On December 1, 1864, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 5,700 cavalrymen east from Knoxville, Tennessee, to destroy iron-, lead-, and saltworks in Virginia that were essential to the Confederate war effort. After actions at Kingsport and Bristol, he struck at Marion, Wytheville, and Austinville, then destroyed the saltworks at Saltville. He returned to Tennessee on January 1, 1865, having laid waste to every factory, railroad, depot, and warehouse in his path. Fountain Beattie, born at the Town House, enlisted in the 1st Va. Cavalry at Abingdon, where he met John S. Mosby, later becoming one of Mosby’s fifteen original Partisan Rangers and his closest confidant. The Middle Fork of the Holston River and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad bed, laid in 1856, lie here, and the ruins of the Beattie family home are visible nearby. In December 1864, after a brief engagement at Abingdon on December 13, Confederate forces retreated and Stoneman's men continued their march, camping the next day at Greever’s Switch along a seven-mile stretch of the railroad. Stoneman soon established his headquarters at the Preston House at Seven Mile Ford, though local tradition holds that he first paused at the Town House, where Claiborne Watkins Beattie's wife greeted him with a gun and ordered him to leave, and he camped for the night at the foot of the hill. The Federals then pushed northward and engaged Confederate forces at Marion, Atkins Tank, Mount Airy, Wytheville, and Austinville before turning west to attack Saltville on December 22, overwhelming the garrison and damaging the saltworks, which resumed limited service within a few weeks.