Buffington Island Battlefield Preservation Foundation

We are a non-profit, all-volunteer organization of historians, history buffs, and citizens who are joined to help preserve, interpret, and increase public understanding of Ohio’s largest American Civil War battlefield. The Buffington Island battlefield is located at Portland in Meigs County, in southeastern Ohio. The battle was fought on July 19, 1863, and marked the apex of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan’s Great Raid (July 2-26, 1863), also known as the Indiana-Ohio Raid, or simply the Ohio Raid.

According to Frederick Dyer's "Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," Buffington Island was the largest Civil War engagement fought north of the Ohio River. Nearly 3,000 Federals and 1,800 Confederates were engaged in the two-hour fight. Four arms of the military -- cavalry, infantry, artillery, and navy -- participated in the battle, either in a fighting or reserve capacity. Very few battles fought in the American interior hold this distinction. Based on the most trusted primary sources available, the total casualties from the battle were 57 killed, 63 wounded, and 71 captured on the Confederate side, and 6 killed and 20 wounded on the Union side. An additional 450 Confederates were captured (about 100 of whom were walking wounded) off the battlefield in either eastern Meigs County or along the West Virginia shore of the Ohio River. Union official records unfortunately lumped these captures together with those made on the battlefield, which, along with other exaggerations and misinformation, has caused great confusion among historians concerning the numbers of men engaged and the numbers of casualties. For example, in the "War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederates Armies, Ser. 1, Vol. 23, Pt.1", Union brigadier general Henry Judah claimed that 2,300 Confederates were captured at or near Buffington Island, yet Morgan's right-hand man, Colonel Basil Duke, indicated that just over 1,900 raiders were present on the night prior to the battle and that over 1,000 of them escaped from the battlefield under General Morgan's leadership. Also, Confederate accounts indicate that about 110 of them successfully crossed the Ohio River prior to the first shots being fired.

Contrary to its name, none of the battle was actually fought on the island in the Ohio River. The battle's name was taken from the well-known river ford located at the head of the island. All the fighting occurred on the Ohio side of the river in the bottomland surrounding the town of Portland. The battle covered about 1,236 acres, which the American Battlefield Protection Program (of the National Park Service) has classified as "Core Area." The Civil War Sites Advisory Commission has listed Buffington Island as one of the 384 battlefields that should be preserved from among the 10,500 Civil War armed conflict sites (see http://www.nps.gov/abpp/civil.htm).

Please continue to watch here for more details on the latest preservation news, new interpretation improvements, upcoming battlefield education events, and recent historical findings on the Battle of Buffington Island.