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Music get your podcasts. Hey everyone. Welcome to episode number 488 of our Civil War podcast. I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast. As you guys will recall,

with the last episode, we started to look at the collapse of Grant's peripheral strategy

in Virginia in the spring of 1864. We talked about Crook's expedition out in Western Virginia

and the Battle of Croyd's Mountain, which took place on May 9th. By the end of the last episode, George Crook, despite winning a victory over the Confederates at Cloyd's Mountain,

had decided to call it quits and head back to West Virginia.

On May 14th, his column reached the town of Union just across the border in West Virginia.

The next day, April's federal horsemen rode into town, and for the first time, Crook learned the full story of how the

cavalry had fared. William Averill had left Charleston, West Virginia, late on May 2nd,

and reached Logan Courthouse three days later. From that point, his raid began in earnest,

toiling, quote, up pathless mountains and across torturous streams, end quote, until he reached

Jeffersonville on May 8th. There he met the first enemy opposition and also received reports of

4,500 Confederates at Saltville, whose extensive saltworks were his primary target.

Averill took the reports at face value. However, if he'd scouted more aggressively, he'd have discovered that only

1300 rebels were at Saltville. In any case, turning away from Saltville, Averill headed next

for the lead mines at Weithville, only to find them guarded by 4,500 Confederates, commanded by

...