First Battle of a Long War

First Battle of a Long War. The Fight at Philippi. , On June 3, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Matilda Humphrey, whose house stood on the hill to your left, discharged a pistol at Col. Ebenezer Dumont's Union troops, trying to pull her son, Oliver, off his horse and prevent him from warning the local Confederate troops of their presence. She started the first large Civil War land battle., Dumont's 1,400 men were part of an army of more than 3,000 troops that Gen. George B. McClellan had ordered to Grafton, about 13 miles north, to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad., McClellan also needed to protect the covered bridge here, so he sent troops to Philippi to drive the Confederates away. Dumont's men took a train five miles west of Grafton to Webster, then marched south over rough roads in a driving rain., Union Col. Frederick Lander had been ordered not to fire until he heard a signal gun. Not realizing Mrs. Humphrey's gunshot was "unofficial," Lander ordered his artillery to open fire., That blast startled Confederate commander Col. George Porterfield out of bed, and he started to evacuate his 900 green recruits. The fight at Philippi had begun., (Captions) , Postwar image of Col. George A. Porterfield from The History of Barbour County, West Virginia: From Its Earliest Exploration to the Present Time, Col. Ebenezer Dumont Courtesy Library of Congress, Follow in the footsteps of Civil War soldiers and walk across the covered bridge to sign 2., (Sidebar) , Infrastructure Masterpiece
Built in 1852, the covered bridge survived the 1861 battle, only to be cut up by retreating Union soldiers in advance of the Jones-Imboden Raid of 1863. That May, Confederate soldiers threatened to burn the bridge, but were dissuaded by local minister Elder Corder. Much of the structure you see today is original.