Ravenswood
Springboard for Invasion
Confederate Gen. Albert G. Jenkins led 550 cavalrymen on a 500-mile raid from Salt Sulphur Springs, Aug. 22-Sept. 12, 1862, attacking Federal forces and destroying military stores. He captured and paroled 300 Union soldiers, killed or wounded 1,000 others, destroyed about 5,000 small arms, and seized funds from a U.S. paymaster. At Ravenswood, he forded the Ohio River and raised the Confederate flag in Ohio on Sept. 4. He captured Racine, recrossed the river, and ended the raid at Red House on the Kanawha River.
As Confederate Gen. Albert G. Jenkins and his cavalrymen approached Ravenswood on September 4, 1862, the outnumbered garrison fled across the Ohio River. Jenkins rested his command here most of the day. Henrietta Fitzhugh Barr, an ardent Confederate supporter, and her mother provided Jenkins and some of his men with food. “About an hour before sunset,” Jenkins later wrote, “I crossed the Ohio [River] … into the State of Ohio, losing one man by being drowned. …
The command was formed on the crest of a gentle eminence and the banners of the Southern Confederacy floated proudly over the soil of our invaders.” Jenkins and his men marched several miles into Ohio, captured some of the Union soldiers who had evacuated Ravenswood, briefly occupied Racine, and crossed the river into present-day West Virginia.
Henrietta Barr soon found her household the object of Federal interest when the Union army reoccupied Ravenswood. One evening she heard a noise downstairs and on going down “found six armed men insulting mother in the grossest manner, insisting with many oaths that she should cook for as many of them as she had done for Jenkins.” As Barr’s cook, Winny, fed
As our flag was unfurled in the splendors of an evening sun cheers upon cheers arose from the men and their enthusiasm was excited to the highest pitch."
— Gen. Albert G. Jenkins
the soldiers, six more arrived. After all of them left, while Barr and her mother discussed “the various insults which had been heaped upon us, 12 men came and commanded us to have supper ready for them in an hour … [and were] compelled to submit although it is a hard trial to our patience.”
Marker is on West Virginia Route 68 ¼ mile north of U.S. 33, on the right when traveling south.
Courtesy hmdb.org
