Gauley Bridge

Gauley Bridge. Gateway to the Kanawha Valley. , Smoke filled the sky over Gauley Bridge on July 26, 1861, as Confederate Gen. Henry B. Wise's soldiers torched the Kanawha River bridge that stood on the piers directly in front of you. That destruction, however, did not prevent Union Gen. Jacob Cox and his 3,000 men from capturing the eastern gateway to the Kanawha Valley a few days later., Cox's men constructed a wire suspension bridge by early 1862, and Union forces occupied the area until September, when Confederate Gen. William W. Loring drove out the Union garrison. Loring destroyed the second bridge on September 11. The Confederates soon abandoned the Kanawha Valley, however, and it remained in Union hands until the end of the war., (captions) , Formerly enslaved African Americans, like these men photographed in Virginia during the war, found new opportunity and respect through their work. - Courtesy Library of Congress, In 1861, Gen. Jacob D. Cox wrote, "nothing could be more romantically beautiful than the situation of the post at Gauley Bridge." Courtesy Library of Congress, Union pickets keep an eye on things from their post above the Kanawha River. Note the piers of the burnt bridge, and the makeshift ferry raft transporting soldiers across the river. - Courtesy Library of Congress, View of the 1862 U.S. Army Suspension Bridge. - Courtesy West Virginia Division of Culture and History, (sidebar) Avenue Of New Opportunity , The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, constructed between 1869 and 1873 along the New and Kanawha rivers, helped open the Southern West Virginia coalfields to mining. Formerly enslaved Blacks found work opportunities to build new lives. Ex-Confederate Jedidiah Hotchkiss wrote in 1873: "It [the road] was built almost entirely by the labor of negroes, who here proved themselves admirable and trustworthy workmen; sober, equal to the severest toil, and winning the good opinion of everyone. These blacks...[were] all formerly slaves in Eastern. Virginia ...."