Quaker Meeting House

Quaker Meeting House. The Battle Begins. "The order to fix bayonets was given. The clatter of steel rang along our line and Colonel Turley gave the order to charge the battery." , Sgt. John Holliday, 91st Ohio, Gunfire and cannon blasts exploded around this spot when the Battle of Lynchburg broke out on June 17, 1864. Union cavalry under Gen. William Averell, attacking from your left, were greeted by fierce rifle and artillery fire from 2,000 Confederate cavalrymen entrenched on the ridge to your right, some behind the ruins of the old Quaker Meeting House., The attackers were the vanguard of Union Gen. David Hunter's force marching to capture Lynchburg. The defenders were attempting to hold off the Federals long enough for Confederate Gen. Jubal Early's infantry to arrive., The intense defensive fire forced Averell back, but Union Gen. George Crook's infantry division arrived and renewed the assault. As the 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry advanced your from your left under "a heavy fire of shot and shells," their commander, Col. John A. Turley, fell severely wounded, but Crook and Averell's combined force drove the Confederates back over a mile into their main defenses., But the Confederates' delaying action here and at Fort McCausland, 3 miles north, bought time for the first elements of Early's infantry to arrive, which would prove critical when the battle continued the next day., (captions) , The South River Meeting House, built by Quakers between 1791-1798, was abandoned at the time of the battle and in ruins when this photograph was taken in the 1890s. The meeting house was reconstructed between 1899-1901. Courtesy Lynchburg News and Advance Archives, Col. John A. Turley Courtesy Scioto County Public Library