25, 31st Virginia Descendants Invited To Reunion & First Campaign Seminar

ELKINS, W. Va. — Descendants of the men who fought with the 25th and 31st Virginia Infantry regiments in the Civil War are invited to Elkins in August for a first-of-its-kind reunion. Both regiments were composed of companies from the mountainous region of western Virginia. The history of their combat stretches from the Battle of Philippi on June 3, 1861, to Appomattox in April 1865.

The reunion will features three days of guided tours to the battlefields of the First Campaign of the Civil War. There will also be lectures, a reunion picnic, a memorial service at the Confederate cemetery in Beverly, a dance and an art exhibit.

The First Campaign Seminar and Reunion event starts on Thursday, Aug. 17, with guided tours to Philippi and Laurel Mountain. That evening’s opening reception will feature an exhibit by Civil War artist Paul R. Martin of New York. A companion exhibit from the West Virginia Humanities Council, “Born of Rebellion,” tells the story of West Virginia becoming a state and the First Campaign victories of Gen. George B. McClellan, which were crucial to that process. The award-winning exhibit will be up until Sept. 5,

Tours to Rich Mountain battlefield and the historic town of Beverly will be given on Friday. That night there will be a dance with period dancing taught by experts from The Rich Mountain String Band.

On Saturday morning lectures will be given on the 31st Virginia by Victor L. Thacker, editor of French Harding: Civil War Memoirs, and  the 25th Virginia by Richard L. Armstrong, author of the 25th Virginia Infantry in the Virginia Regimental Histories Series and many other books and articles.

A barbecue picnic will feature living history, period music, pictures by regiment, and oral history and document collection. At 4:30 a memorial service will be held at Mt. Iser Cemetery where, in 1908, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument to the Confederates soldiers buried there.

The day will conclude with a banquet and keynote speaker Hunter Lesser, author of Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided.

The Sunday tour will travel to Cheat Mountain fort, the winter camp of Union forces in 1861; Camp Bartow, site of the Battle of Greenbrier River; and Camp Allegheny, where the Confederate forces spent the 1861 winter at 4,400-feet elevation.

According to Thacker, who is project director for the event, most of the soldiers in the two units came from counties that are now in West Virginia. . “If you follow U.S. Routes 33 and 250 from I-79 eastward to I-81, you have a good approximation of the area we are talking about.”

While the “storied” units from Virginia, such as the Stonewall Brigade, started telling and preserving their stories as soon as the war ended, the Confederate units from West Virginia came back to a “Union” state. It took about five years for them to regain the right to vote.

When various states started giving pensions to their Civil War soldiers, West Virginia only gave them to Union veterans, and these men did not qualify for pensions from Virginia. These men were almost forgotten.

Thacker said, “In one sense, the 25th and 31st Virginia regiments are ‘unstoried.’ But a lot of recent research has enabled us to learn more about them. We hope descendants who attend the reunion will scour their attics for any documents or pictures of their ancestors. If we can collect more anecdotes, we can continue to shed light on this important piece of West Virginia and Civil War history.”

Chelley Depp, executive director of the Rich Mountain Battlefield Foundation (RBMF), said anyone who would like to learn more about the campaign and visit the pristine battlefields is invited. Family members who are not interested in the battlefields will find many area sights of interest.

Prices for the event range from $20 for over age 14 for the Saturday picnic to $250 for the entire event. For more information or to register, call RMBF at (304) 637-7424.