Battle of Philippi ( West Virginia ) The Battle of Philippi — also known mockingly as " The Philippi Races " — was fought on June 30 , 1861 , in and around Philippi , Virginia ( now West Virginia ) as part of the Western Virginia Campaign of the American Civil War . It was the first organized land action in the war ( the impromptu Battle of Fairfax Court House took place two days earlier ) , but is often treated dismissively as a skirmish rather than a significant battle . Carnes , Eva Margaret . The Tygarts Valley Line , June – July 1861 . Parson , WV : McClain Printing Co , 2003 . ISBN 0 - 87012 - 703 - 9 . Dayton , Ruth Woods . " The Beginning - - Philippi , 1861 " , West Virginia History Journal 13 / 4 ( July 1952 ) , 254 - 266 . Eicher , David J . The Longest Night : A Military History of the Civil War . New York : Simon & Schuster , 2001 . ISBN 0 - 684 - 84944 - 5 . Eicher , John H . , and David J . Eicher . Civil War High Commands . Stanford , CA : Stanford University Press , 2001 . ISBN 0 - 8047 - 3641 - 3 . Hattaway , Herman , and Archer Jones . How the North Won : A Military History of the Civil War . Urbana : University of Illinois Press , 1983 . ISBN 0 - 252 - 00918 - 5 . Mallinson , David . " Confused First Fight " . America ' s Civil War Magazine ( Jan 1992 ) : 46 - 52 . U . S . War Department . The War of the Rebellion : a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies . Washington , DC : U . S . Government Printing Office , 1880 – 1901 . National Park Service battle description CWSAC Report Update and Resurvey : Individual Battlefield Profiles Background . After the commencement of hostilities at Fort Sumter in April 1861 , Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan returned to the Army and on May 13 assumed command of the Department of the Ohio , headquartered in Cincinnati , Ohio . McClellan planned an offensive into what is now the State of West Virginia ( at the time the northwestern counties of the Commonwealth of Virginia ) which he hoped would lead to a campaign against the Confederate capital of Richmond , Virginia . His immediate objectives were to occupy the territory to protect the largely pro - Union populace in the counties along the Ohio River , and to keep open the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad line , a critical supply line for the Union . On May 26 , McClellan , in response to the burning of bridges on the Baltimore & Ohio near the town of Farmington , ordered Col . Benjamin Franklin Kelley of the ( Union ) 1st Virginia Infantry with his regiment and Company A of the 2nd Virginia Infantry , to advance from Wheeling to the area and safeguard the important bridge over the Monongahela River at Fairmont , a distance of about southeast of Wheeling . Kelley ' s men were supported by the 16th Ohio Infantry under Col . James Irvine . After securing Fairmont , the 1st Virginia advanced again and seized the important railroad junction of Grafton , about southeast of Fairmont , on May 30 . Meanwhile , the 14th Ohio Infantry Regiment , under Col . James B . Steedman , was ordered to occupy Parkersburg and then proceed to Grafton , about to the east . By May 28 , McClellan had ordered a total of about 3 , 000 troops into Western Virginia and placed them under the overall command of Brig . Gen . Thomas A . Morris , commander of Indiana Volunteers . On May 4 Confederate Col . George A . Porterfield had been assigned command of the state forces in northwestern Virginia and ordered to Grafton to take charge of enlistments in the area . As the Union columns advanced , Porterfield ' s poorly armed 800 recruits retreated to Philippi , about south of Grafton . At Philippi , a covered bridge spanned the Tygart Valley River and was an important segment of the vital Beverly - Fairmont Turnpike . Battle . Col . Kelley devised a two - prong attack against the Confederate force in Philippi , approved by Gen . Morris on his arrival in Grafton on June 1 . The principal advance would be 1 , 600 men led by Kelley himself , and would include six companies of his own regiment , nine of the 9th Indiana Infantry Regiment under Col . Robert H . Milroy , and six of the 16th Ohio Infantry . In order to deceive the enemy into thinking the objective was Harpers Ferry , they departed by train to the east . They disembarked at the small village of Thornton and marched south on a