the war (April–December 1861). The Union casualties are estimated at 137 and Confederate casualties at 147. Johnson would receive the nickname "Allegheny" Johnson for his role at the battle and for commanding the forbidding mountain post. Ironically, the Confederates had received orders to withdraw a few days prior to the battle. But the failed Union assault convinced the Confederate higher command to reinforce Johnson's force in place at Camp Allegheny with five regiments through the remainder of the harsh winter of 1861–62. The weather was bitter snow was often knee deep, something the southern soldiers, mainly from Georgia and Virginia, were not accustomed to. The toll on the Confederate troops was brutal. On March 18, 1862, prior to the subsequent Battle of McDowell in Highland County (May 8, 1862,) Johnson, by then promoted to General, had roughly 4,000 men stationed at Camp Allegheny in Pocahontas County, but his effective strength was only 2,784, as nearly 1,200 men were sick or unavailable. After the Battle of Camp Allegheny, Johnson also knew that the post was vulnerable to being flanked, and believed that Shenandoah Mountain, 40 miles to the southeast, was a better position to defend the Staunton to Parkerburgs Pike and the approaches to the Shenandoah Valley. Combined with the loss of men in the harsh mountain winter and the logistical challenges of keeping the remote mountain post effectively supplied, General Robert E. Lee agreed to let Johnson abandon the post in favor of Shenandoah Mountain on April 2, 1862. By April 6, 1862, Johnson's constructed Fort Edward Johnson at the site on Shenandoah Mountain, just 26 miles west of Staunton. However, the new fortification was soon abandoned on April 19, when Johnson left to rendezvous with the Confederate Army of Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in advance of the Battle of McDowell. The battles in the rugged and mountainous region of western Virginia were small by later standards but left an enduring footprint because those counties that were in Union control formed the nucleus of the new state of West Virginia. Because of the Battle of Camp Allegheny (and the subsequent Battle of McDowell,) the future state line between Virginia and West Virginia would begin and stop at the Pocohantas and Highland County line, even though the counties shared the same geographic traits and mountain culture. Neither Pocahontas County nor Highland County participated in the creation of West Virginia, but Pocahontas