Droop Mountain Battlefield

Droop Mountain is where West Virginia's war ended — November 6, 1863, the last large-scale battle on the soil of a state that was only four months old. West Virginia had joined the Union in June; the Confederates were still on the ground, holding the Greenbrier Valley and guarding the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad that kept them there.

General William Averell brought 5,000 Federals over the mountains from Beverly; General John Echols had 1,700 men dug in on the 3,136-foot crest. Six hours of artillery, musketry, and hand-to-hand fighting ended when the Union infantry broke the Confederate left at the 'Bloody Angle' — the retreat became a rout, and though Echols escaped and briefly reoccupied the valley, organized Southern resistance in West Virginia never recovered. The railroad fell to Averell's next raid in December.

The battlefield became the state's first state park — dedicated July 4, 1928, the CCC's Camp Price built the trails and tower in the '30s, and the reenactments still run every other October. The file keeps the oddity of the date: a battle fought after the state it was fought over had already chosen sides — the new state's last Confederate fight, on a mountain named for how it looked from the valley below.

Droop Mountain Battlefield is the archive's last-stand file — November 1863, the battle that ended Confederate resistance in a state four months into the Union, fought at the Bloody Angle on West Virginia's first state park land.