The Jones-Imboden Raid
The Jones-Imboden Raid by Hunter Lesser
Beginning in late April 1863, Confederate Generals William E. Jones and John Imboden led a month-long raid through West Virginia. Their goals were to wreck the vital B & O Railroad, cripple the Union government in Wheeling, and seize horses and cattle badly needed by the Confederacy.
Splitting into two columns totaling about 5,000 men, Jones and Imboden left their camps near the Shenandoah Valley and circled the state. Jones pushed north, destroying railroad bridges, tunnels and track. Moving west to “Oiltown” at Burning Springs, he torched some 150,000 barrels of crude, turning the Little Kanawha River into an inferno.
General Imboden’s exploits were no less dramatic. Marching northwest along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, he struck the Union depot at Beverly on April 24th, wounding Sheriff Jesse Phares who still managed to sound the alarm. Imboden met resistance from 900 Federals under Col. George Latham of the 2nd West Virginia Infantry, but the defenders fled by nightfall, burning large quantities of supplies and a portion of the town. Imboden’s raiders entered Beverly to the cheers and waving handkerchiefs of the citizens, now liberated from their “Yankee” occupiers.
The raiders chased small Union forces from Buckhannon, Weston, and points south before rejoining General Jones at Summersville and returning east. Although the raid fell short of their goals, they wrecked railroads and turnpikes, demoralized Union troops, and threw the Wheeling government into a panic. An estimated 3,000 cattle and more than 1,200 horses were driven south through Beverly by the raiders—stock that kept Confederate troops in the field for two more years.
Come join the Town of Beverly, WV May 3, 4 & 5, 2013 for the Jones-Imboden Raid reenactment. For more information contact Rich mountain Battlefield Foundation at richmountain.org or call (304)637-7424
Photography by: Jodi Burnsworth
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