Jordan’s Point
“A day I will never forget . . . ” Margaret Junkin Preston diary, June 12, 1864
On this spot, in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 11, 1864, Confederate Gen. John McCausland and about 1,500 gray-clad soldiers lined the riverbank between a cedar thicket and the warehouses that cluttered the canal landing. They stretched up the bluff behind you where a Confederate artillery section was located. By mid-morning, Gen. David Hunter’s 18,000 Union infantry and artillery occupied the hillside across the river in front of you, en route to Lynchburg to destroy the railroad facilities there. Two of Hunter’s infantry divisions under Gens. George Crook and Jeremiah C. Sullivan attempted to cross the North River here and a mile upstream at Leyburn’s Ford, while Gen. William W. Averill’s cavalry division crossed several miles upstream and to the west.
McCausland torched the covered bridge (the stone abutments are still visible) after calling in his skirmishers from the far bank. Union Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes, later out 19th president, commanded the first Federals to arrive on the opposite bank. Several hours of skirmishing followed while Hunter’s forces consolidated their position. By mid-afternoon, McCausland ordered a withdrawal, leaving open the road to Lexington. The Confederates retreated to Buchanan and then Lynchburg. The following day, Hunter ordered the Institute and the home of former Virginia Governor John Letcher burned. The library and classrooms of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) as well as many local residences, were ransacked. Hunter departed Lexington for Lynchburg on June 14.
Marker is at the intersection of Moses Mill Road (Stono Lane) and Saunders Drive (Woods Creek Service Road), on the right when traveling north on Moses Mill Road (Stono Lane).
Courtesy hmdb.org
