"This detailed account of the Civil War’s beginnings re-creates the sights and sounds, the feelings and passions of the battlefield."
— Booklist

The war within Virginia’s borders was truly “brother against brother.” More than twenty-eight thousand West Virginians served in the Union army; perhaps eighteen thousand fought for the Confederacy. The epic scale of America’s Civil War doomed the first campaign to obscurity. Historians transfixed by the carnage at bloody battlefields like Shiloh, Antietam and Gettysburg have neglected it. Yet the little clashes of 1861 in West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains have a significance long unrecognized.

Sourcebooks proudly presents Rebels at the Gate: Lee and McClellan on the Front Line of a Nation Divided by W. Hunter Lesser, a revealing look into the men behind the war, and the division of a state that could well have been the difference between victory and defeat for the Union.

In a defiant act to sustain President Lincoln’s war effort, Virginia Unionists created their own state government in 1861—destined to become the new state of West Virginia. Their actions blocked what should have been Confederate control of the territory and closed one of their key gateways to the Union states.

Against this backdrop, Union and Confederate troops fought the war’s first campaign. Amid Virginia’s rugged mountains, a Union army led by George B. McClellan grappled with Confederates directed by Robert E. Lee. Both generals fought a great battle, however, Lee lost, almost wrecking his career from the very start of the war.

A microcosm of the great issues that divided a nation, this first campaign secured “Western” Virginia for the Union, dictated future battlegrounds, chiseled raw recruits into hardy veterans and forged leaders who shaped the course of America’s Civil War.

Discussion Questions

1. Why did "Western Virginians" feel so strongly about seceding from the state of Virginia?

2. What obstacles did "Western Virginians" face?

3. Who was originally general-in-chief of the Union armies?

4. Who was nicknamed "the young Napoleon"?

5. How was McClellan able to rise in graces to become commander-in-chief?

6. What kind of relationship did Lincoln have with McClellan?

7. How did Robert E. Lee put his career in jeopardy right at the beginning of the war?

8. How was the division of Virginia instrumental in a Union victory?

9. How could the Confederate forces have taken a stronger lead in the beginning of the Civil War?

10. What scars from the Civil War are still visible in West Virginia and Virginia today?

About the Author

W. Hunter Lesser has had a 20-year career as an archaeologist and is involved with many archaeological and historical preservation groups, including the Civil War Preservation Trust, Trust for Public Land and the National Park Service. Recently, he acted as a technical advisor for the Conservation Fund’s The Civil War Battlefield Guide. He lives in West Virginia.

Praise for Rebels at the Gate

"Digging deep into the sources, pulling out all of its human drama, and writing it with style, insight, and perspective, Hunter Lesser has fashioned what will now be the standard work on the military and political struggle for Western Virginia in the Civil War."

— John C. Waugh, author of The Class of 1846

"People tend to forget that the first land campaign of the Civil War was fought in Virginia, but in what is today West Virginia, a region that both sides thought to be of vital importance in 1861, as indeed it was. W. Hunter Lesser's Rebels at the Gate is the first study of this campaign in generations, and surely the finest to date, thoroughly researched, thoughtfully presented, and riddled with the future great lights of the war: Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, William Rosecrans, and more. Only the Civil War could have produced battles at places with names like Traveler's Repose, and perhaps only a West Virginian like Hunter Lesser could have produced this fine study."

— William C. Davis, author and two-time Pulitzer Prize Nominee

Now Available at The West Virginia Book Company