back road on the same side of the river as Philippi , intending to arrive at the rear of the town . Meanwhile , the 7th Indiana under Col . Ebenezer Dumont were sent to Webster , about southwest of Grafton . They would unite with the 6th Indiana under Col . Thomas T . Crittenden and the 14th Ohio under Col . Steedman . The column , with a total of 1 , 400 men under Col . Dumont ( with the assistance of Col . Frederick W . Lander , volunteer aide - de - camp to Gen . McClellan ) , would march directly south from Webster on the Turnpike . In this way , the Union force would execute a double envelopment of the outnumbered Confederates . On June 2 , the Union columns set off to converge on Philippi . After an overnight march in rainy weather , both arrived at Philippi before dawn the following morning . Morris had planned a predawn assault to be signaled by a pistol shot . The green Confederate volunteers had failed to establish picket lines for perimeter security , choosing instead to escape the cold rain and stay inside their tents . A Confederate sympathizer , Mrs . Thomas Humphreys , saw the approaching Union troops and sent her young son on horseback to warn the Confederates . As Mrs . Humphreys watched , she saw Union pickets capture her son and fired her pistol at them . She missed , but her shots began the attack prematurely . The Union attackers began firing their artillery , which awakened the Confederates from their slumber . Those who were armed fired a few shots at the advancing bluecoats , then Southerners broke and began running to the south , some still in their bed clothes . This caused Union journalists to refer to the battle as the " Races at Philippi " . Dumont ' s soldiers entered the town from the bridge ( Col . Lander ' s ride down the steep hillside through heavy underbrush was considered such a feat of horsemanship that " Leslie ' s Weekly " gave an illustrated account of it shortly afterward ) , but Kelley ' s column had arrived from the north on the wrong road and were unable to block the Confederate retreat . Kelley himself was shot while pursing some of the retreating Confederates , but Col . Lander chased down and captured the man who shot Kelley . The Confederates retreated to Huttonsville , about to the south . Aftermath . The Union victory in the relatively bloodless battle propelled McClellan into the national spotlight , and he was soon given command of all Union armies . It also inspired more vocal protests in the Western part of Virginia against secession . A few days later in Wheeling , pro - Unionists at the Wheeling Convention nullified the Virginia ordinance of secession and named Francis H . Pierpont governor . There were two significant Confederate casualties . Both were treated with battlefield amputations , believed to be the first such operations of the war . One was a Virginia Military Institute cadet , Fauntleroy Daingerfield . The other Confederate was James E . Hanger , an 18 - year old college student . After recovering and being released , Hanger returned home to Virginia . He made an artificial leg from barrel staves with a hinge at the knee . His design worked so well that the Virginia State Legislature commissioned him to manufacture the “ Hanger Limb ” for other wounded soldiers . After the war , Hanger patented his prosthetic device and founded what is now the Hanger Orthopedic Group , Inc . As of 2007 , Hanger Orthopedic Group is the United States market leader in the manufacture of artificial limbs . Following the battle , Col . Porterfield was replaced in command of Confederate forces in western Virginia by Brig . Gen . Robert S . Garnett . The companies of Confederate recruits who had been at Philippi became part of various regiments , including the 9th Virginia Infantry Battalion , 25th Virginia Infantry , 31st Virginia Infantry , 11th Virginia Cavalry , and the 14th Virginia Cavalry . The Barbour Lighthorse Cavalry , commanded by Capt . William Jenkins , disbanded after the retreat from Philippi . The short - story writer and satirist Ambrose Bierce was a Union recruit at the Battle of Philippi . Twenty years later , he wrote , in an autobiographical fragment he called : The quotation marks indicate the wryness with which Bierce and his fellow veterans , who were to undergo far more harrowing fights , must have regarded the designation of " first battle " .