Darnestown

Darnestown. Confederate Visit. On June 25-27, 1863, the Federal Army of the Potomac used two temporary pontoon bridges to cross the Potomac River from Virginia back into Maryland at Edwards Ferry. On the evening and morning of June 27-28, Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart led 5,000 cavalrymen in three brigades into Maryland at Rowsers Ford. His men captured and questioned local Chesapeake and Ohio Canal boatmen who provided information that led to the seizure of several vessels, including a barge with 150 U.S. Colored Troops and their white commanders. Stuart's men, however, never went to Edwards Ferry, where stockpiles of supplies that would later be used at Gettysburg were lightly guarded. , Splitting his force into two columns to rendezvous later that day at Rockville, Stuart led two brigades south while Gen. Wade Hampton's brigade turned north up Seneca Road to Darnestown, becoming the first Confederate force to enter the small town. Near hear, Hampton captured 25 teams of mules heading for Edwards Ferry to haul pontoons from the dismantled bridges back to Washington. , (sidebar) During the war, 27 Union soldiers who died in or near Darnestown were buried in the cemetery behind the 1855 Presbyterian Church (1 mile south). Their remains, along with those of 265 other Union soldiers, were recovered from numerous sites in Montgomery County between October 23, 1865, and July 3, 1866, and reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery.