On May 26, 1864, Union Gen. David Hunter marched south from Cedar Creek near Winchester to drive out Confederate forces, lay waste to the Shenandoah Valley, and destroy transportation facilities at Lynchburg as part of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s strategy to attack Confederates simultaneously throughout Virginia. After defeating Gen. William E. “Grumble” Jones at Piedmont on June 5, Hunter marched to Lexington, burned Virginia Military Institute, and headed to Lynchburg. Late in the afternoon of June 16, the lead elements of Hunter’s army clashed near New London with the cavalry of Confederate Gens. John McCausland and John D. Imboden, whose few thousand dismounted men had slowed Hunter’s march for several days while delaying the Union advance on Lynchburg until Gen. Jubal A. Early could arrive there with his corps. Union Gen. William W. Averell’s cavalry, in advance of the Federal army, struck the Confederate lines and was repulsed, and after Averell sent a courier to Hunter, Hunter instructed Gen. George Crook to assist him. Although Averell continued to bring men forward, he made no attempt to strike hard at the Confederate lines. About dark, Crook’s infantry arrived, and as the 12th and 91st Ohio Infantry Regiments charged, they were warmly engaged. The Confederate cavalry withdrew under cover of a rearguard action, and at the next creek east of New London, Imboden formed another line. As darkness fell, Crook called off his attack. Hunter then decided to go into camp instead of marching toward Lynchburg, missing what was described as his only chance to capture the city. At Lynchburg on June 17-18, Gen. Jubal A. Early repulsed Hunter and pursued him to West Virginia, then turned north in July to threaten Washington. New London Academy, opened here in 1795 and the oldest continuously operating public secondary school in the Commonwealth of Virginia, remained open during the Civil War. Its brick building was constructed in 1837-39, an extant out-building was the original school kitchen, and Union soldiers ransacked the Academy during Hunter’s Raid.