Jarboe's Blockhouse

Jarboe's Blockhouse. Guarding Patterson Creek Valley. , Earthworks and other remnants of Union Capt. James A. Jarboe's blockhouse are located nearby, where Jarboe's Co. I, 10th West Virginia Infantry, guarded the Morgantown and Patterson Creek roads intersection. The company also escorted the supply trains that traveled between Fort Mulligan, nine miles south at Petersburg, and the depots at Burlington north of here., Confederate forces periodically raided the Patterson Creek Valley to disrupt the supply route. During the first week of September 1863, Jarboe's company clashed nearby with Capt. George W. Imboden's cavalry. Although Imboden reportedly shot and mortally wounded Jarboe, Jarboe survived to take part in the lastfights near Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in April 1865., On January 3, 1864, Confederate Gen. Thomas L. Rosser and 3,000 cavalrymen attacked a wagon train at Moorefield Junction about two miles northeast of here near Lahmansville. They captured about 100 wagons and 100 Union soldiers and burned area blockhouses, including Jarboe'. The prisoners were sent to Richmond, Virginia. Late in February, many were transferred to the prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, where few survived., Pvt. Ransom T. Powell, of Eckhart Mines, Maryland, was among the 20 members of Co. I sent to Andersonville. He ran away from home in 1862, when he was only 13, to join the army as a drummer. Capt. Henry Wirz, the camp commander, made Powell (called "Little Red Cap" for his small size and red-crowned forage cap) his orderly. Powell helped get food to his comrades, survived captivity, returned home when exchanged in October 1864, and died in 1899 in Marietta, Ohio.