War At The Front Door

War At The Front Door. Littlepage Mansion. , In July 1861, this area swarmed with retreating Confederate troops and pursuing Federal forces. Union Gen. George B. McClellan had ordered Gen. Jacob Cox to march his 3,000 raw Ohio recruits into western Virginia from Gallipolis, Ohio, to drive Confederate Gen. Henry A. Wise and his equally raw troops from the Kanawha Valley. Wise marched downriver from Charleston to confront the Federals. By July 13, Wise’s men had constructed fortifications on the Littlepage Farm to command the junction of the road to Ripley with the valley road leading to Charleston. They also established camp on the property that was named Camp Two Mile for Two Mile Creek., During the war, Adam B.D. Littlepage and his wife Rebecca Littlepage owned the property. According to local tradition, Wise wanted to use the house as his headquarters, but Rebecca Littlepage refused. When the famously short-tempered Wise threatened to blow up the house, she stood staunchly on the front porch, surrounded by her six children. Nobody was willing to fire artillery at a woman and her children, and so the house was spared., Although the house survived, the property suffered extensive damage during the war. Troops dismantled fences and outbuildings for firewood and consumed or confiscated the farm’s livestock. To make matters worse, Adam Littlepage was killed while in Confederate service, leaving his young widow with seven children. She sold large sections of the farm to pay taxes and support her family., The Federal-style house was built in 1845 for Robert Thornton. In 1848, he sold it and the property to Adam B.D. Littlepage and his wife Rebecca Wood Littlepage.