[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN McCAUSLAND. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN LYNCHBURG DURING THE WAR.] Campaign and Battle OF Lynchburg, Va. By CHARLES M. BLACKFORD, OF THE LYNCHBURG BAR. Delivered by Request of the Garland-Rodes Camp of Confederate Veterans of Lynchburg, Virginia, JUNE 18th, 1901. PRESS OF J.P. BELL COMPANY, LYNCHBURG, VA. PREFACE. During the winter of 1901, the Garland-Rodes Camp of Confederate Veterans of the City of Lynchburg passed a resolution requesting their comrade, Captain Chas. M. Blackford, of Company B, Second Virginia Cavalry, C.S.A., to prepare an address upon the Campaign and Battle of Lynchburg, which was to be delivered on June 18, 1901, the thirty-seventh anniversary of the events of which he was to speak. Captain Blackford consented to do this work, and did it so much to the satisfaction of the Camp that it ordered his address to be printed as a valuable contribution to the history of the war and the traditions of our city. It is now presented to our citizens and to all who are interested in the details of our great struggle. The Committee have also added, as a matter of local history, a roster of the various volunteer companies which left here when the war commenced. Many names were added afterwards, but it is to be regretted that the list cannot be perfected. Jno. H. Lewis, Chairman, N.J. Floyd, R.H. Boatwright, W. Barbour Jones, H. Grey Latham, Committee. _December 10, 1901._ 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.