A native of Western Virginia, Jackson was certain that the key to victory for the new Southern Confederacy lay in driving northward from Virginia's northern panhandle at Wheeling toward the Great Lakes and Canada. Fortunately for the cause of the Union, other Confederate voices prevailed in Richmond. Raised in the heart of what is now West Virginia, General Jackson knew that transportation has always been the key to the mountains. The striking geography of the region means that there are a very limited number of ways to move practical quantities of people and goods through the interior. The mountains and forests are staggering obstacles to easy movement.
Navigable rivers are scarce, and roads few and far between.
Railroads in the area could be counted on the fingers of one hand. So the Civil War in Western Virginia would come to revolve around the efforts of one side or another to control transportation routes. Both sides had to painfully and repeatedly discover for themselves that the fortification of key points was far from a foolproof way to control the roads, however. Time after time, carefully constructed forts were simply bypassed, or flanked and taken from the rear. Most battles in the region, including Rich Mountain, would fall into this general category.