On the Skirmish Line

Thirty minutes before the main assault, Colonel Hiram Berdan's 1st U.S. Sharpshooters clambered over the fence along the Groveton-Sudley Road and dashed into the open pasture. The skilled marksmen kept up a steady fire with their breech-loading Sharps rifles, driving back Confederate skirmishers. Their advance provoked an angry fusillade from Jackson's men behind the railroad bed. The sharpshooters sought cover and became pinned down here along the dry creek bed. After the war, a veteran of the sharpshooters, George E. Albee, returned to the battlefield to visit the site where he had been wounded. Albee placed a signboard on a tall cedar pole post to denote the location of his company during the attack. Although the Cedar Pole Marker has been replaced through the years, the present sign occupies the same spot as the original.

Virginia · United States