On the morning of July 2, 1861, Federal troops under Gen. Robert Patterson crossed the Potomac River from Maryland and marched south toward Martinsburg. Colonel Thomas J. Jackson sent his men north from their camp north of town to block them and determine whether they approached in force, as General Joseph E. Johnston had directed; Jackson was to retire if the Federal troops outnumbered his own. After discovering that he was outnumbered, Jackson fought a brief delaying action near Falling Waters, also called Hoke’s Run, and then fell back. He paused here to write Johnston a message about Union strength. Corporal William M. Brown later recalled that as Jackson sat on a large loose round stone on the west side of the road writing, a shot from a Federal battery struck a large white oak tree in the fence corner close to him, showering him and his paper with bark, splinters, and debris. Jackson brushed the debris away with the back of his hand, finished the dispatch, handed it to the courier with his compliments to General Johnston and instructions not to lose time, then remarked that the enemy had gotten their range and that they had better retire. Relieved, the troops near Jackson moved on. Whitonia, the house of William Hill, stood about thirty yards west of here; one of the grand oak trees in its yard was struck by the Union shot. Built in 1785 to replace an earlier log dwelling, the house burned in 1997.
