Early in 1862, the 11th West Virginia Infantry established an outpost at Arnoldsburg to suppress Confederate guerrilla activity, with Union Maj. George C. Trimble commanding four companies at Camp McDonald, named for former county militia colonel Adonijah McDonald, and many of the soldiers coming from Calhoun County. Confederate guerrillas known as the Moccasin Rangers also recruited county residents; Peregrine Hays and George Silcott of Arnoldsburg organized the Rangers as the 19th Virginia Cavalry, commanded by Capt. George Downs. From 1861 to mid-1862, they raided Union outposts, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike, killed and captured Union sympathizers, recruited soldiers, and acquired supplies and equipment. In May 1862, Downs led Company A, fewer than 100 men, to attack Camp McDonald. Trimble marched two companies up the West Fork of the Little Kanawha River to confront the Confederates, but Downs divided his force and eluded him, and Trimble returned to camp on May 5. That night, under cover of fog, Downs occupied the hills surrounding the camp. The Federals detected the Confederates the next morning and attacked with two detachments while a third occupied Peregrine Hays's house. After the fog lifted, each side directed heavy fire on the other, and almost four hours later the Confederates retreated, though the clash was mistakenly reported as a Union defeat. Casualties were light despite the ammunition expended: one Federal was wounded, while Downs lost two killed and one wounded. The Confederate threat then subsided, and Downs was captured in July near his home on the Little Kanawha River. When Calhoun County was formed from Gilmer County in 1856, the county court first met on April 14 at the mouth of Pine Creek on the Little Kanawha River in the house of Joseph W. Burson, a Moccasin Ranger who was killed in the Arnoldsburg engagement. In September 1856, the court began meeting in Arnoldsburg, but in November voters moved the seat to present-day Brooksville. In 1858 it returned to Arnoldsburg and during the war alternated between that location and Grantsville, before settling permanently in Grantsville in 1869.