In June 1864, to deny Gen. Robert E. Lee use of the South Side R.R. and the Richmond and Danville R.R., Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sent Gen. James H. Wilson and Gen. August V. Kautz south of Petersburg on a cavalry raid to destroy track, rolling stock, and the Staunton River Bridge. On the morning of June 23, Confederate Capt. Benjamin L. Farinholt dispatched a courier from the bridge to Halifax, then called Banister Town, requesting reinforcements. Capt. William B. Hurt mustered his company of home guards, composed of old men from the community, and Headmaster John Henry Powell gathered young students from his Halifax Academy. On June 25, these old men and young boys helped defend the bridge from destruction by the Wilson-Kautz raiders. Hurt recalled that after Farinholt ordered several companies to cross the bridge and reinforce Col. Coleman, the boys and old men rendered valiant and faithful service, and that the little untrained boys and gray-headed farmers rose from partial safety and marched into extreme danger. As Hurt came from the mouth of the bridge on the north side at the head of his company, he was wounded by a bullet that struck his belt buckle and glanced into his side. After General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, the Federal VI Corps passed through Halifax on its way to occupy Danville. The ca. 1830 Halifax Academy on Academy Street later became a public school and is now privately owned. The county seat, called Banister Town during the war, became Houston in 1890, and after WWI changed its name to Halifax.