Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

In further exemplification of the difference between the troops of the Confederate States and those of the United States, before either had been trained in war, I will cite an affair which occurred on the upper Potomac. Colonel A. P. Hill, commanding a brigade at Romney, in western Virginia, having learned that the enemy had a command at the twenty-first bridge on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, decided to attack it and to destroy the bridge, so as to interrupt the use of that important line of the enemy's communication. For this purpose he ordered Colonel John C. Vaughn of the Third Tennessee Volunteers to proceed with a detachment of two companies of his regiment and two companies of the Thirteenth Virginia Volunteers to the position where the enemy were reported to be posted.

Colonel Vaughn reports that on June 18, 1861, at 8 P. M., he moved with his command as ordered, marched eighteen miles, and at 5 A. M. the next morning found the enemy on the north bank of the Potomac in some strength of infantry and with two pieces of artillery. He had no picket guards.

After reconnaissance, the order to charge was given. It was necessary, in the execution of the order, to ford the river waist-deep, which Colonel Vaughn reports “was gallantly executed in good order but with great enthusiasm. As we appeared in sight at a distance of four hundred yards, the enemy broke and fled in all directions, firing as they ran only a few random shots. . . . The enemy did not wait to fire their artillery, which we captured, both guns loaded; they were, however, spiked by the enemy before he fled. From the best information, their number was between two and three hundred.”

Colonel Vaughn further states that, in pursuance of orders, he fired the bridge and then retired, bringing away the two guns and the enemy's flag, and other articles of little value which had been captured, and arrived at brigade headquarters in the evening with his command in high spirits and good condition.

Colonel A. P. Hill, the energetic brigade commander who directed this expedition, left the United States army when the state, which had given him to the military service of the general government, passed her ordinance of secession. The vigilance and enterprise he manifested on this early occasion in the war of the states gave promise of the brilliant career which gained for him the high rank of a lieutenant general, and