Qualla: Fort Edward Johnson

Fort Edward Johnson: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Four thousand men dug them with hand tools in April 1862. The breastworks - low earth-and-log fortifications meant to shelter Confederate riflemen behind cover - snaked along the crest of Shenandoah Mountain on top of the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, 26 miles west of Staunton, Virginia. They were dug at the order of Colonel Edward "Alleghany" Johnson, who had already earned his nickname holding the high ground at Camp Allegheny four months earlier. The Union army that the breastworks were meant to stop never tested them. By summer 1862, the strategic situation had shifted, the Army of the Northwest had moved east to support Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign, and the fort was abandoned. The earthworks remain. You can still walk them today, sheltered inside the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fort Edward Johnson: The Hill Above the Turnpike

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike was the principal east-west road across the central Alleghenies, authorized in 1838 and built in stages through the 1840s to connect the Shenandoah Valley with the Ohio River. Whoever controlled the turnpike controlled the flow of supplies and tr...

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Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fort Edward Johnson: Alleghany Johnson Returns

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pete unseth, CC BY-SA 4.0. Colonel Edward Johnson, the same officer who had defended Camp Allegheny on December 13, 1861, commanded the brigade. The Camp Allegheny defense had earned him the nickname "Alleghany Johnson" - a permanent part of his military reputation for the rest of his career. At Camp Alleg...

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Image: Pete unseth | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fort Edward Johnson: Never Attacked

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Blinutne assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The fortifications were finished in late April 1862. They were never attacked. The Union army that had been threatening the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike turned its attention east toward the Shenandoah Valley itself, where Stonewall Jackson had launched the campaign that would ma...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Blinutne assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fort Edward Johnson: Walking the Breastworks Today

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nyttend, Public domain. A half-mile interpretive walkway leads from a parking area adjacent to U.S. Route 250 - the modern highway descended from the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike - through the surviving breastworks. The path is gentle, suitable for casual visitors as well as students of Civil War milit...

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Image: Nyttend | Public domain