[The Shawnee Trail] was much used by early settlers and became important for a century as the chief highway between the South Branch and Tygart's valley. Over it, travelled hundreds of pack horses loaded with salt, iron, and other merchandise, and many droves of cattle fattened for the eastern market. In the Civil War it furnished an avenue of escape for a detachment of Confederates cut off from General Garnett's army at the battle of Rich mountain, five miles west of Beverly, in 1861, and it was used by Imboden and Jones in driving eastward the horses and cattle captured in their great raid of 1863.