Thompson L. Walker, a Confederate soldier in Company B, 23rd Virginia Infantry Battalion, enlisted on July 12, 1862, fought in several engagements in the Greenbrier Valley and at the Battle of Droop Mountain, and was captured in the Shenandoah Valley in the summer of 1863 and confined at Point Lookout, Maryland, where overcrowding, poor sanitation, food shortages, and bad drinking water made conditions horrendous. On May 15, 1865, he signed the oath of allegiance to the United States and was soon paroled, then began the long journey to Mercer County in the new state of West Virginia, crossing rugged terrain and facing threats from Unionists seeking revenge on former Confederates. By mid-June he reached the ridge across the road from here, where Martilia Walker, the youngest daughter of staunch Unionist William Walker and no relation to him, found him hungry and exhausted. She hid him near her home at the bottom of the ridge and, under the pretext of feeding the family cattle, secretly brought him food, medicine, and blankets and nursed him back to health. He remained in the area, and the two fell in love and married on December 11, 1866. They had sixteen children, built a house half a mile south on Bear Branch, and he never returned to his former home in Mercer County. William Walker was an attorney and fervent Unionist who served as a captain in the U.S. Army, was Wyoming County’s only delegate to the Wheeling constitutional convention from November 26, 1861, to February 18, 1862, favored the name West Virginia for the new state, advocated free public education, and was buried in Oceana. According to local tradition, the area was so divided in its loyalties during the war that fistfights between supporters of each side continued for years afterward.