When Virginia seceded from the United States in 1861, its western counties showed very little popular support for the Confederacy, and loyalist bands of bushwhackers, partisans and guerillas drove most Southern sympathizers from the region. Most inconvenient for the Confederacy was the fact that these counties housed the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which connected Washington with the Midwests vast wealth of manpower and supplies. This work covers the Confederacys 1863 attempt to invade West Virginia and destroy the critical B&O, line. Rich with oral history, the book gives a detailed, personal account of the ultimately unsuccessful Jones-Imboden Raid.