The Buffalo Guards were organized by William E. Fife in Putnam County, (West) Virginia, as a state militia company in 1859. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Guards were combined with other local units and organized for Confederate service as the Second Kanawha Regiment, Virginia State Troops, under the command of Colonel (Later General) John McCausland. On July 15, 1861, the Second Kanawha was mustered into the Confederate Army as the 36th Virginia Infantry, with the original Buffalo Guards forming Company A of the regiment. For the most part, the regiment operated in southwestern Virginia and what is now southern West Virginia, participating in--among others--the Battle of Carnifex Ferry, the Kanawha Valley Campaign of 1862, the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864. (In Tennessee, the 36th participated in the Battle of Fort Donelson in February, 1862.) The regiment disbanded in Montgomery County, Virginia, on April 12, 1865, upon receiving news of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.