The Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg.
The strategic importance of the city of Lynchburg was very little understood by those directing the military movements of the Federal armies during the Civil War, or, if understood, there was much lack of nerve in the endeavor to seize it.
It was the depot for the Army of Northern Virginia for all commissary and quartermaster stores gathered from the productive territory lying between it and Knoxville, Tennessee, and from all the country tributary to, and drained by, the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. Here, also, were stored many of the scant medical supplies of the Confederacy, and here many hospitals gave accommodation to the sick and wounded from the martial lines north and east of it. Lynchburg was, in addition, the key to the inside line of communication which enabled the Confederate troops to be moved from our northern to our eastern lines of defence, without exciting the attention of the enemy.
Under these circumstances, it can well be understood that the Confederate authorities were ever on the alert to guard so important a post. They relied, however, on the facility with which its garrison could be reinforced, when threatened, and not on an army of occupation, for it could not afford to keep so many troops idle.
Though equally important to the success of the Northern armies, in their operations in Virginia, no serious effort was directed against it until the spring of 1864.
On the 6th of June, 1864, General Grant wrote from the lines around Richmond to General David Hunter, then commanding the Department of West Virginia, informing him that General Sheridan would leave the next day for Charlottesville for the purpose of destroying the Central (now the Chesapeake & Ohio) Railway. Having given this information, he directed General Hunter to operate with the same general end in view, adding that "the complete destruction of this road and of the canal on the James River is of great importance to us." He further says, "you [Hunter] are to proceed to Lynchburg and commence there. It would be of great value to us to get possession of Lynchburg for a single day."
According to this letter, Hunter, after reaching Staunton, was to move on Lynchburg, via Charlottesville, and thence along what Grant calls "the Lynchburg branch of the Central Road," meaning the Lynchburg extension of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad. Having captured Lynchburg and destroyed the bridges and vast stores there concentrated, he was to return by the same route, join Sheridan, and together they were to move east and unite with Grant, who then proposed to move his whole army south of the James and make his attack on Lee at, and south of, Petersburg. (70 War of Rebellion, 598.)
Hunter was given some latitude as to how he should execute this order and as to the best mode of reaching Lynchburg. It seems he determined to move up the Valley, and to that end called on General William W. Averell to "suggest a plan of operations, the purpose of which was the capture of Lynchburg and the destruction of the railroads running from that place in five days." (Id. 146.)
During the first three years of the war, raids were made upon the line of the Virginia & Tennessee Railway (now Norfolk & Western) west of Lynchburg, for the purpose of destroying Lee's communications with the South and Southwest over that important conduit of supplies.
By these raids some damage was done by burning depots and overturning bridges, but none which caused any permanent injury or produced any serious delay in transportation over it. Except for local panics and the destruction of a small amount of property, these raids were, from a strategic point of view, a useless expenditure of military strength. They did, however, fortunately direct the attention of the Confederate authorities to the importance of this line and greatly increase their vigilance.