page_title: Keyser, West Virginia
section_title: The Civil War:  New Creek
hierarchical_section_title: Keyser, West Virginia / History / The Civil War:  New Creek
caption_attribution_description: English: Civil War Federal Army camp at New Creek, West Virginia. The town of New Creek, later named Keyser, is seen in the background, 1865.
context_page_description: Keyser is a city in and the county seat of Mineral County, West Virginia, United States. It is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 5,439 at the 2010 census.
context_section_description: In 1861, the American Civil War came to New Creek Station in then-Hampshire County, Virginia.  The Union established Fort Fuller on the present site of Potomac State College of West Virginia University.  The fort's commanders included Majors Lew Wallace and Benjamin Harrison, the author of Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ and the 23rd President of the United States, respectively.  The area changed hands 14 times during the war due to the importance of the railroad.  One history describes "four years of carnage" at New Creek ... everything was laid to waste.  What buildings of importance had been built, many of which were equal to those of other towns in that day, were razed to the ground or reduced to ashes, by the relentless flames of the military incendiary."  The railroad that had been a blessing to the town had turned into a curse, drawing repeated assaults by Confederate forces.
  A Harrisonburg, Virginia, newspaper provided a report of the exploits at New Creek of a Confederate company known as the Brook's Gap Rifles, which had been stationed at Romney in the summer of 1861:
  A part of the company -- 18 members, a detachment under command of Lieut. Philip Kennon -- participated in the fight at New Creek Station, heretofore known as Paddytown, on the Balt. & O. Railroad, in Hampshire county.  In this skirmish these sharp-shooters did first-rate work, private Black himself killing three of the enemy with his rifle, and private John W. West giving another a load of buckshot in the face.  Black, who is a splendid equestrian as well as a "deadshot," charged up on the platform at the Station, riding on 7 or 8 feet.  The enemy then drived into a house in which our boys peppered them, killing 5 or 6 with their deadly Minnie Rifles, which they handle with terrible precision.
  Because of its geography, a relatively flat plain in a valley surrounded by mountains and open to many approaches, New Creek was an easy target for Confederates.  One editor in Wheeling, West Virginia, opined that holding New Creek was useless, writing in 1863:
  The concentration of troops at New Creek and the preparations there for attack or siege, indicate that it is the intention of our military authorities to hold that post against rebel investment ... New Creek ... really protects nothing but the little valley which its guns command.  It cannot prevent the progress of the rebels into Pennsylvania or into Western Virginia. ... We do not undertake to say what points could be made to protect West irginia or Western Pennsylvania.  We only express the opinion, in which we are not alone, that New Creek is not one of them ... It is to be hoped the folly of Winchester is not to be repeated at New Creek -- of holding a useless and indefensible position, which if not in the enemy's country now could easily be made so by their getting in its rear.
  Again and again, the Confederates raided New Creek.  The little town was under constant siege.  In January 1864, according to one report, a rebel force of 3,000 cavalry was headed in the direction of New Creek, and New Creek residents "were forbidden to exhibit lights" after dark.
  Complete disaster finally visited New Creek on November 28, 1864.  At 1 p.m. on a Monday afternoon, between 1,500 and 2,000 Confederates attacked a small garrison of Union troops stationed behind earthworks at Fort Fuller.  The Union troops were quickly overcome.  The Confederates then took over the town, destroying the earthworks and nearly all the buildings, except the home of Colonel Edward Armstrong, whom they knew to be a Confederate officer.  A smaller Confederate force was then sent to Piedmont, where they managed to burn the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's roundhouse, a workshop, and other machinery before they were turned away by Company A Sixth West Virginia Volunteers.
  The residents of New Creek were terrorized by the November 1864 occupation.  Men were captured and taken away.  One eyewitness complained of the rebels' behavior:
  ... the chief thief among the rebels was a drunken, blear-eyed, pug nosed Major Mason, son of Ex-Senator James
caption: Encampment of the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry at New Creek, 1865.  The hill with Fort Fuller can be seen in the distance.
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