On April 20, 1863, Confederate generals William E. “Grumble” Jones and John D. Imboden began a raid from Virginia through present-day West Virginia against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Taking separate routes, they later reported that they marched 1,100 miles, fought several engagements, captured 100 Federals, seized about 1,200 horses and 4,000 cattle, and burned 4 turnpike bridges, more than 20 railroad bridges, 2 trains, and 150,000 barrels of oil. Most bridges were soon repaired, Confederate losses were slight, and by May 26 both commands had returned to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. During the April 1863 Jones-Imboden Raid, Jones moved toward Clarksburg from the north after attacking Fairmont while Imboden approached from the east, but Jones found the Union fortifications around Clarksburg too strong to attack and instead raided the surrounding area for horses and cattle sent back to the Shenandoah Valley. On April 30, a detachment of the 1st Maryland Cavalry Battalion under Capt. Frank A. Bond attacked Bridgeport. Lt. Timothy Blaine of Company E, 3rd West Virginia Cavalry, with 85 cavalrymen and 20 civilians from Clarksburg, attacked Jones’s men at the West Fork River Ford seven miles north of here. The Confederates drove through to Bridgeport, captured 47 Federal soldiers with their arms and a few horses, then burned a railroad bridge and tore up track. A boxcar full of government carpenters’ tools was also burned, and a locomotive was run off the tracks and into Simpson Creek where the Federals had burned the bridge to deny its use to the Confederates. The Union soldiers were paroled, and Jones’s raiders moved on to Philippi.