searing the memories of its residents. Historian and Putnam County resident Philip Hatfield has compiled these stories in A History of Putnam County, West Virginia in the Civil War, published last year by 35th Star Publishing.
Hatfield orients readers with a geographic and ethnographic history of the Putnam County area from the prehistoric through antebellum eras. With nearly 600 enslaved individuals counted prior to the Civil War, Putnam accounted for nearly 3% of the total number of Virginia’s enslaved population west of the Allegheny Mountains (the highest number being in neighboring Kanawha County). Bitterly divided with the outbreak of the Civil War, Hatfield estimates that 52% of Putnam County’s enlistments were with the Confederacy and 48% for the Union.
Each chapter of the book explores a year of the war in Putnam County told through vignettes ranging from several paragraphs to multiple pages. The four battles that occurred in Putnam County – Scary Creek, Atkeson’s Gate, Hurricane Bridge, and Winfield – are each explored in detail. While Terry Lowry’s 1982 study, The Battle of Scary Creek: Military Operations in the Kanawha Valley, April-July 1861, about the July 17, 1861, battle at Scary Creek remains a hallmark example of a small battle microhistory, Hatfield uncovered a wealth of participant and civilian accounts for a fresh retelling of the early war Union defeat. Drawing on his earlier work, The Battle of Hurricane Bridge, March 28, 1863, Hatfield also recounts in great detail that action during Confederate General Albert Jenkins’s second Trans-Allegheny raid.
Hatfield does not neglect the smaller engagements and marauding raiders that crisscrossed Putnam County during the Civil War. Skirmishes at forgotten places like Coal Mountain and Rock Branch, receive coverage, as well as the incessant dangers faced by traffic on the Kanawha River. Included, too, is an account of the March 1863 attack on the steamboat Victor No. 2, as well as the February 1864 capture of Brigadier General Eliakim P. Scammon at Red Shoals, events that dominated period headlines though seemingly forgotten today.
Whereas producing local histories often prove challenging due to a limited number of sources, Hatfield mined a wealth of unpublished manuscripts, period newspapers, and publications that lend surprising breadth to the study’s limited geographic scope. Enhancing the text are more than 120 photographs, including many Putnam County residents, Union and Confederate soldiers, and period and modern photographs of locations described in the text. Hatfield also incorporates several period maps, as well as six modern maps by Emerging Civil War’s own Edward Alexander.
Hatfield’s study will also be of interest to genealogists tracing their roots back to the Putnam County and the Kanawha Valley area. The author traces family histories both before and after the Civil War and includes several appendices with muster rolls of Union companies recruited in Putnam County. Many of the surnames are likely familiar to area residents even today.
In writing A History of Putnam County, West Virginia in the Civil War, Philip Hatfield has produced an engaging and accessible local study demonstrating how the Civil War impacted a border county in its crosshairs. The author is adept at ferreting out greater detail on events otherwise glossed over or entirely overlooked in broader battle or campaign studies. And as with any good local historian, Hatfield ties the story of Putnam County into the larger narrative of the Civil War in West Virginia and beyond.
35th Star Publishing deserves well-earned praise for their work in recent years in publishing and promoting West Virginia’s Civil War history. Whereas Pictorial Histories Publishing and Quarrier Press produced numerous outstanding West Virginia Civil War titles in the 1980s and 1990s, 35th Star Publishing is now carrying the mantle with new stories and fresh interpretations about the state’s experience in the conflict.
Hello,
I am going to get this book. I have family that fought from Putnam county. My smith family was torn apart.
I don’t know a lot about my 3rd great grandfather John m. Smith, the only thing I know is that he fought with the confederate side and his brother Columbus M. Smith who is my husband’s 3rd Great grandfather he also fought with the confederacy, and his brother George Washington smith fought with the union. Their parents were Robert McCoy smith and Belinda Goode. I would love to know where my John Mansfield smith and his wife Lucretia smith are buried.
Mrs Terri L. Smith