Abstract
The issue was settled in fighting that lasted just under one hour: an invading United States force would advance deeper into southwestern Virginia to attack the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. The Union victory making this possible came about on Monday, May 9, 1864, at the largest battle ever fought in the southwestern quarter of the state—Cloyds Mountain in Pulaski County (Fig. 14.1). One Northern veteran of the struggle noted that “Most of the regiments engaged in it had served in greater and more important battles, but all united in the opinion that, for fierce and deadly intensity, Cloyd[sic] Mountain exceeded them all” [269]. On this beautiful sun-splashed day in the Appalachian Mountains, roughly 9,000 soldiers clashed and 1,226 became casualties. Union killed, wounded, and missing amounted to about ten per cent of their strength and Confederate losses approached an appalling 23 per cent.
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