As October 1864 approached, Confederate General Marmaduke's forces advanced on Washington, Missouri, causing fear and panic among residents, many of whom crossed the river while the School Sisters of Notre Dame at Saint Francis Borgia Parish grade school remained with the girls in their care and prayed for protection. At dawn on October 2, several citizens surrendered the community under white flags, and although the troops did not treat the surrendered citizens kindly, the sisters and their female students received the general's protection. After plundering ceased toward evening, a Confederate officer believed to be Captain Joseph Moore, a commissary officer with the 1st Arkansas Infantry who said he had been educated by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, brought materials, supplies, and gifts to the sisters, and they returned as many items as possible to rightful owners because they believed some had been plundered. The main body of Marmaduke's troops left that evening, and a remaining company set fire to the railroad depot on the riverfront to prevent further Union use of the railroads. Alarmed that embers might spread to the convent at the northwest corner of Elm and Main Streets, the sisters pumped water on a wooden fence, and when a nearby building caught fire and petroleum barrels exploded, Confederate soldiers, responding to the sisters' pleas, fetched equipment from the local firehouse and extinguished the fire so the convent would not be endangered before leaving town. Washington's river and railroad had made it prosperous but also vulnerable during the Civil War, and on September 28, 1864, Major General Rosecrans ordered Captain Julius Wilhelmi and prominent citizens to secure the steam ferry boats and, if necessary, destroy them. The Bright Star and local skiffs were secured, preventing Confederate capture and access to the north side of the Missouri River, while Union troops in Washington were too few and too poorly supplied to resist the larger Confederate force. An attack began at daybreak on October 2 after militia and civilians had been ordered during the preceding night to evacuate to the north side of the river by the Bright Star and other boats, though not all civilians complied and some died; the militia moved toward the Saint Charles area, came under fire near South Point, saw the South Point train station and the Dubois Creek Bridge burning, and the 54th Enrolled Missouri Militia returned on October 5 after the Confederates departed, after which its headquarters was sent to Pacific for railroad guard duty in Franklin County. The conflict also divided the Gale family of Washington: Daniel Quimby Gale, born in 1807, moved to Missouri in the 1830s, became a lawyer and officeholder in Washington, served on its first Board of Trustees, was postmaster for nine years, and in August 1862 entered Union service as commander of the 54th Enrolled Missouri Militia for most of the war, except for a brief suspension during an investigation into the death of James Barnes. His eldest child, Daniel Oscar Quimby Gale, born in 1831, chose the Confederate side, joining the Missouri State Guard on May 6, 1861, later entering Confederate service on October 23, 1861, and serving as a captain and commissary officer in Marmaduke's Division of Cavalry through the end of the war, when he was captured and paroled at Shreveport, Louisiana, on June 7, 1865; during Price's Raid he was in Washington and reportedly visited some of his family, then returned home after the war, dying in 1866, while his father died in 1894, and both were buried in Wildey Cemetery in Washington.