Indiantown, a commercial center with a shipyard, store, and mill, became a focal point for military activity during the Civil War. On June 10, 1862, U.S. Navy Lt. Charles W. Flusser led several gunboats up the North River to capture a prominent secessionist there and seize the schooner Scuppernong, which was carrying oak timber bound for a Confederate shipyard; when he could not tow it away, he burned the vessel and its cargo nearby. John Boushell had built the ship in 1853 as a Dismal Swamp Canal schooner, and under owner S.S. Simmons it had sailed to ports such as New York with corn, wheat, and lumber before J. Lawrence bought it in 1856 and the Confederates later used it to transport military cargo. North Carolina archaeologists located the wreck near there in the 1990s. Union forces also searched in Currituck and neighboring counties for men the Federals called guerrillas and the Confederates regarded as regularly organized home defense troops. One such unit, Capt. Willis B. Sanderlin’s Co. B, 68th North Carolina State Troops, was raised in July 1863 in Camden County and included Currituck County natives. In December 1863, Union Gen. Edward A. Wild led an expedition into the county against Sanderlin’s and other units, and a column under Col. Alonzo G. Draper fought at Indiantown Bridge before pursuing the force into a swamp, burning their camp, taking guns, ammunition, a drum, clothes, and provisions, and then burning neighboring houses, including Sanderlin’s, before marching to Currituck Court-House. According to local tradition, fiddler Bill Hutchins was playing at a nearby dance when word came that Union troops were heading to Indiantown Bridge, after which the men went to the bridge and took up the boards while the women went home.