In the early morning of Saturday, June 11, 1864, Confederate General John McCausland and about 1,500 soldiers lined the riverbank at Jordan’s Point between a cedar thicket and the warehouses at the canal landing, with a Confederate artillery section stretched up the bluff behind. By mid-morning, General David Hunter’s 18,000 Union infantry and artillery occupied the hillside across the river on their way to Lynchburg to destroy railroad facilities there. Two of Hunter’s infantry divisions under Generals George Crook and Jeremiah C. Sullivan attempted to cross the North River here and a mile upstream at Leyburn’s Ford, while General William W. Averill’s cavalry division crossed several miles upstream and to the west. McCausland burned the covered bridge after recalling his skirmishers from the far bank. Union General Rutherford B. Hayes, later the nineteenth president, commanded the first Federals to reach the opposite bank. After several hours of skirmishing while Hunter’s forces consolidated, McCausland withdrew by mid-afternoon, opening the road to Lexington. The Confederates retreated to Buchanan and then Lynchburg. The next day, Hunter ordered the burning of the Institute and the home of former Virginia Governor John Letcher, and the library and classrooms of Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, along with many local residences, were ransacked. Hunter left Lexington for Lynchburg on June 14.