Swannanoa Gap Engagement - "Blockaded and defended" - Ridgecrest, NC - Civil War Discovery Trail Sites on Waymarking.com

Stoneman's Raid
On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, the North Carolina Railroad, and the Piedmont Railroad. He struck at Boone on March 28, headed into Virginia on April 2, and returned into North Carolina a week later. Stoneman's Raid ended at Asheville on April 26, the day that Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston surrendered to Union Gen. William T. Sherman near Durham.

Union Gen. Alvan C. Gillem, led two brigades of Gen. George Stoneman's raiders from the Jonathan Logan Carson house on April 19, 1865, passing through Old Fort en route. Confederate Gen. James G. Martin, meanwhile, anticipated Gillem's movement and ordered all his forces in western North Carolina to the gap to your left. Martin later wrote: They reached the gap before Gillem did and after cutting down some trees and making some other arrangements to receive the raiders, awaited their approach and when they advanced, repulsed them without any difficulty. The enemy spent two or three days at this Gap but were not able to effect a passage." Gillem, who reported Swannanoa Gap "effectually blockaded and defended," left Col. Joh K. Miller's brigade to hold the Confederates in place with feints while he led the rest of his men to Rutherfordton, 40 miles south of here.

Emma Rankin, who tutored Jonathan L. Carson's children, boarded with the family in the Carso House. As Gillem's cavalrymen approached, she supervised the "biggest burying" she had ever witnessed, concealing Confederate money and hams in a piano-sized hole. Livestock were hidden in the woods. Troops ransacked the house before riding to Swannanoa Gap.

"On the 19th I moved toward Asheville, by way of Swannanoa Gap, reaching the gap on the 20th. I found it to be effectually blockaded and defended by about 500 men with four pieces of artillery. Leaving Col. Miller to deceive the enemy by feints, on the 21st I moved to Rutherford, forty miles south of Swannanoa Gap, and by sundown on the 22nd I had passed the Blue Ridge at Howard's Gap with but slight resistance and was in the enemy's rear." — Gen. Alvan C. Gillem

Type of site: Battlefield Address: 1 Ridgecrest Drive Black Mountain, NC USA 28711 Admission Charged: No Charge Website: [Web Link] Driving Directions: Take the Dunsmore Avenue exit off I-40 and head east on Old US 70 to Yates Avenue. Phone Number: Not listed

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