The Civil War first reached Van Buren County in 1861 when Confederates under James Randals began mining saltpeter at Big Bone Cave, and by 1863, 4,017 pounds of nitre essential to the manufacture of gunpowder had been produced. During Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg's Kentucky campaign in September 1862, 2nd Lt. Carrol H. Clark and Sgt. Darius Clark of the 16th Tennessee Infantry recorded marching all night and then reaching Cane Creek near its mouth in Van Buren County, where they camped at the Bija Crane Place after covering 20 miles. Later that month, Confederate Col. Joseph Wheeler reported a slight skirmish at the farm of Mrs. John Fleming, a widow, where the Spencer-to-Dunlap road crossed Harrison Road. Union occupation brought new challenges in November 1863, when a member of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry recounted a firefight with Confederate Capt. George Carter's partisans near Spencer and described how a guide, whose brother had been murdered by Carter, tried to burn Carter's house before Capt. Adam Kramer had the fire extinguished. In August 1864, Union commanders permitted Spencer's Burritt College to reopen for two sessions, then closed it and used the main building as barracks and the dormitories as stables.