Welcome to Fort Mulligan Civil War Site. The valley of the South Branch of the Potomac River saw an incredible amount of troop activity and action during the Civil War. Its story is hauntingly similar to that of the famed Shenandoah Valley, albeit on a smaller scale. Indeed, if the Shenandoah was the granary of the Confederacy, then this bountiful region may well have been known as its stockyard, for it managed to supply stock to Confederate forces in Virginia at least as late as November 1864.
The Valley was a middle ground, situated between the all important Middle Shenandoah Valley and Upper Potomac region with its vital coal resources and the B&O Railroad infrastructure centered around Cumberland, Maryland. The railroad itself cuts across the lower South Branch Valley and its adjacent drainages. In addition to offering agricultural products to the South, it offered a mostly sympathetic populace and innumerable remote avenues of approach for a mobile force bent on the destruction of the B&O Railroad.
Thought Lee’s army was locked in a stalemate many miles to the south at Petersburg, Virginia, by June of 1864, and the Shenandoah Valley was under complete Federal control by November of 1864, this area continued to be a dangerous territory for Federal troops until the war ended.
Federal or Confederate troops occupied this hill and its surrounding area beginning at least as early as August 1861, and were on the ground for at least part of every year of the war. Federal forces time and again tried to use this strategic point as a choke hold against raids on the B&O to the north and as a "jumping-off" point for their own raids further south. The reasoning is clear and is twofold: First, the intersection of the road network at Petersburg and Moorefield and second, the support of the civilian population and Homeguard units in the ridges to the west and north provided a sharp counterpoint to the hostility of the civilians in Petersburg and Moorefield and areas east and south.
The Fort as it exists today was constructed August-December 1863, by troops under the command of Colonel James A. Mulligan, from Chicago, Illinois. Infantry, cavalry and artillery from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois carried out the backbreaking labor.
The rugged earthworks before you today bear silent witness to the sacrifices of the thousands of Americans who marched, dug, fought, froze and died here during the war. The tide of war ebbed and waned across the South during the war, but when troops were in the South Branch, they were always "at the front".
In 1993, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites acquired the nearly six-acre site through the generous donation of Mr. William G. VanMeter. The APCWS, founded in 1987, was a nonprofit land trust dedicated exclusively to protecting historic landscapes associated with the American Civil War. In November 1999, the APCWS merged with the Civil War Preservation Trust. The Civil War Preservation Trust began working in Partnership for preservation and interpretation with the South Branch Valley Civil War Society Inc., McNeill’s Rangers Camp #582, Sons of Confederate Veterans and the 7th WV Infantry Camp #7, Sons of Union Veterans. This brochure, the walking trail, monument, rail fence signage and parking lot are the result of this partnership.
Please help us preserve and maintain this site by sending a donation to the South Branch Valley Civil War Society, Inc. at the following address: SBVCWS, Inc., c/o Grant County Bank, 3 North Main Street, Petersburg, WV 26847. If you have any information about the fort, please send it to this address. Thank you for becoming a friend of Fort Mulligan by supporting Civil War preservation.
"Scenes from the Past" Fort Mulligan Day 2007
Join Us May 31, 2008 for
Fort Mulligan Day 2008
Where Both Young & Old Can
Experience Civil War History in the Potomac Highlands of
West Virginia
