In June 1864, to deny Gen. Robert E. Lee use of the South Side Rail Road and the Richmond and Danville Rail Road, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent Gen. James H. Wilson and Gen. August V. Kautz south of Petersburg on a cavalry raid to destroy track and rolling stock. After being repulsed at Staunton River Bridge on June 25, the raiders reached Christiansville, present-day Chase City, about noon on June 26. Fatigued, disorganized, and low on discipline, parties of Federals took farm animals and personal property from area homes. Near Christiansville, about 300 of C.S. Gen. Rufus Barringer’s cavalry brigade, assigned to harass the Federals, struck Wilson’s rear guard, while the raiders also seized grain belonging to the Confederate government for their horses. After the Civil War, emigrants from the North and elsewhere, including many Ohioans and Englishmen, came to Christiansville. As the town grew, its aldermen chose to rename it Chase City in honor of the prominent Ohioan Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and when Chase visited Richmond on April 10, 1873, a town delegation called on him and he approved the change.