Before dawn on June 19, 1861, hundreds of Confederate soldiers waded across the Potomac River at New Creek, Virginia, intent on driving off Union defenders and destroying a vital B&O Railroad bridge. The daring raid overwhelmed a small band of local Home Guards, severed an important transportation link, and heightened fears that Lew Wallace’s isolated command at nearby Cumberland, Maryland, would be next.
On June 12, 1861, shortly after arriving in Cumberland, Maryland, on the North Branch of the Potomac River, Col. Lew Wallace and the 11th Indiana Infantry cleared Confederate forces from Romney, Virginia, then returned to Cumberland to secure that strategic town. To counter Wallace’s presence in the region, Confederate Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston sent Col. Ambrose Powell Hill from the Shenandoah Valley with the 3rd Tennessee Infantry, 10th Virginia Infantry, and his own 13th Virginia Infantry to reoccupy Romney.
A former Regular Army officer, Hill resigned his commission to join the Confederacy and went on to have a distinguished wartime record, rising to lieutenant general before being killed during the final retreat from Petersburg. Small in stature, he was known for wearing a distinctive red calico hunting shirt in battle. His expedition reached Romney sometime during the night of June 17. Civilians who had fled town greeted the troops with food while regimental bands serenaded them with patriotic tunes.
Wallace watched this new threat with anxiety. He had repeatedly dispatched pleas for assistance but received none. As a precaution, his men prepared their wagons for a retreat east toward Hancock. “We have been sleeping in our clothes with our arms ready in hourly expectation for the past forty-eight hours,” a private wrote to the Indiana State Sentinel. “We certainly are now in the most dangerous position of any regiment in the United States.”
“I have positive information that there will be four thousand rebel troops at or in Romney to-night, who swear they will follow me to hell but what they will have me,” Wallace wrote frantically to his superiors. In truth, the Confederate force probably numbered about half that.
On the night of June 18, Col. John C. Vaughn marched Companies I and K of the 3rd Tennessee, along with Companies B and I and a detachment from Company K of the 13th Virginia, eighteen miles northwest to New Creek (present-day Keyser) on the North Branch of the Potomac River. A Tennessee Valley native of Scots-Irish ancestry, Vaughn had served in the Mexican-American War but saw no combat. His regiment was the first Confederate unit raised in Tennessee but the third to reach Lynchburg, Virginia, earning the designation “3rd Tennessee.” The men were armed with obsolete smoothbore muskets, which they carried throughout the war.
At New Creek, the river wrapped around Queens Point, a rocky prominence that rises some 400 feet above the basin on the Maryland side. New Creek Station stood on the southwestern side of this bend, west of New Creek, while the small settlement of Paddy Town occupied the east side near Limestone Run. Confederate Col. Angus W. McDonald and his wife, Cornelia, had lived there during the mid-1850s, and one of his sons served as the town’s postmaster. The B&O Railroad crossed the river from Maryland at Bridge No. 21 on the northeastern side of the bend, curved past Paddy Town and New Creek Station, then followed the river westward before crossing back over near Piedmont.
A.P. Hill ordered Vaughn to disperse whatever Union troops were stationed there and burn the bridge spanning the river. When Vaughn arrived around 4 a.m. on Wednesday, June 19, he claimed to have found 200-to-300-armed men guarding the north bank of the Potomac. In fact, the Cumberland Continentals, a Home Guard unit defending the bridge, numbered only twenty-eight to forty men, supported by two small, obsolete cannon.
Vaughn divided his command into two columns. Capt. Robert White, with Company I and the detachment from Company K of the 13th Virginia, both recruited in Romney, crossed downstream east of the bridge, while Vaughn led the rest of the force across upstream to approach from the south.
Among White’s column was twenty-eight-year-old Edward Allen Hitchcock McDonald, one of Angus McDonald’s eleven sons, serving as a private in Company K, the “Hampshire Guard.” Born in Romney, he had managed his father’s sawmill near New Creek. When the column reached the river, it hesitated. A lieutenant turned to Edward for guidance, likely because he had previously served as an officer in the Virginia militia and knew the area well. Raising his musket, Edward shouted, “Men, follow me!” Except for a small rear guard, the entire column waded into the river behind him.
Meanwhile, Vaughn’s column crossed the river upstream and advanced on the farm of Peter Martz, the B&O watchman stationed at the bridge. Martz and his family fled into the fields at the sight of the approaching Confederates. The Continentals formed in the farmyard and fired several volleys. Pvt. William A. Smith of the 3rd Tennessee was struck in the hand, and at least one of the Continentals was wounded.
Realizing they were badly outnumbered and in danger of being surrounded, the militia spiked their two cannon by driving metal into the vents, pushed them into the river, and retreated in haste, leaving behind their flag. The Confederates recovered both cannon and the flag, burned the bridge, cut telegraph wires, and returned to Romney.
Over the following days in Cumberland, Wallace again prepared his men to fight or evacuate if necessary. He positioned wagons loaded with baggage along the main road north into Pennsylvania, then drew up his regiment for battle after scouts reported a rebel force advancing from Romney. “There were a number of curios in my camp, relics of the late raid, and I did not relish the thought of making contributions of the kind in return, not even a handful of beans,” he noted in his memoir.
The expected battle never materialized.
Sources
Civilian and Telegraph (Cumberland, MD) 20 June 1861.
Gordon, Larry. The Last Confederate General: John C. Vaughn and His East Tennessee Cavalry. Zenith Press, 2009.
Haselberger, Fritz and Mark Haselberger. “The Burning of the 21st Bridge at New Creek.” West Virginia History 27 (1965): 56-64.
Lafayette Weekly Courier (Lafayette, IN) 2 July 1861.
Lowdermilk, William H. History of Cumberland, (Maryland) from the Time of the Indian Town, Caiuctucuc, in 1728, Up to the Present Day. James Anglim, 1878.
McDonald, Cornelia. A Diary with Reminiscences of the War and Refugee Life in the Shenandoah Valley, 1860-1865. Ed. Hunter McDonald. Cullom & Ghertner Co., 1934.
Murphy, Terrence V. 10th Virginia Infantry. H.E. Howard, Inc., 1989.
Raftsman Journal (Clearfield, PA) 26 June 1861.
Richmond Dispatch (Richmond, VA) 25 June 1861.
Riggs, David F. 13th Virginia Infantry. H.E. Howard, Inc., 1988.
Staunton Spectator (Staunton, VA) 25 June 1861.
Wallace, Lewis. Lew Wallace: An Autobiography. Vol. 1. Harper & Brothers, 1906.
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Vol. II. With additions and corrections. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1902.
Weekly State Sentinel (Indianapolis, IN) 26 June 1861.
Weekly State Sentinel (Indianapolis, IN) 3 July 1861.
Williams, Flora McDonald. The Glengarry McDonalds of Virginia. Geo. G. Fetter Company, 1911.
Wolfe, William W. History of Keyser, West Virginia 1737-1913. Keyprint, Inc., 1974.
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