Crossing Towards an Uncertain Future

Early 20th Century postcard of the rebuilt bridge over Cedar Creek.

Courtesy of Shenandoah County Library

Countless soldiers crossed Cedar Creek at the Historic Turnpike Crossing during the Civil War. Armies moved north and south on the Valley Turnpike during major campaigns in 1862, 1863, and 1864. The armies burned the bridge many times to delay enemy travel. Often soldiers marched across this bridge not knowing what might happen to them. During the Battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, different groups crossed here under different circumstances, but each faced an uncertain future.

Confederate Surprise Attack

The early morning began with surprise attacks south of this crossing. Confederate infantry flanked the US Army trenches guarding the bridge. They forced the 19th Corps to retreat. Gen. Gabriel Wharton’s Virginians crossed on and around the bridge before continuing towards Belle Grove. Confederate infantry secured the bridge. Their artillery, supply wagons, and hospital ambulances rolled across. These soldiers did not know what awaited them for the rest of the day. They knew more fighting was ahead. Confederates captured George Putnam of the 176th New York Infantry in the chaotic, foggy darkness of the initial attack. They searched Putnam and other prisoners for valuables like money or good shoes. The tired and hungry captives then began a “weary march across the bridge at Cedar Creek and southward along the pike” toward imprisonment.

Field Hospital

A Confederate surgeon wrote he “did not cross over the bridge but established their hospitals on the western side.” The Daniel Stickley farm, across the bridge on the Strasburg side of the creek, turned into a hospital. Ambulances and healthy comrades carried wounded soldiers over the bridge. Other wounded walked there on their own. The Stickleys' furniture became hospital beds and operating tables. Mary Stickley remembered a gruesome aftermath. She said, “Father cleared the blood off with a shovel.”

1864 sketch of the Daniel Stickley farm, illustrated by war correspondent James Taylor.

Courtesy of Western Reserve Historical Society

Federal Counterattack

Late in the afternoon of October 19, US troops began an enormous counterattack. Charles Hover of the 128th New York Infantry, captured that morning, heard the noise of the counterattack. He remembered hoping for rescue. Instead, he watched Confederate doctors evacuate. Their captors hurried him and his fellow prisoners hurried southward towards prison. From a hill near Strasburg, he looked back. He saw Confederates in chaos, “coming pell-mell down the road to the bridge and the creek.”

Federal forces swept south. They drove the Confederate army before them. US cavalry thundered across this bridge. They seized retreating artillery. They also captured Confederate wounded left at the Stickley farm or in ambulances. They were unable to reach the prisoners before Confederates marched them away. Many captured soldiers died in prisons across the south.

Confederate infantry and artillery, captured US soldiers, wounded Confederates, and charging US cavalry all crossed the bridge. Each time they did so, they faced an uncertain future. The dramatic events and reversals of October 19 were not what any of them had anticipated when the day began.