In the Civil War, the struggle for Rowlesburg centered on the B&O Railroad bridges over Cheat River and nearby Tray Run, whose destruction could have severed a vital rail link between the Army of the Potomac and volunteers from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. After an earlier unsuccessful Confederate move toward Rowlesburg in 1861, Federal forces had built up the town’s defenses, though by April 26, 1863, the garrison had been reduced to about 300 men under Major John Showalter. On that day, General W. E. Jones led 1500 Confederate cavalry in the northern prong of the Jones-Imboden Raid, advancing from Red House, Maryland, after defeating a Union garrison at Greenleaf Gap. From a position upriver, Jones sent Col. Green against the river road defenses and ordered Captain Weems with one hundred dismounted troopers over Palmer’s Knob to strike and burn the east end of the railroad bridge at all hazard. As Green’s attack began, Weems’s men descended the mountain toward the bridge, but Union soldiers and townspeople concealed behind the railroad embankment and armed with Enfield rifled muskets held their fire until the Confederates came within easy rifle range, then unleashed devastating fire. Other accounts say the attackers were also hit by sharpshooters, townsfolk, and cannon fire from Cannon Hill, and within half an hour the Confederate force had retreated in full. The attack on the bridge failed completely, the bridges remained intact, and Rowlesburg preserved the railroad line known to Federals as Lincoln’s Lifeline.