The Battle of Kessler's Cross Lanes, also known as the Battle of Cross Lanes, took place on August 26, 1861 in Nicholas County, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War.
On August 26, Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, commanding Confederate forces in the Kanawha Valley, crossed the Gauley River to attack Col. Erastus Tyler's 7th Ohio Regiment encamped at Kessler's Cross Lanes. The Union forces were surprised and routed. Floyd then withdrew to the river and took up a defensive position at Carnifex Ferry. During the month, Gen. Robert E. Lee arrived in western Virginia and attempted to coordinate the forces of Brig. Gens. Floyd, Henry A. Wise, and William W. Loring.
Famous quotes containing the words battle, cross and/or lanes:
“Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.”
—Thomas Buchanan Read (1822–1872)
“I know we’re not saints or virgins or lunatics; we know all the lust and lavatory jokes, and most of the dirty people; we can catch buses and count our change and cross the roads and talk real sentences. But our innocence goes awfully deep, and our discreditable secret is that we don’t know anything at all, and our horrid inner secret is that we don’t care that we don’t.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“freeways fifty lanes wide
on a concrete continent
spaced with bland billboards
illustrating imbecile illusions of happiness”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti (b. 1919)