On June 3, 1861, at 4:30 a.m., Matilda Humphrey, whose house stood on the hill to the left, fired a pistol at Col. Ebenezer Dumont's Union troops as she tried to pull her son Oliver off his horse and stop him from warning nearby Confederate troops of their presence, an act that started the first large Civil War land battle. Dumont's 1,400 men were part of an army of more than 3,000 troops that Gen. George B. McClellan had ordered to Grafton, about 13 miles north, to protect the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. McClellan also needed to protect the covered bridge here, so he sent troops to Philippi to drive the Confederates away. Dumont's men took a train five miles west of Grafton to Webster, then marched south over rough roads in a driving rain. Union Col. Frederick Lander had been ordered not to fire until he heard a signal gun, but not realizing Mrs. Humphrey's gunshot was unofficial, he ordered his artillery to open fire. The blast startled Confederate commander Col. George Porterfield out of bed, and he began evacuating his 900 inexperienced recruits as the fight at Philippi began. Built in 1852, the covered bridge survived the 1861 battle, but retreating Union soldiers cut it up before the Jones-Imboden Raid of 1863. That May, Confederate soldiers threatened to burn the bridge, but local minister Elder Corder persuaded them not to, and much of the structure remains original today.