First Battle of Saltville facts for kids

Quick facts for kids First Battle of Saltville
Part of the American Civil War
View of part of the Saltville battlefield
Date October 2, 1864 (1864-10-02) Location Smyth County, Virginia Result Confederate victory
Belligerents
United States (Union)	CSA (Confederacy)
Commanders and leaders
Stephen G. Burbridge	Alfred E. Jackson
Units involved
5th United States Colored Cavalry	Confederate Home Guard
Strength
5,000–5,200	2,000–2,800
Casualties and losses
450

Map of Saltville I Battlefield core and study areas by the American Battlefield Protection Program

The First Battle of Saltville (October 2, 1864) was fought near the town of Saltville, Virginia, during the American Civil War. The battle over an important Confederate saltworks in town was fought by both regular and Home Guard Confederate units against regular Union troops, which included two of the few black cavalry units of the United States Colored Troops. The Union troops were led by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge, then commander of US forces in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Confederates murdered both black and white wounded soldiers after the battle, in what has been called the Saltville Massacre.

Saltville Massacre

The battle was a Confederate victory. It has become known primarily for the Confederate massacre afterward of both white and black wounded Union troops. Both Confederate soldiers and irregular guerrilla forces under the notorious Champ Ferguson murdered white and black Union soldiers, on the battlefield and later some wounded who were being treated at the field hospital set up at nearby Emory and Henry College. A Union surgeon reported that 5–7 black soldiers and Elza Smith, a white lieutenant, were murdered at the hospital. Ferguson was tried after the war in Nashville, Tennessee, for these and other non-military killings. He was found guilty and executed on October 29, 1865.

Confederate Brig. Gen. Felix Huston Robertson had bragged to another officer that "he had killed nearly all the Negroes." William C. Davis, in his book An Honorable Defeat. The Last Days of the Confederate Government (2001), says that Robertson personally "join(ed) in the act of villainy", although he escaped prosecution. When General Robert E. Lee learned of Robertson's conduct, he communicated to General John C. Breckinridge, Commander of the Department of East Tennessee and West Virginia, his dismay "that a general officer should have been guilty of the crime you mention" and instructed Breckinridge to "prefer charges against him and bring him to trial."

Estimates of the number of men massacred at Saltville vary, with most sources indicating around fifty casualties. Thomas Mays, in his book The Saltville Massacre (1995), argued that 46 Union soldiers were killed. An analysis of the National Archives records by Bryce Suderow, Phyllis Brown, and David Brown concluded that 45–50 members of the 5th and 6th U.S. Colored Cavalry (USCC) were murdered by Confederates. William Marvel had earlier analyzed the same records and concluded in 1991 that "Five black soldiers, wounded and helpless were definitely murdered at Saltville on October 3, and as many as seven more may have suffered the same fate there that day." He said as many as two dozen Union men may have been murdered.

Second battle

The Second Battle of Saltville took place two months later at Saltville.

Battlefield preservation

The Civil War Trust (a division of the American Battlefield Trust) and its partners have acquired and preserved 107 acres (0.43 km²) of the Saltville battlefields.